[1 Dismissal] Remove progression from All antag types

[Bygonehero]

Progression is not something this game is designed for. It is designed for roleplaying by simulating a workplace. Why then do we gate abilities, any abilities at all behind a progression line? Let me be clear, I am not talking about removing limits to power totals, as in the case of wizards and their spell slots. No, what I am talking about is the clear progression of abilities from low power, to high power. It makes little sense to force an antag to achieve an arbitrary goal to simply gain new abilities when it's those very abilities that assist the antag in facilitating roleplay. This is why cult research was removed, progression simply doesn't make sense. Its time now to do the same to all other antag types with progression.

[Zundy]

What's the pros and cons?

[Saudus]

The antags in question are vamps and changelings then? Since all others have a set number of resources to spend on gear/abilities from the start?

I.e. they would either start with all unlocked or have a set amount of points to choose abilities with?

[ben10083]

What about malf AI? For antags like them it makes sense for progression, as they are suppose to be a hidden antag until they gain enough power for their big reveal.

[kyres1]

For good players, this would be amazing. Though, time and time again it's proven that good players rarely play antagonist. We simply don't have a high enough standard of antagonist RP anymore to allow lings to horror form whenever they want or vampires to use dominate immediately. Rounds would be filled with vampires using dominate at the 5 minute mark to order people to kill their coworkers. Lings would most likely be just as horrible as they are now, except this way they're unstoppable and horror form immediately upon capture.

The benefits are obvious. Escalation is left to the hands of the player rather than some arbitrary kill number for lings, or a ludicrously high blood count for vamps.

In my opinion, it's a good idea that deserves a trial run, maybe. People have been yelling about a ling rework forever and this seems like a simple enough solution to that, without huge code changes.

[Scheveningen]

The progression system stops most antagonists that are particularly potent in that fashion from immediately decimating a round. They need to consolidate their power, pick their choices carefully and avoid taking very stupid risks. They need to plan out their course of action in order to get stronger. Some progression-based antagonists are better at this than others. Changeling is a weak example because the antagonist type hasn't been fundamentally touched for a long time due to its flawed design and a general unwillingness from the dev team to address and make sweeping changes to make it any better than it currently is.

Antags need to be able to snowball in order to grow more of a potent threat in the round. The more mortal antagonist types have their power gated by what they can carry, use, weaponize and strategize. This snowball effect leads to very interesting gameplay and roleplay as a result of it. If every antagonist was absurdly powerful at the start of the round, there'd be no point to fighting them. You'd guarantee a win as an antagonist, or guarantee dying if you went up against one.

The cult's progression system is now currently based on how many members it is able to convert. It's not able to cast half of the runes without more than one person, and ultimately not able to close the round the antagonist way without a lot more people.

The word research was awful only because of the RNG component that made it a chore to build up. I still think we should've ported Baystation's cult progression system, as it gates the available runes to inscribe by how much the station is corrupted.

[Saudus]

Maybe give the lings and vamps a starting pool of points with the ability to gain more via their specific actions?

You keep their ability to snowball but makes them more a bit more interesting from round start?

[Scheveningen]

Lings need proper disabling tools. Vampires already have them and the only systemic problem with vampires at the moment are the people who pilot the role very, very poorly.

[BurgerBB]

I would be up for removing progression if there was at least some handle on shit-tier antags.

[Faris]

I cannot support this. While yes it can be a very good tool to people we can trust to use responsibly; yet at the moment anyone passing the minimum server time can be an antagonist, which I imagine would make a new malf/Vampire/ling unbearable to deal with.

With our current stance on antagonists, I cannot reasonably support this. I'm going for dismissal but do suggest this is brought up if anything major changes regarding the policy of antagonists.

Voting for dismissal.

[LordFowl]

As this is a policy suggestion more than anything else, I am moving it to that subforum.

[Alberyk]

I am against this, some antags do require this progression to create interesting things, besides it adds an element of challenge, and allows for more powerful powers to exist, such as horror form.

Voting for dimissal.