[Dismissed] Antag whitelist for special antags

As far as whitelist systems go, consider that the lower the throughput, the more effective they are. Mod apps -- lowest throughput, most time per applicant, best consistency. Species apps, average throughput with average time per applicant, not too many complaints normally. Command whitelist applications, possibly the highest throughput, also the most complaints. I would personally say that the command whitelist and species applications are the highest throughput whitelist systems we should allow, with anything beyond that being impractical in not serving its purpose. It will literally just end up with everyone who knows how to eloquently phrase themselves getting it. And then the status quo not really changing, because this is not how you filter for this kinda stuff.

 

And that's why we need this system. Antag whitelist applications will have a lot of feedback.

[snip]

With a antagonist whitelist it will allow people to give and take feedback when it comes to previous antagonist encounters so that antagonists and hopefully prevent antags from being bad in the future.

Completely marginal returns when you consider the amount of effort that would be required for actually maintaining the system and reviewing the feedback. Again, the system could not be effectively maintained due to the amount of material the maintainers would have to go through regularly. This will either result in it being too slow, or with people getting approved too fast.

It has to be automated in some fashion. And even better, if integrated into the game and immediately there, as opposed to on the forums.

Another idea that was rolled around, by Arrow, was antag tokens. Specifically, say you're allotted n tokens for the week. Playing antag uses a token. At the end of each round, there's a vote. If people liked what you did and how you did it, you'd get the token back, allowing you to play antag more. It would create a positive feedback loop, hopefully, for good antag play. While not completely nuking the ability to play of the not-so-good ones.

I see this almost as much as a way to protect new players from our community as anything else.

Antags like ninja, wizard and malf are a bit complicated and are central to a round they are in. Mercs being total idiots in terms of team play feels a bit off brand for them but they at least have backup and usually one or two experienced players to help guide them.

This can easily be accomplished with a more robust play time counter.

Also, if you've gotten whitelisted for command or a species then as far as I think you've already shown enough RP skill (even if it is a very different kind). I get that we don't want more whitelists and the extra work really, and this ought to save hell of a lot of time. Is it mechanically possible for say Wizard+Ninja+Malf being locked but unlockable via either a special antag whitelist AND/OR a species/command whitelist? The antag whitelist really doesn't have to be very complicated either. I consider the actual time played counter to be just as good as the low complexity whitelist as we'd use for this otherwise.

Once again. To be clear. A manual whitelist would only waste time by virtue of it being ineffective. Antags are regular enough to the point where automation of their whitelisting will yield more effective results.

First, antag counters sound cool. Can definitely imagine issues with it (such as "antag didn't involve me, downvote", metagrudging and such) but there will always be such and think/hope it wouldn't be more than the positives. It's a positive system where people give you positive votes so you get it back, has a negative system been discussed where enough ppl voting down means you don't get it back?

This can easily be accomplished with a more robust play time counter.

(snip)

Once again. To be clear. A manual whitelist would only waste time by virtue of it being ineffective. Antags are regular enough to the point where automation of their whitelisting will yield more effective results.

I understand and agree that a manual one seems woefully inefficient, especially if of any real complexity. But really the robust playtime counter seems just as good and effective, maybe even more so, as a lax whitelist to the point where it basically is an automated whitelist? It might be incorrect terminology but I sort of consider such a system a whitelist.

In terms of the whitelist, after a discussion with the team on the staff forums, here and our discord, we will be binning this suggestion as is. The logistics required for such a system aren't simple to maintain for what is seen as minimal reward.

In saying that, some mechanical changes in regards to how antagonists are is a topic presently touched on by staff.

Dismissing this per team consensus.