[Resolved] Player Complaint(s) - Whole raider team from bTL-diPJ

BYOND Key: AmoryBlaine

Game ID: bTL-diPJ

Player Byond Key: Kyres1, Fairness and Honor, Neschief, Maereo, DaTimeSmog, Driecg36

Staff involved: N/A

Reason for complaint:

This team arrived, grabbed the Captain, walled up the Vault elevator, killed said Captain accidentally while trying to vent the area outside the elevator, and looted the vault. After that they left the vault area via space and then returned to their shuttle where they promptly left the Station area ending the round. They gave zero RP to the station, did not attempt to engage us in either negotiation or combat and the only communication we got was taunts from DaTimeSmog who played Echo. I really think this lack of RP and attempts to engage the station in any sense should be looked at.

Did you attempt to adminhelp the issue at the time? If so, what was the known action taken by administration/moderation? Had to wait until the end of the round to see what they were going to do, really. If they'd come back or not and so forth.

Approximate Date/Time: 07/04/2018: 19:09EST [Round End]

For clarity, I was essentially against every major decision we made in this round. I was outnumbered in the voting though, so I'd have been a dick to ignore the majority decision of the group.

That being said, I had many issues with that round - none I believe warranted a complaint from my own perspective. This is a lot of people to make one complaint over, especially throwing in the ones who did no wrong.

Right, so I was one of the raiders, Red-Tails.

I will start this off with immediately saying this wasn't a good round. We had great difficulty choosing a gimmick and took very long to get ready and leave. We eventually decided on going with a barebones gimmick of raiding the vault by kidnapping the captain and taking their ID, since we could agree on nothing else. Not particularly interesting, but it was an objective.

From there, literally everything proceeded to go perfectly for us, which was rather unfortunate OOCly. The captain was alone in her office, noone came by the bridge as we were kidnapping her, security's response was very slow when they learned she was captured, and only one armed officer showed up to the scene (who immediately gave up his weapon when asked, because we had the captain hostage.)

We then proceed down the vault elevator with the captain (after one of the less intelligent raiders pistol whipped her, despite us yelling at him not to multiple times). We hack into the vault, and block the elevator doors with our bodies. We RP a bit with the captain, she tries to escape, we secure her. Eventually, someone in the vault finds an RCD and walls off the elevator (I would rather they have not but whatever.) We loot everything, then we see an officer go down a ladder in the vault. Jack Sender, I think it was, panics and breaks open a window to escape, killing the captain (despite us telling him not tom multiple times, I believe we even informed an admin about it.)

Now, we are left with two options:

A) Go up the elevator into an inevitable ambush and get slaughtered by security, but we "interact" in the loosest definition of the word.

B) Go out the window and to the medical sublevel to escape, which was by far the smarter, more believable option.

We go back up the command elevator, completely unmolested by security or anyone else, and make it to the shuttle. We then go to mining, because we need an 02 tank and a cell charger. We run into two miners, we threaten them not to reveal our location, and they don't. We take our charger and an 02 tank after breaking into mining.

Now, we are back onto our ship, and we hear that not only an ERT has been called, but a Durand has been constructed with a second one underway. Sure, our gear is pretty good at this point, but look at the following options:

A) We go back on station, fight the ERT+durands+sec, most likely lose some members or die outright, for extremely meager rewards, as we've already taken the most valuable things on station. More "interaction," but effectively suicide.

B) We leave, our objective accomplished.

All in all, the problem was that everything went right. I believe you also believe this [mention]AmoryBlaine[/mention], but people should not act stupid just to further RP. And here, the only way to further RP was to act extremely, unbelievably dumb. I really don't think there was another way possible to create more interaction unless we had a complete different gimmick, though I may of course be wrong.

First of all, second post on this forum, so yeah.

The round was chaotic and many ideas were thrown around during the beginning of it. I threw the typical standard model of ">Enter>Steal Captains ID>Raid Armory>Leave", with the background thought of forcing the team to visit science, interesting in finally for once using the research disks in order to copy the research that was done at that point and leave the station.

