Suggestion: General Reduction in alternative races

[JKJudgeX]

The changeling loses if he's able to git gud. If you can't deal with having to be surprised by going after a shell and finding out you can't actually absorb them, maybe you should practice antagging some more. As Skull said, target variability, there are usually 1-5 IPCs onboard at all times, of a crew of 25-40, with that, most IPC-Humans have a strange skin tone, usually very pale or pinkish. Tajaran IPCs tend to be darker, etc.. It's not hard to do some RESEARCH into your target before killing them.

EDIT: The point of this game is also not about winning or losing, it's about making a story, so your point is even more moot that my explanation above this made made it.

 

1) "Be more robust" is probably the worst answer. The target was not more robust because he submitted a whitelist application.

2) What makes you think I wasn't the target trying to defend myself?

3) I never claimed it was about winning or losing... but spending 40 minutes in the brig because of someone's whitelist-magic isn't very fun for anyone but the guy with the power... and, the rest of that round might just be extended now, which bores the rest of the whole playerbase.

4) You know what's not a good story? The Thing, where we make it so all of the people in the outpost are replaced with cyborgs, so when the alien attacks they are all just like "beep beep boop, no thanks, I don't have genes, lol." and they just kill the Thing and then watch them work their research terminals for 90 minutes until the credits roll.

Play Pac Man, in your special copy of pac-man, the red ghost, even though he turns blue when you eat a power pellet, still kills pac-man. Does this improve the quality of Pac-Man in some way? It makes it more difficult for pac-man. Now, turn the tables and you are now playing as the ghosts in Pac-Man. Is it more fun for you to be the ghost that can never be eaten by pac man? Does it make the game better if pac-man has to eat both a power pellet and a piece of fruit before he can specifically eat your special ghost?

Using the "RP, man!" shield to bat away all balance concerns isn't good for the game. Doesn't result in better or more RP, results in worse, and less RP.

[JKJudgeX]

I'll also point out that if your reply, (as most have been) is from the position that I'm requesting for IPCs and xenos to be removed from the game or nerfed to complete normalcy, that is NOT the suggestion, here. This is about the NUMBER of people playing the races causing a problem due to their special mechanics and considerations, NOT that there are special mechanics and considerations. Stop straw-manning my suggestion to REDUCE alternative races into "remove", "nerf" or "omg xenos are invincible and I hate them!!!!!!"... that's not what this is about at all.

[JKJudgeX]

And, I went ahead and asked on reddit how people feel about the issue in a very neutral way, just to see if some of the responses might include some of how I feel about the subject.

Here's the link to that:

Now, of course, these responses aren't couched completely in an HRP setting, and I realize that there will be some differences of opinion related to that, but I think it's important to at least acknowledge that I'm not coming out of the dark with this post. I'd like to highlight a couple of the replies that I felt align with some of what I'm saying in this thread...

1) "Alien races are a crutch for somebody to be unique. Many who pick to play as an alien do it to be unique, and they're not good enough at roleplaying to be unique as a person. Less of them or what's here now is fine."

2) "In an ideal world for me, Baycode would ditch Skrell, Unathi, Tajara, IPC and Vox, port the full-body prosthetics from Polaris, reimplement Vox as a much more thoroughly designed antagonist-only role focusing around their tech symbiosis, and if needed, add splicing or gene mods for the aesthetic aspects of catbeast and lizards that people play them for." - This is a bit harsh for my taste, but the idea of gene mods for the aesthetic aspects of certain races makes a little bit of sense for keeping it simple.

3) "Having a small selection to choose from is nice. There needs to be less, though. At least on Hippie we have 7 playable races since snowflake races were given to everyone and that's kind of insane. "

4) "Really don't care much about them. I like keeping some kind of borg around though."

5) "Less, please."

I tried not to include xenophobic, "omg teh furrehs" replies because that's not why good players would like to see less aliens. For me, it's about aesthetic (I just don't like everyone being a different strange alien - it's taste) and balance (I would *barely* care if those aliens were almost purely "skins" without mechanical advantages). I also don't think a lot of people who play the alien races, even whitelisted, really commit to the race once they have the whitelist, and they don't necessarily stick to the RP guidelines...

