Rev round, its problems, and possible solutions.

So this is my first post on the forum, many of you know me through the game as Alex Toner, and usually being an Antag, and filling OOC with salt, whether it be mine or other peoples.

And for the most part of it, antag is pretty fun and balanced.

However, rev round is so fucking broken, its ridiculous. Revs have no chance of "Winning" (Yes I know theirs no definitive Revs win message and fireworks shoot out of everyone's asses, but when revs have captain hostage and most of the people converted and general control over the station, I consider that winning)

So, what is wrong with rev? It seems fair, revs just need to play smart.

One word: Loyalists.

Yes my friends, loyalists are the problem, they have every advantage over the revolution in every situation, and they generally just fuck the game.

They were probably originally created to help with old codes problem with revs being so fucking ridiculous and pretty much having enough people to roflstomp anyone who wasn't rev.

The premise of loyalists is that they're loyal to NT... Which I assume you are by default, considering they're your employer.

Now this can be interesting because the loyalist faction hates revs and vice versa, leading to some interesting fighting and for the people who have not chosen a side to be caught in between this conflict, leading to some interesting rp, so everything about loyalist seems good, right?

But here's the problem: Loyalists are TOO good.

Here's a list of things wrong/Advantgaes of Loyalists.

-Easier recruiting then revs, no reason not to join, unless you have some form of backstory to say you hate NT, or just generally hate them.

-Pretty much every head of department is a loyalist

-No punishment for failing to recruit some one

-Access to much more the stations supplies, (however this is a direct result of the other ones simply because everyone is a loyalist)

-Station by default is in favour of the loyalists.

-Revs don't have a reason to be revs.

Lets go through the problems:

Easier recruiting/No reason not to join: This stems off the loyalist recruitment method of: Why not join? There is no disadvantages if you become loyal to your employer, maybe you'll get promoted, or a raise, there really is no reason not to join, unless the aforementioned you have some form of backstory or reason to just fucking say FUCK YOU NT! It also makes sure you get protection from fellow loyalists. Only benefits and no down sides (other then sucking an evil companies dick, however the evil shit NT does, isn't known to people, so who gives a shit?) So why join a shitty group that could get you killed if they found out you were in it, with no benefits, or be loyal to NT and get a lot of benefits

Solutions: I'm actually quite stumped on how to fix this, most people seem fine to trade away there freedom to be loyal to NT, adding some form of discouragement to Loyalist recruiting, like indentured servitude, failure to comply to every order is death, something extreme that NT would pull off.

Every head of department is a loyalist: To my knowledge, you can't convert loyalists, nor can you convert heads of staff, nor loyalty implanted people (I could be wrong) So if you can't convert them to Rev, they have two options, just Loyalist (bonuses) or remain neutral (no bonuses) And most just decide off to Loyalist. A lot of the time the first loyalists tend to be heads of department, and sometimes even the captain, and whose going to fucking deny the captain if he asks you to join the loyalists and you tell him to go fuck himself by a rusty hook kindly depart. The captain can pretty much just have you arrested for some vague reason, like denying duty or sedition, (if hes an asshole). But then the heads just convert the whole department and the revs are fucked! They can't convert heads just get fucked.

Solution: Make heads and shit convertible ._. Possibly make them rev leaders.

No punishment to failing to recruit some one: This is more of a rev problem, but its another advantage that Loyalists have over Rev. So let me sum it up like this: A rev and a loyalist attempt to convert Uristmcneutral. The loyalist fails to convert him, maybe the loyalist said something that Urist doesn't like, maybe Urist doesn't like how Loyalists smell, whatever. So life moves on and theirs no repercussions, you can't be arrested for trying to make people like NT more, its not against the space laws. Now, lets run this situation with Rev. Maybe Urist doesn't like the danger of being a rev, or the legality of it, whatever, fuck Urist, but Urist is a piece of tresh, and calls security on Rev for trying to incite a rebellion. Rev is in jail.

Run the situation again but Urist belongs to the opposing faction. Loyalist fails to convert him because hes loyal to the rebellion, now he could've figured out Urist was somehow a rev, and that's Urist in jail, or he didn't and just avoided giving it away, no repercussions, other than rev knows hes a loyalist, but how fucking useful is that, right? Not very, other then maybe them getting dragged into maint and disappearing (very unlikely) plus, most loyalists are pretty open about being gay a loyalist. Now Rev tries to convert a loyalist, he could somehow find out that hes a loyalist during a conversation, or the loyalist fails to give him that information, but now Urist mc loyalist knows that rev is a rev, so Rev is dead or in jail for sedition. (FUCK Sedition man)

So it off puts revs and loyalists usually just fucking right click r u loyal right click r u loyal on everything that fucking moves.

