Murderboning Policy Thread #859

[firecage]

So, can we perhaps disallow murderboning yet? Whether stealth murderboning everyone or running around the hallways with an ebow and esword, it really isn't fun for anyone except the person doing it.(And even then it is questionable.) It does not add anything meaningful to the rounds, and just leaves a lot of people sitting in deadchat waiting for the round to end so they can actually play again. And of course it doesn't help if you go onto one of the other servers, and within 5 minutes from arriving you are murderboned.

[Lumbermancer]

The design paradigm is benefiting and promoting murderboner.

[tinodrima7020]

In the words of resident headmin Nat "We have two other servers and ghost roles"

[Lumbermancer]

Ghost roles are a symptom.

[NoxVS]

Before this conversation continues - What is murderboning? Obviously to make it disallowed it has to be clearly defined so admins can know who to punish and who not to punish.

[Dr_bee]

Before this conversation continues - What is murderboning? Obviously to make it disallowed it has to be clearly defined so admins can know who to punish and who not to punish.

Murdering literally anyone and everyone for little to no reason than because you can.

Its a "know it when you see it" kind of thing. Only time I see murder-boning as being acceptable is when the traitor has a hijack objective, other than that its kind of dickish, but solo traitors supposedly can do anything, even murder an entire server during 4am.

[PKPenguin321]

big disagree, we changed the rules to disallow antags from being able to kill at their own discretion once in the past and it was awful. playing as a traitor meant having to watch your back at all times because while anybody was allowed to kill you, you'd be ahelped immediately if you killed anybody else. in theory murderbone is easy to discern from a high but necessary bodycount, but in practice it really isn't.

iirc we had a similar policy much later that put this into effect but only on very lowpop since it would drop server population to near-0. not sure what happened to that. might have been a defacto policy where we'd just rule 0 people who did it, don't recall that much, but it's a much more agreeable policy imo.

[imsxz]

People are quick to call someone a murderboner due to high body counts, likewise people who murderbone can be quick to accuse someone of "validhunting", even if the murderbone in question was bombing the whole station while reading woody got wood.

[Skillywatt]

yeah a big problem with this is finding the line between murderboning and just killing everyone because everyone is out to get you.

I remember loves the lizards was almost always "valid hunted" hard and genuinely didnt want to murderbone but thats what would end up happening with people throwing themselves at him.

I think powergaming + murderboning is an obnoxious combo and could probably be dealt with on a case-by-case basis using rule 0 if necessary (someone always using their tator rolls to dm the station).

I would also like to point out any "murderboning" discussion should probably only be focused on ling/traitor and maybe blood brother. Wizards almost have to murderbone because everyone wants dat ass.

[Qbmax32]

slippery slope, its fucking moronic to restrict antags anymore then "dont crash the server" or "dont spam"

lowpop murderbone on the other hand, has always been sort of an unspoken rule where you will probably get fucked with by admins or something similar

[Nilons]

dont fuck with rule 4 pls

[NoxVS]

Before this conversation continues - What is murderboning? Obviously to make it disallowed it has to be clearly defined so admins can know who to punish and who not to punish.

Murdering literally anyone and everyone for little to no reason than because you can.

Its a "know it when you see it" kind of thing. Only time I see murder-boning as being acceptable is when the traitor has a hijack objective, other than that its kind of dickish, but solo traitors supposedly can do anything, even murder an entire server during 4am.

Im gonna take this interpretation is literal as possible - Is it murderboning only if you succeed in killing everyone? Like if you leave a guy alive is it OK? Is releasing the singularity or tesla ok? Delaminating the supermatter into each? How about bombarding the whole station in fuel pods? Is it murderboning to kill someone you don't have to? At what point does it transition into murderboning? Is killing someone who has your objective fine? Is killing people to cause a distraction to take your objective fine?

What should be done is find some way to make it so you aren't able to murderbone as easily. Enforce no murderbone with mechanics rather than rules. I don't know how to do this but but I am sure someone else could come up with a way to.

[obscolene]

So, can we perhaps disallow murderboning yet?

No.

[oranges]

It's time for
Enforce no murderbone with mechanics rather than rules.

Moodloss on murdering

[Coconutwarrior97]

Murderboning should continue to be allowed. Rule 4 is a good rule and I like antags having freedom. Also enforcing this would be hell, things like plasma floods and bombs would have to be dealt with as they have the potential to murderbone. Don't really see a reason we should change this.

[wesoda25]

It's time for
Enforce no murderbone with mechanics rather than rules.

