Secret Game Mode weighting adjustment suggestions

[Scheveningen]

There are some game modes that really should be rolled way less often than others. I'll go down the list.

Extended - Should remain the same weight chance. Extended is one of those game modes that should be very infrequent when you vote for secret, since you intend to be surprised with a random antagonist type.

Autotraitor/Traitor - The latter is merged into the first one, but essentially this is the perfect game mode. Antagonists are steadily introduced into the round to constantly give people a chance to do some damage and also keep security not absolutely bored for the first two hours. Especially the two most underappreciated roles, the detective and the forensic technician. These two arguably become absolutely worthless on some game modes. Everyone has a chance to be affected by a traitor and this game mode never disappoints in keeping a round interesting and engaging. The weight should be increased so that this is the most common game mode. Traitor gear is awesome because you can pick whatever gear you want for your gimmick and it permits you do as you wish.

Mercenary/Heist - These are team-type antagonist game modes that are introduced outside of crew influence. The former is composed of professional elite operatives and the latter is composed of amateur raiders. Depending on who are the antagonists the game mode can be alright provided the teams recognize they need to constantly be engaging the crew and not having immense amounts of downtime trying to recover their own people in impossible situations. However, both round types aren't always fun for anyone. Lower both in probability one level but keep both of their weights consistent with one another.

Revolution - I have no idea if revolution is even in the secret rotation. We have not had revolution since the 12th of March. Either its weight needs to be increased to be third to auto-traitor or it needs to be added to the rotation. Rev is a good game mode, though. Greatly underappreciated and a lot of people are too afraid to start conflict as a rev. People need to be braver.

Cult - Another crew-based team-antag type. It's pretty fun but it is way harder to get set-up without someone who spends 30-40 minutes of their time researching all of the words and not actively roleplaying in that time. After that it can be a steamroll once conversion cheese happens. It's alright but it's also too common for its own good. Weigh it behind revolution.

Wizard/Ninja/Changeling - These should all be weighted behind auto-traitor as the most common game mode. All of these are infrequent but they are singular high-engagement antagonists. Ling is a bit of a stretch but it got buffed recently with the old features that can make it an antagonist to reckon with on par with the others.

AI Malfunction - Weigh this to the back. This is arguably the least fun and the most time-intensive game mode I've ever seen and it is the sole reason the new rule about recalling the shuttle exists. This is the worst game mode assorted among all of the others because of how poorly designed and "balanced" it is.

And by poorly balanced, I actually mean that the malfunctioning AI themselves have all of the odds against them to do anything right because there are so many obvious tells from the very beginning that indicate what the antagonist type is. The fact the AI needs to combat engineers taking apart APCs to unhack them and set back the AI's income is really a waste of time.

The game mode as a whole, when malf is in play, is a giant waste of time due to there being only two real playstyles: Efficiently murderbone threats to your existence with sabotaging APCs for gigantic max-cap-tier explosions or try to do stealth malf and fail miserably because you just wasted 2 hours hacking APCs for nothing. Even traitor AI is better than this shit because it means other antagonists also exist to make the round fun rather than solely place all of the responsibility as the round antagonist upon you to make the round interesting. It's a bad game mode and there are many things that could make it better than it is, but it's otherwise completely broken.

In order from how common the GMs should be to least common, with slashes before comma separation to indicate equal weighting: Autotraitor, Wizard/Ninja/Changeling, Revolution, Cult, Mercenary/Heist, AI Malfunction, Extended.

[Snoopy11]

Agree for the most part, but I'd prefer to see ninja reduced. Not generally the most fun of antags, possibly some have fun, however my overall impression of the antag type hasn't been overall great and less than stellar.

However have had good experiences with Ling, and with our new wizard they both can bring interesting action to the station, where as the ninja is near constantly a teleport to station, teleporter around fuckery type of deal; unless admins intervene and add more ninjas to the round which has often lead to very interesting rounds.

[Shadow]

Before change:

 

 

Now:

 

 

tl;dr:

Ninja decreased by one.

Rev increased by one.

[Superiorform]

Not much to add here, but I agree completely with everything that has been said. The defacto should be traitor, then a bit of ninja/wiz/ling/vampire to spice it up, then merc/raider for, hopefully, a "holy shit its mercs", then the occasional cult, because it can be fun, but gets boring fast, then the calm extended. In my opinion, malf should be removed. I have seen one or two fun malf rounds, but mostly, it's bad. That's my take on it. I hope these changes are implemented.

[Synnono]

Skull's said in the past that wazwooz/ninja/malfAI/ling show up more often due to their mechanical viability during lowpop rounds compared to other modes. Are we seeing too much of these during primetime? I feel like many of them are actually pretty rare when we're above 30+ players.

Also yes, Rev is definitely in the secret rotation. It's also arguably harder to set up one than cult, and fewer people seem to like it, from what I can tell.

[JKJudgeX]

This was a great post and suggestion. I agree with it almost 100%.

I would put changeling/vampire etc above malf and ninja and wizard though.

I am not a fan of single antagonist round-types as they are far too dependent on one player, who could disconnect, be incompetent, not really care about other's enjoyment, etc. I've always thought wizard could be fun if there were 3 wizards by default, assuming a crew population over 25 or so, but, as it stands, I wouldn't mind seeing ninja, malf, and wizard dead last.

I love revolution rounds, and would like to see them, far, far more than the single antag types, and even more than cult. Thinking in terms of what made me end up becoming an SS13 fanatic, it was playing Revolution and Traitor rounds as non-antag and then as antag. Many of the other roundtypes I feel push people out/away from boredom or early elimination with no chance of participation.

Malf is interesting but the AI gets subverted enough during other modes that it seems superfluous.

Anyway, again, great post and I agree completely with what you said about Malf.

[LordFowl]

Enacted by Shadow. Marking as complete.