[Frances]

I just thought about the specific idea of population caps again. (And sorry, I know you don't like me posting on your threads, but I'm going to post anyway.)

Caps are good to enforce both balance and realism. There's caps on jobs, for example, to prevent ten people from joining sec in a round, and ensuring that a station gets a balanced population of diverse workers in general.

Since there's no "balance" as far as races are considered (races can be different but they shouldn't be more powerful than humans) the former shouldn't be an issue. As for the latter, you'll notice job caps still fail at preserving "realistic" job numbers most of the time. For example, you can often have rounds without any engineers, or without any scientists (on a science station, which is funny). There's gonna be rounds where half the station is in sec and rounds where the roster is full yet there's only a single sec officer.

I suspect the reason for this is that forcing people to do certain things they don't really want to do simply isn't fun. And that's not worth the hassle for the sake of a "slightly more believable environment" or whatever. Yes, caps could be added so say, you couldn't join as a second engineer until all of the other departments had at least one employee, but it just seems like it would be too restricting for players considering what little it brings.

The same could be said for caps on alien species.

[Vanagandr]

How will I RP as an oppressed hairless monkey if the station is actively prevented from having a crew composed of 90% catbeasts, liggers, squids, monitor-heads, bugs and :V?

I don't think it's really necessary; there aren't that many aliens most of the time, and when there is they're different types so it isn't just a huge Paradise-style mrowling fur pile.

[Guest]

Alternatively we just hold alien whitelist holders under the same scrutiny that we've always held them to and make complaints when they RP as self-insert furries or over-the-top lorebreaking ayylmaos, etc.

In fact, I've seen very few player complaints about Taj/Unathi/whatever lately. If you guys think a problem persists, why not complain about it?

One thing I really hate about threads like these is that they never transparently state what kind of solution they have to 'problems' that they have, and even if they do, they never seem to explain what issues they're trying to tackle and deal with.

[Frances]

One thing I really hate about threads like these is that they never transparently state what kind of solution they have to 'problems' that they have, and even if they do, they never seem to explain what issues they're trying to tackle and deal with.

Except this thread literally does that.

>clearly states qualifiable problem: Alien races are OP and allow people to metagame, while providing low quality, "crutch" roleplay.

>clearly gives defined solution: Limit the number of new alien whitelistees and implement measures to diminish/control the number of aliens on-station.

Granted I think it's an inefficient suggestion to a non-existing problem, but you can't reproach the OP of being vague, at the very least.

Do you actually read threads before posting in them?

[Skull132]

And, I went ahead and asked on reddit how people feel about the issue in a very neutral way, just to see if some of the responses might include some of how I feel about the subject.

Here's the link to that:

 

You didn't get the answer you were looking for here, so you went looking elsewhere and tried bringing it here? Check and tracking.

 

For me, it's about aesthetic (I just don't like everyone being a different strange alien - it's taste) [...]

 

Okay. But the community, and the administration, has made the choice to go counter to your personal taste. And we will probably keep to our choice until otherwise necessary, you are free to keep to yours.

 

[...] and balance (I would *barely* care if those aliens were almost purely "skins" without mechanical advantages).

 

Once again, decision from administration and majority of the community: we prefer mechanically different species. Also, from what I've seen, your idea of balance revolves around symmetric balance. Which is fine, but recognize that SS13 is almost always centered around asymmetric balance. Our design in races reflects this.

 

I also don't think a lot of people who play the alien races, even whitelisted, really commit to the race once they have the whitelist, and they don't necessarily stick to the RP guidelines...

 

True and false, depending on who you meet. Though, this is not really relevant to the topic. I would suggest making a player complaint if someone is really stupid about the lore, though.

This sums up my view on the topic:

Granted I think it's an inefficient suggestion to a non-existing problem...