Broke down quite early, mainly when we've entered the armory, with Jack ( If Im correct ) breaking a window and venting the entire room, killing the captain who was played by Xander. So my original plan of having a hostage to go up with without being shot to absolute shit and moving to science was out of the window, due to the lack of any kind of bargaining chip using the elevator would've resulted either in the raiders killing a majority of secruity on the spot or secruity killing the raiders on the spot and or arresting them.

I directly question you Blaine what you believe this would improve RP upon, combat is not RP and combat wont involve all of the crew or the majority of it for the matter of fact. It will simply involves secruity and medical, with secruity the group who just have to somewhat position themselves and spam their left click and medical being the group that heals them and performs the regular medical RP. It also makes no sense from a character standpoint to choose the most dangerous route, yes antags are there to start conflict and roleplay but that with reasonable motivations in mind. Heavy Roleplay contributes heavily from an antag being able to spice up the round with interesting "gimmick" ideas, the word gimmick being a loose term usually used by antag plays to refer to a certain situation they wish to set up.

However it makes no sense for a raider team who was being successful to randomly deciede that fighting against a durand(s), secruity and ERT would be worth the prize of basicly nothing, you play a character and everyone knows very well that every person wishes to avoid death and should act accordingly to avoid it.

Also I heavily suggest that if you were to complain a barebone raiding mission that you could atleast add suggestions to it, in order for those involved to add their viewpoints to those suggestions and in order to create more interesting raider/merc rounds.

After getting the Captain why was your immediate thought to heist rather than to negotiate their release for the vault contents if this WAS your objective? This would have opened the door for us, the station, to talk to you. Instead, ALL of our attempts to communicate were met with insults. We knew you had access to our comms since you got the Captain.

This is us trying to communicate with you multiple times:

Here is the response later on.

Mind you, this is still BEFORE any ERT was called. And you had already left. ICly you too knew that it was pointless to call the ERT because you had left, which you did soon after as confirmed by the 'Round over' pop up.

You had chances to RP, but chose not to take them, rather you feared an ERT that was not yet called and a Durand that was being constructed by RnD unknown to us.

[mention]DaTimeSmog[/mention]

Right, guess who had the captain's headset during this entire exchange? I'm sure you can. By the time someone competent actually got their hands on comms, the captain was already dead.

On top of that, we were *right* next to the vault, with the captain's ID (the only ID that can open the vault, by the way). Additionally, command had been discussing calling the ERT pretty much as soon as we left the vault. Pretty certain ERT was already on the table during that exchange.

And how the hell would we know that sec didn't know about the durand?

Right, guess who had the captain's headset during this entire exchange? I'm sure you can. By the time someone competent actually got their hands on comms, the captain was already dead.

On top of that, we were *right* next to the vault, with the captain's ID (the only ID that can open the vault, by the way). Additionally, command had been discussing calling the ERT pretty much as soon as we left the vault. Pretty certain ERT was already on the table during that exchange.

And how the hell would we know that sec didn't know about the durand?

Right, so rather than try to RP you went straight to the vault so you could cut out the middle man and get right to the loot. The Durand is such a small part of this as you were already EVA. How exactly does this pose a threat to you EVA and while able to jump between decks with the skiff?

Right, guess who had the captain's headset during this entire exchange? I'm sure you can. By the time someone competent actually got their hands on comms, the captain was already dead.

On top of that, we were *right* next to the vault, with the captain's ID (the only ID that can open the vault, by the way). Additionally, command had been discussing calling the ERT pretty much as soon as we left the vault. Pretty certain ERT was already on the table during that exchange.

And how the hell would we know that sec didn't know about the durand?

 

Right, so rather than try to RP you went straight to the vault so you could cut out the middle man and get right to the loot. The Durand is such a small part of this as you were already EVA. How exactly does this pose a threat to you EVA and while able to jump between decks with the skiff?