Moodloss on murdering

>hijack shuttle due to objectives
>get crippling depression and move at walk speed

[Tlaltecuhtli]

murderboning is usually solved by admins spawning ERTs and other stuff if he is being uncontested for too long

if there are no admins (common issue for 40% of the day as admins tend to be 95% in us timezone) then it may be a problem but people who low pop murderbones tend to be shitters who tend to be banned for other reasons so i dont see any problem here

[NoxVS]

But what happens when the ERT fails to stop them

And the follow up deathsquad fails to stop them

And now you have a ninja with a pulse rifle riding an emagged borg killing everything in sight

[Tlaltecuhtli]

u lose

[Malkraz]

why did you delete my post it was the most factual one in the thread
murderbone wouldn't be a problem if more than 10% of the players at any given time were aware of anything 5 tiles away from them and knew how to stop getting murdered

[obscolene]

But what happens when the ERT fails to stop them

And the follow up deathsquad fails to stop them

And now you have a ninja with a pulse rifle riding an emagged borg killing everything in sight

losing is part of the game

[PKPenguin321]

It's time for
Enforce no murderbone with mechanics rather than rules.

Moodloss on murdering

laughed out loud
either this will barely "enforce" and be negligible or way too harsh and just make the game all around worse

again, the best solution is to just disallow purposeless murder if and only if the server is lowpop. what number lowpop should be can be decided by headmins and changed but should probably lie close to or on the same number as the threshold for skeleton crew level access. the reason for this is that murderbone on lowpop can cause a server to drop to nopop for hours when everybody leaves and nobody wants to join a server with 1 person on it.

[Steelpoint]

Encourage competent people to play Security, which won't do much but its better than no-sec.

If you want to go with PKP's suggestion, then I'd suggest a code mechanic that if the server/station's population is sufficently low enough to count as 'lowpop' (whatever that number is), then if a larger portion of the station dies then Central Command would dissalow further crew to join the station, due to the high possible risk of death, and instead direct new joiners to join as some kind of new role like a ERT or salvage crew.

[Malkraz]

Encourage competent people to play Security

[PKPenguin321]

Encourage competent people to play Security, which won't do much but its better than no-sec.

If you want to go with PKP's suggestion, then I'd suggest a code mechanic that if the server/station's population is sufficently low enough to count as 'lowpop' (whatever that number is), then if a larger portion of the station dies then Central Command would dissalow further crew to join the station, due to the high possible risk of death, and instead direct new joiners to join as some kind of new role like a ERT or salvage crew.

I honestly think that would be worse, since you would be forced into the ERT role even if you didn't want to. Easier to just disincentive lowpop murderboning by banning for it. While it can be hard to tell a murderbone apart from a "I was being lynched by a mob of 6 people and managed to kill all of them," a code solution could be made to remove hijack objectives and lower the chances of murder objectives when below the lowpop threshold.

[Steelpoint]

Removing those kind of objectives from low-pop would only have an effect if the rules stated you can only murder people if its to further your objectives goal.

Your objectives could be to steal your Advance Magboots as the Chief Engineer and you'd have the same leverage to mass murder the entire station as some assistant who got a hijack objective.

Also to raise another issue, at what point is the server in 'low pop'? What if the server icons state there are 25 people on when only 9 people are technically on station? Can the server get out of lowpop during a round or if it starts at lowpop does it stay in low pop the entire round, even if the server population increases to 30 or 40 people?

[PKPenguin321]

Your objectives could be to steal your Advance Magboots as the Chief Engineer and you'd have the same leverage to mass murder the entire station as some assistant who got a hijack objective.

Also to raise another issue, at what point is the server in 'low pop'? What if the server icons state there are 25 people on when only 9 people are technically on station? Can the server get out of lowpop during a round or if it starts at lowpop does it stay in low pop the entire round, even if the server population increases to 30 or 40 people?

The first point is an issue of probability. While it's not impossible, it's much less likely that a steal objective will spiral into a 100% dead station than a hijack objective would (especially on lowpop, where there probably won't even be anybody to guard the magboots). Yes, it's not a perfect solution, and there will be times where we'll have to exercise discretion of intent (which is annoying because what if we get it wrong?), but it's much better than nothing.

As for the second point, the lowpop threshold will have to be decided by headmins. Like I already said, I'd imagine that it would hover around the (already code-implemented) threshold for a skeleton crew. If you somehow start at 20 people and get 30 more people to join without any of the original 20 disconnecting, that would no longer be lowpop, obviously. If the majority of people are off-station, there's still a lot of people actively playing the game; it isn't an issue if you murderbone the 5 straddlers still on the station, since you're not causing too big of an inconvenience anyways (remember, the key issue with lowpop murderbone is that it can drop the server to 0pop for the forseeable future; if there are still 20 active people connected offstation, killing the 5 onstation won't change much).

[Steelpoint]

Probability aside, there are plenty of people who take their antag status as a license to kill at their discretion, mass murder or selective murder. They won't care what their objectives are in that regard, and may accomplish them by coincidence along the way, bloody gun and sword in hands as they go.

To reiterate my second point, I'm contesting the fact that a lot of factors can influence a state of 'lowpop'. Unless you constantly check the crew manifest or check the server population you'd be hard pressed to know if the server is still in low pop or has now gone beyond that point. If one person did kill the last 5 people on station, that'd still be the same issue irrespective if half the server is playing on ancient station or as a golem.

Hell, what if the server starts at highpop, and drops to lowpop when someone is murderboning?

[Lumbermancer]

Enforce no murderbone with mechanics rather than rules.