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(an old IPC related thread I was in was talking about reducing the brute damage mitigation of IPCs, and possibly making them vulnerable to a few other things... not sure how far that went, but the discussion was alive with admins who seemed to acknowledge that balance was important... so I take that as good faith)

 

Oh, and that admin is me. Balance is important, yes. But what kind of balance? I can assure you, having read what you have typed, our views are not matching, and yet you expect them to be. I'm of mind to actually revert the IPC changes, minus the additional organs, for reasons I'll probably explain before doing so. When I'm not being lazy, that is.

[JKJudgeX]

And, I went ahead and asked on reddit how people feel about the issue in a very neutral way, just to see if some of the responses might include some of how I feel about the subject.

Here's the link to that:

 

You didn't get the answer you were looking for here, so you went looking elsewhere and tried bringing it here? Check and tracking.

 

For me, it's about aesthetic (I just don't like everyone being a different strange alien - it's taste) [...]

 

Okay. But the community, and the administration, has made the choice to go counter to your personal taste. And we will probably keep to our choice until otherwise necessary, you are free to keep to yours.

 

[...] and balance (I would *barely* care if those aliens were almost purely "skins" without mechanical advantages).

 

Once again, decision from administration and majority of the community: we prefer mechanically different species. Also, from what I've seen, your idea of balance revolves around symmetric balance. Which is fine, but recognize that SS13 is almost always centered around asymmetric balance. Our design in races reflects this.

 

I also don't think a lot of people who play the alien races, even whitelisted, really commit to the race once they have the whitelist, and they don't necessarily stick to the RP guidelines...

 

True and false, depending on who you meet. Though, this is not really relevant to the topic. I would suggest making a player complaint if someone is really stupid about the lore, though.

This sums up my view on the topic:

Granted I think it's an inefficient suggestion to a non-existing problem...

---

---

(an old IPC related thread I was in was talking about reducing the brute damage mitigation of IPCs, and possibly making them vulnerable to a few other things... not sure how far that went, but the discussion was alive with admins who seemed to acknowledge that balance was important... so I take that as good faith)

 

Oh, and that admin is me. Balance is important, yes. But what kind of balance? I can assure you, having read what you have typed, our views are not matching, and yet you demand and expect them to be. I'm of mind to actually revert the IPC changes, minus the additional organs, for reasons I'll probably explain before doing so. When I'm not being lazy, that is.

 

1) I don't *only* play on Aurora. I went to reddit to find out what the general opinion of SS13 players are. I also have my own server and I intend to fit the specifications of my server to match the responses. I linked it here because it was relevant to this discussion.

2) I didn't demand or expect anything. I made a suggestion on the "suggestions" forum. Wanna change it to the "demands and expectations" forum?

Also from another reddit thread:

"Putting both a cap and a white list on it would ensure the levels of shit slinging from both sides decrease dramatically.

With all this xenos outnumbering humans on various stations, I'm about as fed up as a fat man on an airplane."

I'm just putting the Reddit responses here because I want to demonstrate that I'm not coming out of left field with this or attacking anyone... showing that this is a preference that many players have who may not be vocal about it.

I really enjoy Aurora, it's probably my favorite server overall. Nothing about rejecting my suggestion or telling me "no" is going to make me suddenly dislike the server or anything. It was just a suggestion I thought I'd voice to see if there was any interest in moving the server to a less fantasy-alien feel. If that's not what people are into, that's cool. I had some extra time the last couple of days and thought i'd fish around. There ARE players who agree with me, both in this thread in part at least, elsewhere, and on the server. They probably aren't the majority on Aurora, so, I'm cool with that. No harm.

Edited January 7, 2016 by Guest

[Guest]

>clearly states qualifiable problem: Alien races are OP and allow people to metagame, while providing low quality, "crutch" roleplay.

 

[citation needed]

 

>clearly gives defined solution: Limit the number of new alien whitelistees and implement measures to diminish/control the number of aliens on-station.

 

There have been no discussed precedents to suggest that this is a reasonable solution.

 

Granted I think it's an inefficient suggestion to a non-existing problem, but you can't reproach the OP of being vague, at the very least.

 

It's pretty vague, considering that any examples that actually have been given seem to be quite vapid.