How the hell is it RP to ask for you to open the vault, even though we know full well you cannot, and we can? I simply fail to see a logical reason to do so.

And we're EVA, sure, but why would the Durand ever come out to EVA with us? We'd have to go into the station where we would get slaughtered by it and the ERT.

On top of that, you've yet to provide me a single good icly reason to go back after we had looted the vault.

You have the Captain, negotiate with the Security team about exchanging the Captain for whatever you want, giving both sides time to do plot against the other or carry out their side of the bargain. You chose not to do this, you would rather complete the objective that you set forth than actually apply RP.

Exactly, so why is "Muh Durand" an argument if you're already EVA and able to jump around on a Skiff doing literally whatever else. This is NOT about you NOT engaging us in Combat. It's about you LEAVING THE STATION AREA without having contributed to the round outside taking all of the Vault things and the Captain dying off screen. You had equipment, you had the manpower, you knew there were Miners out. You could have literally done anything to dodge a gimp'd Station Security team, including the ERT and a mech. You are raiders, not Mercs, you hit and run. NO ONE was expecting you to charge us. We were expecting you to NEGOTIATE and use possibly use HIT AND RUN tactics. Instead we got nothing out of that round but time wasted.

At that point you should have began to think about new objectives given it was 30-40 minutes or so before the 2 hour mark. You have bounties to grab, you have other objectives available from your TeleCrystal interfaces. You do not just leave, ESPECIALLY when literally nothing has been contributed to the round thus far.

So, as you may have forgotten, our team was very divided, and we could barely agree on the most simple gimmick. I offered multiple times to go back onto the station, even after the ERT had come, and got a resounding "No." In answer every single time. Coming up with a brand new gimmick mid-round is difficult even with a cohesive team. On top of that, I had skimmed the contracts before, and none seemed very interesting or even had the relevant crew on station, though I may very well have been wrong.

Again, I don't believe you should act stupid just for the sake of "interaction," a point of view I believe you've expressed before. We have the captain, the objective we've set for ourselves is right there, and you expect all of us to be coordinated enough to switch our gimmick and negotiate, even with no logical reason to do so whatsoever mid hostage situation? Hell, we could barely get the entire team on the fucking elevator.

The "Muh Durand" is still a valid argument because we don't know where it is. We could jump around and risk running into it headfirst, or being cornered by it and the ERT, or being attacked by security, or getting stuck somewhere, but for what possible Icly reason?

If you wish, I can flip this on security as well. Instead of simply bouncing their head against the vault doors, they could've looked for our point of entry (which was extremely obvious considering we broke the cameras there) and set up there. Or considered the notion that we wouldn't just go immediately back up the elevator while we had no hostage, and thought about alternatives. Or called ERT earlier than after the captain was dead and our objective was completed. Interaction is a two way road.

I played this round as a completely untouched and quite unaware scientist (Adam Harrow). Whilst it was unfortunate that the round turned out this way, it surely isn't report worthy?

I mean, they obviously went in with the plan to do something and expecting to hit snags on the way. Snags fail to appear, muted and slow response from crew. They achieve the first objective, unfortunate but understandable accident happens which kills their bargaining chip. They consolidate. Now crew response goes to 100 with Durands and ERTs. They stand there with a good haul, safe and sound, fully aware of the shitstorm waiting for them if they go back. Of course things end like they do?

Are they really under the obligation to suicide against the station for "RP" reasons? Members of sec's RP reasons since they want to feel validated by having a confrontation. They surely are obligated to make an action against the station at the start of the round. But after having achieved that action, must they really keep going until they are dead or limp away?

[mention]driecg36[/mention]

Oh, so rather than stay where you were and have one of you delegate negotiations over what you wanted, which would have included the Heads, and Security at the very least, with Engineering and RnD depending on whether you wanted RnD things as you originally stated, or if we tried to outmaneuver you. Instead you decided to move your entire team into the elevator and wall it up, steal everything, hear about a Durand and an ERT, and then leave. Somehow the first was too complex an idea for your team to follow through with, but the second was easier?

