Lower the secret weighting of Malfunction mode

[Nanako]

I would like to recommend lowering the weighting of malfunction mode in the secret rotation, to make it less likely to be picked. Not sure of an exact value, but i'd say at least down to half what it currently is. Weighings don't need to be integer values.

My reasonings:

1. There are other ways to malfunction.

Aside from the malf AI mode, the AI can also be chosen as a traitor in traitor/autotraitor mode, which has the same basic effect - removal of laws. In addition, the AI can be subverted by anyone in any gamemode, and it very often is.

The net result of this, is that OOCly we have a general picture of AI being unreliable. It's malfunctioning almost as much as its working, through any of the above methods. This means that when a malf AI rolls around people are subtly like 'oh gee, the AI is malfunctioning again, who could have seen that coming'. This often spills out into LOOC and results in bwoinking by staff

put simply, a broken AI is just too common, and it has long since lost its specialness. IT needs to be rarer

2. Malf AI mode is less dynamic

The thing about most other gamemodes, is that they are mutated and varied by the selection of antagonists. A traitor cargo tech is likely to do things very differently from a traitor doctor or engineer. A vampire doctor can eat medical's bloodpacks whereas a security vampire is more likely to take prisoners, and has the means to do so. This dynamic factor is one of the things that keeps gameplay fresh, and IMO is the reason for the popularity of such modes. Even modes like merc and raider, which lack jobs, are at least differentiated by where on the station they choose to attack, the species' of the mercenaries, and the equipment they take along

Malfunction by contrast always selects the same role as the antagonist. And they are always in the same place. The tactics to deal with them were devised long ago and still apply. Their location is always in the same configuration, they cannot be any different job or species to mutate the gamemode even slightly. Every malf AI starts out on the same footing, which often lends itself to similar tactics.

3. Malfunction mode is just not as good.

This point is very subjective, not everyone will agree.

Since i joined the dev team a few months ago, i don't recall anyone working on the malfunction mode.

It has somewhat barebones content, a lot of glaring issues which make it easy to metagame, and it lacks mechanics that reward nonviolent play or roleplaying

This is our failure as developers, i know we can and should do better. But right now we have other projects, and i don't believe anyone in the team is or plans to be working on malfunction mode. Perhaps in the future we'll fix it up nicely, but for now, as an intermediary measure, i'd like to reduce it.

My proposal then is simple. Whatever malfunction mode's current random weight is (i believe its 2) reduce it to 40% of that value, 0,8

This will make malfunctioning AIs a bit rarer, and thusly more special when they do come. I t won't make them a lot rarer because of the aforementioned other methods of malfunctioning, but it's a step in the right direction

[VileFault]

In my opinion, Malf needs a serious rework to make it more variable (all it would take would be adding and subtracting more varied laws at variable times), but that is the topic for another suggestion.

As an RD, I fully support this. Every single Malf round, I am expected to convince the crew that something is really wrong and spearhead the fight. Yet every single round, I have to work past the "none of these have ever malfunctioned before, you are crazy, nothing is wrong, just a little bug" thing. That is fine, right, and I don't blame anyone. That is the lore. But it is incredibly tedious to explain some supposedly groundbreaking event three rounds in a row. No joke.

I honestly thing that making most rounds traitors and revs and increasing the rarity of wizard and ninja would do a lot to make those rounds more interesting and less pedestrian. It is easy to deal with corporate espionage. Well fun, it isn't spectacular. Neither is employee unrest. It is not too hard to imagine these things happening, so we don't have to feign some new and crazy discovery round after round after round. Then, when we do get a really wacky or "undiscovered" antagonist (like changelings, the light of my life), we can actually be somewhat impressed and surprised OOC, which makes RP more interesting and genuine. This suggestion would be a good start in this direction.

Edited October 11, 2016 by Guest

[Mofo1995]

Hello, yes, I'm 100% fully in support of this. Especially when we first made the code change back in February, it felt like every single round the AI was broken in some way. Either through malfunction or traitor AI. It feels like malfAI happens every single day, while other game modes like changeling, vampire, ninja, and wizard seem comparatively rare, and I only see them once a week if I'm lucky.

The gamemode is rough and needs some work overall, but reasons why Mofo1995 absolutely hates AI Malfunction game mode (but only when he's playing heads of staff and especially RD and especially Skrell RD) is irrelevant to this thread, except in order to identify that I have the ulterior motive of not wanting to be subjected to it at the frequency with which I am.

So:

1. It seems like this gamemode is WAAAAYYYY more frequent than it's contemporaries with the exceptions of traitor and autotraitor. All the other game modes in the secret rotation feel rare in comparison to these three.

2. I personally don't like the gamemode.

[Nikov]

Malf is only good if you don't know the tells. After it becomes apparent you have a stealth AI nobody can stop before the phoron gets pumped and the nuke armed, heads of staff go for cryo. It is almost as if malf AI's metagame the fact there are metagaming punishments for noticing blue APCs... the result is they just flaunt them at you. Six or seven bluescreened APCs in the hallway? Well, better not say anything, I'll get bwoinked. When fear of punishment for acting on clues the antag is shoving in your face is severe enough players go to cryo, we've got a broken game mode.

I'm all for malf AI falling so far down the list we consider it unlikely a fried APC isn't a ninja or an EMP. Malf needs a serious overhaul the way Vampire got improved. I'd like to endure the pain of Malf rounds as little as possible until that can be done.

[Shadow]

For reference:

 

EDIT: After some talking with the administration we have decided to lower the possibility of malf during secret from 2 to 1 for a while, not forever.

[HunterRS]

I say malf is fine, but drop the possibility of the AI being traitor on traitors and autotraitor rounds. As a AI played I was once picked malf AI when my AI was set to Medium, and I was like I really don't want to be AI but it's malf so I have to go with it. Whenever I am malf I try to pull a gimmick instead of trying to blow up the station.

[sonicgotnuked]

I say malf is fine, but drop the possibility of the AI being traitor on traitors and autotraitor rounds. As a AI played I was once picked malf AI when my AI was set to Medium, and I was like I really don't want to be AI but it's malf so I have to go with it. Whenever I am malf I try to pull a gimmick instead of trying to blow up the station.

Mall does not go off your preferred roles list, it goes off of if you have It set to yes or no

[HunterRS]

Mall does not go off your preferred roles list, it goes off of if you have It set to yes or no

 

I know that, I am just saying that it grabbed before and no one had malf AI an AI set to above medium, I'm just saying that the chance of malf is fine for a malf round, but adding autotraitor and traitor on top of it, it just makes it like malf AI is every single round.