[Skull132]

Well, I did edit my post to remove the demand bit in-between you starting and finishing your reply. (You still expect everyone to have the same view on these issues -- that much is clear from reading your posts :l )

I'll just stop myself before I start deconstructing the mode of argumentation, instead of the arguments themselves, and the forum mods have to forum ban me for going off-topic.

This topic has been running for about 3 days now, and has not yet produced anything meaningful that is applicable here at present. At least, not without a 180 degree turn in major approach to gameplay. So, bleh.

[JKJudgeX]

>clearly states qualifiable problem: Alien races are OP and allow people to metagame, while providing low quality, "crutch" roleplay.

 

[citation needed]

 

>clearly gives defined solution: Limit the number of new alien whitelistees and implement measures to diminish/control the number of aliens on-station.

 

There have been no discussed precedents to suggest that this is a reasonable solution.

 

Granted I think it's an inefficient suggestion to a non-existing problem, but you can't reproach the OP of being vague, at the very least.

 

It's pretty vague, considering that any examples that actually have been given seem to be quite vapid.

 

1) Citations were given, both relating to this server and from other SS13 servers via reddit and anecdotes.

2) The precedents were discussed and examples given of some solutions other servers have considered and tried. The reddit thread above also contains some reasonable solutions that were tried, implemented, or suggested.

Disagreeing is cool, but trying to pretend that the suggestion is illogical or completely out of place is low-minded.

Frances is off my shit-list now for addressing you logically on my behalf, so, at least something good came of the thread.

[JKJudgeX]

Well, I did edit my post to remove the demand bit in-between you starting and finishing your reply. (You still expect everyone to have the same view on these issues -- that much is clear from reading your posts :l )

I'll just stop myself before I start deconstructing the mode of argumentation, instead of the arguments themselves, and the forum mods have to forum ban me for going off-topic.

This topic has been running for about 3 days now, and has not yet produced anything meaningful that is applicable here at present. At least, not without a 180 degree turn in major approach to gameplay. So, bleh.

 

Not asking for 180 degrees of anything. Asking for minor changes to "generally reduce" alternative races... not cripplingly nerf, not remove, not ban, not delete lore.

I don't expect everyone to have the same view on the issues, if they did, the issue wouldn't exist, and I sure wouldn't have made a reddit thread, I'd have just assumed I could write all of the replies myself.

Please don't be upset with me for making a suggestion.

[Gollee]

Gonna come in from left field here. I hold two alien whitelists; and I've played for a long time across several servers.

The issues I see with aliens on station do not originate from the races and their abilities themselves, they come from a minority of the players who abuse them, or project themselves as the character in poor ways; much like with a human character, except, it's more noticeable if a Tajara is bad, as they are harder to get hold of; this is an issue that needs to be dealt with against players, not mechanics.

I also get the impression that as a fellow server owner yourself, you are trying to push your ideals on a different community, whether intentionally or not, as your personal community on your server supports it; while this one evidently, as shown by Skull and 1138, does not.

[Skull132]

I'm not even upset, I just find this amusing.

Anyways. The changes proposed are not minor, and concern staff philosophy on accepting whitelists (adding a very arbitrary limit to them). Beyond that, they concern the activation of the species per human quota mechanic (it actually already exists ingame), which concerns general server philosophy. Neither is a minor change.

[JKJudgeX]

Gonna come in from left field here. I hold two alien whitelists; and I've played for a long time across several servers.

The issues I see with aliens on station do not originate from the races and their abilities themselves, they come from a minority of the players who abuse them, or project themselves as the character in poor ways; much like with a human character, except, it's more noticeable if a Tajara is bad, as they are harder to get hold of; this is an issue that needs to be dealt with against players, not mechanics.

I also get the impression that as a fellow server owner yourself, you are trying to push your ideals on a different community, whether intentionally or not, as your personal community on your server supports it; while this one evidently, as shown by Skull and 1138, does not.

 

The community of my server is me and the other developer... so... no.

Are you proposing that someone who runs another (unlisted, unpopulated) server is not welcome to offer suggestions for Aurora? Even if they've played here for over 2 years. That's kinda crappy.