In what way does Security standing at the Bridge further RP? You have this caught up on combat and engagement, when this report is about you having not contributed at all to the round as antags. The whole purpose of having antags is to spice rounds and give character to them. Instead it was Extended with a dead Captain and some atmos issues.

[mention]Saudus[/mention]

They're obligated to have done more than loot and leave as they did. We're on Heavy Roleplay, are we not? Somehow five Mercenaries could not contribute to the RP at all even though they had everything in the vault and apparently wanted something from RnD? Rather than ransom for it they choose to leave and pester Security a bit?

3 of the six raiders were already in the elevator trying to go down, as I was blocking the door to wait for the last raider who had been left behind. We had what we wanted right under our noses, in the vault. Again, how do you think the other raiders have reacted if I said "Wait let's negotiate with them" considering you had literally nothing to give us that we couldn't easily take? It's a lot easier to convince people to leave once we have an accomplished objective compared to switching objective mid-hostage situation, especially when our original objective is near achieved.

And in what way does us running to our deaths against two durands and an ERT further RP? Exactly.

You keep implying we acted in an lrp manner, all the while encouraging us to act in an LRP manner. What exactly is HRP about fighting an extremely powerful enemy for virtually no reward, when we had already accomplished our objective? It's absolutely fucking stupid ICly, not believable whatsoever, and would've resulted in nothing more than a short firefight where a shit ton of people died for nothing.

Quite frankly this is getting nowhere, as you seem absolutely set in your opinion that we purposefully made a shit round for you and security, and I seem absolutely set in my opinion that it was a set of unfortunate circumstances that led to little interaction. How about we just wait for an admin to review the facts and settle this impartially, rather than waste our time repeating the same points over and over again?

[mention]driecg36[/mention]

Again with the fighting. Why is that your focus here? Where have I asked you to come in contact with ANY of Security or armed staff? Have I not specified NEGOTIATIONS? Why have you not named the part of your team that was pushing for this direction that lead to nothingness?

Negotiate with what exactly? The captain at the vault we could only open without your help? The captain after she died because an idiot busted the window? Negotiate for more money with the gold and money we had stolen? Negotiate to return the hardsuits you'd just use against us?

And I was more so paying attention to security, but Kill-gore and Jack Sender both seemed pretty clueless, but not nearly enough to warrant a full blown player complaint.

Anything. You at one point had the Captain and at another point had everything in the Vault but the floor. With either of these things you can start making demands. Your fear was being caught by Durands and an ERT all the while being able to move the skiff around the station, seeing as you were ON the skiff. You weren't trapped anywhere. This is how most rounds go with the objective being completed, but instead you all chose to leave and end the round pre-maturely as though there was a payoff for doing this.

@Saudus

They're obligated to have done more than loot and leave as they did. We're on Heavy Roleplay, are we not? Somehow five Mercenaries could not contribute to the RP at all even though they had everything in the vault and apparently wanted something from RnD? Rather than ransom for it they choose to leave and pester Security a bit?

We are indeed on HRP, and they have explained the RP reasons for their actions, which seem reasonable. The lack of interaction was not by design but a byproduct of luck, a mixed intensity crew response and limited coordination within the team. The RnD thing the person said was

I assume you made a report because you want some kind of action taken. If this situation merits action then the only things separating 50%+ of all antag plays from a report is the lack of snags in their plans. It seems like this post is more of a venting of frustration? Which is understandable, the antags also express frustration at how it turned out. But surely not the correct way to vent.

(also if I remember correctly the RnD thing wasn't a part of the plan they made, but a backup objective one of the antags thought of and considered trying to steer the rest of the crew into)

@Saudus

They're obligated to have done more than loot and leave as they did. We're on Heavy Roleplay, are we not? Somehow five Mercenaries could not contribute to the RP at all even though they had everything in the vault and apparently wanted something from RnD? Rather than ransom for it they choose to leave and pester Security a bit?