Solution: Also not so sure on how to really fix this, it makes sense that these are the ways it works, but it doesn't work well, and this is usually what ends up making the revs have 3 people and loyalists have 10 at the end of the round. Really need help with thinking of a solution for this

Access to more supplies: Come on guys, really. Fuck. You removed uplinks? Well fuck me sideways. So loyalists usually have access to more supplies via the armoury and other things. because they convert so easily, and this is more of a being able to recruit everyone problem, however, why remove Uplinks? They were useful, they let revs who had nothing but there departments shit (gonna go robust some people with that mop there janitor) get a gun and have a fighting chance if they get caught.

Solution: Add rev uplinks, BUT: Add some cool gadgets specific to revs, how about a one time use flash that instantly converts some one, (who isn't loyal to NT, which would give some form of positive reinforcement to figuring who is Loyalist and not, making that information NOT, FUCKING, USELESS.)

Station by default is in favor of loyalists: Yeah, its true, there's now laws about converting people to help the station but there's laws against converting people to help take over the station, sec by default sides with loyalists, and are usually always converted to loyalists, which sucks because to convert a sec its a high risk, high reward, but for a loyalist to convert its no risk, high reward. So whole sec team gets converted to loyalists, and even if they don't they still are against revs.

Solution: This is just a problem with having a faction that is NT supported, they support NT, they get all the help from NT, revs get no help whatsoever. Maybe a detective will be a rev, but one detective who can't make a move without being labelled as rogue and Shoot on Sight is pretty fucking ass.

Revs don't have reasons to be revs: Okay so this is gonna be really controversial, because the general accepted thing is to make them up yourself. This might just be failure on my part as a rev to try to convert properly, but I don't really have much power to convert people, (Toner has a backstory which gives him reason) Like you could say NT is gonna planet carve a planet that doesn't want to join them, and kill everyone on the planet. Where is your evidence of this? Do you have anything to back it up? Do people give a shit? There's too many if and's or but's. Loyalist got all the power they need: Join for benefits. No morale cause, which is sorta what rev needs but has no evidence or push to actually showcase this.

Solution: Don't do the shitty bars closed, that was retarded, a revolution started because the bar was closed, that's fucking dumb, but why not have like at the beginning of a round documents somehow leak to the public of operation Zeta-Cannon, a planet carving operation, or that NT is using the stations research to create weapons to help them conquer planets with alien life on it and generally be a dickhead power hungry company.

Tl;dr Rev was nerfed too hard, loyalist is a great idea, can add some great game play, but they are 2 stronk, and rev got fucked pretty hard with shit like uplink being removed.

Have you ever seen a rev round on new code where there was more then 5 revs and less then 10 loyalists? Probably not.

And to players who say rev need to just be smart, and they never play there cards right and they just need to get organised *Cough*Alberyk*Cough*

These are the reasons why rev round is so fucked, and my ideas to fix them, any criticism, ideas, suggestions, completely fucking welcomed, what do you guys think about rev?

And to players who say rev need to just be smart, and they never play there cards right and they just need to get organised *Cough*Alberyk*Cough*

never improve, just complain enough times on the forums to nerf everyone else so that your powergaming experience is easier :^)

No. No one is expected to 'get away' with massmurdering the station. You will lose more potential following by being a confrontational powergaming antagonist that brings little interest to their side of the conflict embroiling on the station. You must give the crew a legitimate reason to revolt either peaceably or not so peaceably. You must roleplay in order to pique other player's interests. You need to be interesting, you have to have some level of depth and intrigue to your plan otherwise nobody is gonna give you the time of day. Your duty as an antagonist is to stir trouble, but as a rev you actually need to understand how to manipulate and get people on your side.

Stop being afraid of getting caught. Be bold. Roleplay does not end when you get brigged. Rev has never been nerfed, it's just that the antag meta here is focused around players fearing brigging as if they're going to get executed.

QED, start being an interesting antagonist and maybe you'll get people interested enough to actually interact with you instead of maybe releasing the slimes every round you're antag?