 

We are indeed on HRP, and they have explained the RP reasons for their actions, which seem reasonable. The lack of interaction was not by design but a byproduct of luck, a mixed intensity crew response and limited coordination within the team. The RnD thing the person said was

I assume you made a report because you want some kind of action taken. If this situation merits action then the only things separating 50%+ of all antag plays from a report is the lack of snags in their plans. It seems like this post is more of a venting of frustration? Which is understandable, the antags also express frustration at how it turned out. But surely not the correct way to vent.

(also if I remember correctly the RnD thing wasn't a part of the plan they made, but a backup objective one of the antags thought of and considered trying to steer the rest of the crew into)

For sure action should be taken in my opinion. How can a five man raider team with the entire contents of the Vault fail to generate RP with the station over the fear of possible death from station-side combatants while being on their own shuttle. The fact that NOTHING between the Station and the Antags happened outside of Captain's death is a failure to apply their role as Antags. They are here to generate RP. If you are at an advantage, and your objective is complete that early, you have an obligation to think up something new. The lack of issues they ran into in carrying out their objective does not allow them to just pack up and go when the heat finally does turn up.

They completed their first objective. They have all the contents of the Vault with them. They could easily begin a secondary objective where the station would have more to do than watch.

I had completely forgotten about this, but we were also under the impression that the ERT team was tracking us somehow via one of the objects we had stolen, which naturally expedited our departure.

[mention]Datamatt[/mention] and I will be taking this complaint.

I see no problem with how the raider team acted, sure they had trouble coming up with a gimic, but who doesn't? These people are only guilty of "winning" and as they said, why come back to the station when they know they are going to get pounded by the ERT that would likely be called if they come back, and the Durand(s) that sec would quickly find out about if they haven't already.

From what I see raiders had two overall paths;

1. Go up to the inevitable Sec. ambush at the vault lift and either die quickly, ending the round rp, or killing all of sec causing salt about the slaiughter and calls of murderbone.

2. Escape stealthly because sec didn't bother to secure the sublevel.

Hello, I played one of the raiders on that round. It is not our fault for not being met with conflict or action from the crew while performing our antagonistic actions, we attempted to negotiate for the first minutes but Jack killed the captain, ERT was then called and there was not much reason to stay since we already had everything that we needed, and pretending that the captain was alive to negotiate would just give them more time to find us. Remember that roleplaying is made of forming a believable story with conflicts, not acting irrationaly to interact more with the crew even though you have already won.

Remember that roleplaying is made of forming a believable story with conflicts, not acting irrationaly to interact more with the crew even though you have already won.

You 'Won' nothing because leaving the station just removes you, the antagonists, from the round. The entire purpose of antags is not for you to 'Win', but to create interaction for the crew in whatever form possible, be it combat or dialogue, or other. Nothing was had instead. No combat, no dialogue, Given that you had a large bargaining chip with you, there were avenues for interaction post-ERT. This was a failure on the antag team's part to adapt to the fact they were being too successful in their primary objective.

Think from a IC point, we had already completed our goal, which is a definition if winning, our characters wouldn't come back and risk their lives against both ert, durands and mercs just because players wanted more interaction.

Alright, after giving both sides some time to discuss, [mention]Datamatt[/mention] and I have come to the conclusion that while the Raiders in question could definitely have provided more RP to the station, it isn't worth applying punishment to all of them for what amounts to a single sub-par round.

Unfortunately, the nature of the game means that sometimes rounds will go poorly for one side or another, and involve not as much RP as we've come to expect. I think the creation of this complaint alone has brought to their attention that they should try their best to drive a story for the station, and perhaps next time they will be able to come up with a gimmick that allows for more diverse interactions between them and the crew. If this were handled in-game, it likely would have been a nudge in the right direction by an administrator or moderator through the use of AOOC, rather than bwoinking them directly, and I think this discussion pretty much amounts to a nudge in the right direction for future rounds.

If there are no additional concerns raised, I will be locking and archiving in 24 hours.