I agree that Revs got some Nerfs, but 1138 is right

I forgot to add, "JOIN OR DIE" is not an option as rev. It has never worked because the revs have no particular advantage over the rest of the station to begin with. That's a thing to do as cult, and it's totally acceptable to murderkill as a cultist as long as you are trying to bring Nar'sie back along the way and not being totally shitty about it. You have the option to turn off rev, not every antagonist can be roleplayed efficiently by everybody.

You MUST apply to sensibilities, morals and logic when you are a rev, that's the only way you can do anything.

Yes. rev needs to be smart, and I do, but it adds up to : Most people are already loyalists without very much reason, sec still tases anyone who identifies as a rev, even if its peaceful, people view revs as antags, bad as cult or tators and are treated such, even if you're peaceful some chucklefuck will start a fight somehow, whether it be sec or rev, and it always ends up in fighting. And the whole be interesting thing, I try to, but people are like "yeah but i don't want to fite the nt's, they 2 stroooooong".

The whole brigged thing, really fucks up, because sec just fucking keeps you in processing for five minutes, throws you in brig for 20 and warden stops by every 10 minutes to make sure you haven't broken a window with the mop to escape.

Yes you have to be peaceful, but no one fucking interacts properly when you're peaceful, antag=jail or shoot, its as simple as that for some people, I rarely meet some one whose cool with some one being an antag of some sort.

Also, of course join or die doesn't fucking work, I've never used it as a rev, it's dumb because you don't have anything to keep them loyal to you once there a rev.

Its also a consistent pattern throughout rev, no matter who is playing, that revs end up with very little influence, and all are either dead or brigged at the end of the round.

You are right in that Nanotrasen isn't really evil enough to be worth revolting over inherently. I haven't yet played a revolutionary round in newcode yet so I don't know if we still get the hilariously petty reasoning of the bar getting shut down.

I've repeatedly offered to write new custom events for RP-Rev to kick it off but haven't been responded to. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

During the Antag Contest I revealed that rp-revs can be Biesel using embedded sleeper agents to incite rebellion.

The best I can do otherwise is fleshing out Nanotrasen's more controversial nature in the lore and letting players run with it.

My two cents: I like Rev mode. I always try to be a loyalist immediately, that's just my character's personality

I like that it's a mode where I always win without having to get involved in violence. Personally i see it as that the rev's aren't supposed to win, just to provide interesting conflict and RP mechanics to the round. You're sacrificing yourself to make the round fun for everyone.

There is one change i'd make, personally.

Let the revolutionaries know who the loyalists are. Joining the loyalists should be an open, proud, unashamed statement of your loyalty, so the revs should always be able to see who the loyalists are, without the same applying in reverse

I wouldn't suggest any more rebalancing than that. Maybe it's just really selfish, but i like it being unbalanced in the favour of the station. It's like an extended round, but with an interesting event in it.

I think it should be more of a closer game, like cult.

Extended with an event should be extended with an event.

Revs should be able to actually do something other then convert one to two people and then get arrested, the amount of RP and stuff that could just bloom of it being a war between the revs and the loyalists, and then having those who are inbetween, could be amazing, the situations that could be created.

Also to having the sleeper cell idea would be good, very much like.

my problem with rev is there is no reasonable thing to revolt about currently.

pay slashed so you go out murdering your bosses who you might have worked with for 10+ years icly? no, you quit and find another job.

we need a better reason to revolt that might actually help bring people in. Maybe something that actually takes backstories and citizenships into account. Breakout of civil war in Sol Alliance, Tau Ceti uprising, anything that might pit people against eachother and the heads of staff.

Bring back Mutiny

As it stands, the only thing lacking from current rev to make it mutiny are the directives. I honestly would not mind bringing back the directives as a mechanic, however.

I think what would really just fix the issue with Rev would be making actual lore reasons for people to revolt. Like a news announcement happens saying that Nanotrasen was caught doing something horrible. Those could be decided but, I think the balance would be tipped more towards the Rev's side if we had a better reason to revolt than just closing the Bar or something.

One suggestion that would have only a small effect, but is also quite easy to implement, would be to change some of the texts associated with the game mode.

I basically feel like the heavy emphasis on Marxist communism is a mistake and restricts RP too much. Even though revs often ignore this aspect, many of the texts still refer to it which makes new players and players that have not been paying careful attention to the rev's RP chat still simply assume that they are being invited to join a Marxist revolution. We need more general descriptions so that people can have more freedom to RP their own or made up ideologies without wierdly anachronistic terminology being inserted at every turn.

Why is Marxism a problem? Well to start with in the game world it is a centuries old political philosophy designed for factory workers in the industrial revolution. It is not remotely relevant to the situation most Aurora station employees find themselves in. Secondly it is an extremely complex academic topic, and most people simply don't know or even want to know the details of what it is about or how it is supposed to work. After all, it is not relevant for their situation at all and they are not historians.

The only reasonable reasons NT employees have to misbehave is that they are badly paid (are they?) and that safety conditions are not optimal. Neither of these things have anything to do with communism except in the broadest sense. Especially the use of the words "Bourgeoise" and "Capitalist" are complete nonsense. According to the actual definition of these words everyone on the station is both of these things and is not likely to ever change.

I also think the messages associated with loyalists could be tweaked, because lets face it, loyalists are antags, it should be clearly stated that they are kind of psychopathic and not necessarily working within corporate regulations.

This is why I think it is worth rewording the in game texts. Below are some examples I have found in the repo and some suggested changes. I imagine there are more I have not yet found and anyone considering making actual changes should do a more thorough analysis. The corrections I propose are merely examples to illustrate what I mean.

[spoiler=Alternate Texts]

Revs

welcome_text

Original: "Down with the capitalists! Down with the Bourgeoise!"

Suggested: "People over profits! Stand up for your rights"

faction_welcome

Original: "Help the cause overturn the ruling class. Do not harm your fellow freedom fighters."

Suggested: "Help the cause fight for better conditions. Do not harm your fellow freedom fighters."

Loyalists

welcome_text

Original: "You belong to the Company, body and soul. Preserve its interests against the conspirators amongst the crew."

Suggested: "You are fanatically committed to the Company, and harbor a bitter hatred of anyone that questions its authority"

faction_welcome = "Preserve NanoTrasen's interests against the traitorous recidivists amongst the crew. Anyone found questioning the Company's absolute authority must be dealt with in the harshest possible way"

the verb:

Original: Convert Bourgeoise

Suggested: Convert to [factionName]

the faction: (Not sure here but a change is worth considering )

Original: Revolutionaries

Suggested: Uprising?

Lastly, the texts that appear when a person is not convertible. I know that people are not supposed to use the IC information gained from this OOC text but they do. It is actually quite difficult to ignore the certain 100% knowledge that a person belongs to the other faction in your IC behaviour. You don't want to waste time trying to convince them again later, but IC your character might have done that. You kind of want to kill them at the next opportunity, but IC your character has no reason to believe they are a zealot bent on your faction's destruction. I am fairly certain I have been found out as an antag based mainly on these messages in the past.

"[M] is too loyal to the company!

"\The [player.current]'s loyalties seem to be elsewhere..."

I would suggest both of these messages be removed, and instead of showing them the game waits Random*5+1 seconds and then shows the

"\The [player.current] does not support the [faction.faction_descriptor]!"

message.

(Yes I know theirs no definitive Revs win message and fireworks shoot out of everyone's asses

Actually there is, whether anyone has ever seen this message in game is another question.

victory_text = "The heads of staff were relieved of their posts! The revolutionaries win!"

the most part of it, antag is pretty fun and balanced.

แคมฟรอก

I think what would really just fix the issue with Rev would be making actual lore reasons for people to revolt. Like a news announcement happens saying that Nanotrasen was caught doing something horrible. Those could be decided but, I think the balance would be tipped more towards the Rev's side if we had a better reason to revolt than just closing the Bar or something.

Another idea is that the head revs and loys get to fake ONE centcom announcement, I had this happen before where the head revs worked together to attempt to fake that cloning is banned, while the a head loy botched it by making a purposely bad fake announcement. That same round all the engineers won't do their job and even turned off gravity, so before I cryo'd, (yeah yeah boo me, but RL stuff popped up), I had engineers threated by centcom with pay cut and arrest.

I think what would really just fix the issue with Rev would be making actual lore reasons for people to revolt. Like a news announcement happens saying that Nanotrasen was caught doing something horrible. Those could be decided but, I think the balance would be tipped more towards the Rev's side if we had a better reason to revolt than just closing the Bar or something.

Another idea is that the head revs and loys get to fake ONE centcom announcement, I had this happen before where the head revs worked together to attempt to fake that cloning is banned, while the a head loy botched it by making a purposely bad fake announcement. That same round all the engineers won't do their job and even turned off gravity, so before I cryo'd, (yeah yeah boo me, but RL stuff popped up), I had engineers threated by centcom with pay cut and arrest.