Let's add clown car then.

[iamgoofball]

again, the best solution is to just disallow purposeless murder if and only if the server is lowpop.

wrong

people will just:
1. shift the goal posts on what is/isnt lowpop endlessly
2. argue about alive crew counting towards whether it's lowpop or not
3. argue about whether mitigating conditions adjust the definition of lowpop

repeat endlessly

[lmwevil]

restricting antags is bad, admins can handle murderboners their own way without putting literal behaviour limiters on players

also c'mon, slippery slope + the vaugeness that would be the rule leading to huge policy threads and admins disagreeing; unless it was painfully specific IF PLAYERS ARE UNDER 30 INGAME YOU MUST ONLY KILL 5 OR YOU GET ANTAG BANNED, that'd be so fucking stunted.


edit: goofball is right and also this is a dumb thread

[firecage]

Well, sorry Lmwevil, but "Lol, entire station dead due to muh murderbone!" for the 20'000th round isn't fun for anyone and doesn't add anything meaningful to the rounds. And of course, when 10 people are on and only the murderboner is left alive that isn't much fun either.

Honestly now, what the fuck does murderboning either the entire or most of the crew add to the game? Does it somehow benefit the playerbase to sit in deadchat for an eternity? Is it healthy for the server if the previous rounds murderboning causes it to have between 1-6 players on for the next several hours because everyone either logged off out of frustration or went to another server?(Either another /tg/ server or one of the hub ones). Does it actually provide fun and entertainment for anyone other than the murderboner after it happening several thousand times already?

[Malkraz]

Why not just code it to auto-spawn ERT if the number of alive players drops below a certain threshold? This would not only help solve this issue and end rounds when they need to be, but create a more strategic environment for the antagonist.
"Well if I kill this many people then I risk getting fucked by ERT, I should get my objectives done and get out"
"Well I killed fucking everybody and ERT is on their way, I need to get the hell off this station"
As always, coding solutions are more than likely superior to policy solutions.

[Lumbermancer]

Because it will be only additional challenge to them.

[Cobby]

If we disallowed murderboning (I don’t think we are) then antags who aren’t an immediate danger should be protected as well (this is a given if you just look at the rule permitting killing of antags to begin with tbh)

[Lumbermancer]

You know what would work? Bringing antag rep back, in a different form maybe. Then make failing objectives like "limit collateral damage" lower your rep, and greentexting properly (or have special tough objectives for it ) rise it.

[Gamarr]

No murderbone? What are the antags supposed to do then when greentext is meaningless and there's no even track-record/'score' of what you do in-game over any length of period.
Not saying I like the rampages and how easy they are to do if one is really determined but I'm also saying what Are they intended to do? The skein of Rp here is just barely covering the bones of the game, prone to being thin and easily ruptured by the plethora of ideas beneath as they try but fail to work together.

[Hathkar]

A code solution could be to send a Centcomm Inspector when x% of the crew are dead. If that Inspector doesn't return to HQ in x minutes or fills out a report that says shit is fucked, an ERT will be spawned in to investigate.

Restricting antag freedom is a no-no, though. Nothing wrong with making their actions have consequences however.

[Ayy Lemoh]

ERT and inspectors would need their ferry modified in order for all of this to work.

If a murderboner kills the ERT then he can go on Centcom, get the pulse rifle + deathsquad armor, and spawncamp.

[skoglol]

Having played servers where murderboning isnt allowed, I can tell you it is shit. Imagine if all the traitors just stealthed their steal objectives and went back to their jobs. Would that really be fun? Imagine traitors, just with the round impact of hiveminds.

[Gamarr]

It is easy to stealth objectives. Does that mean they had no impact? Did they interact with a void? There is nothing wrong with being able to social-engineer your objective or stealth it, it is supposed to be fun- for them.

This is part of an overarching problem on how the server plays and frankly, stealthing is fine it's just hard to do because there is almost no partitioning, safety, and there is an AI/cameras everywhere along with easily used comms. There is little 'stealth' and by virtue you get just judicious use of body-stockpiling because it be how to make sure you're in the clear.

[zxaber]

Sometimes murderbone is useful when you've gotten your objectives done and want to force a shuttle call to limit the chance you'll end up dying to stupid means.

Granted, when I do this, my go-to weapon is generally a plasma flood, but I digress.

Having certain rules based off the population level is a terrible idea. A better idea would be in-game tools for sec or someone to help track one person specifically. Part of the issue is that, unlike many other games that use similar ideas, in SS13 traitors are actually potentially more powerful than any other individual on the station.A traitor with an ebow and all access can easily overpower just about anyone unless people travel in large groups, but people have shit to do and generally don't want to stand around in a mob.

[firecage]

Eh, I am just done after today with /tg/. See yah guys around.

[Malkraz]

lol

[oranges]

It's time for
Enforce no murderbone with mechanics rather than rules.

Moodloss on murdering

>hijack shuttle due to objectives
>get crippling depression and move at walk speed

you'll have to be smaarter with how you hijack it then won't you

[zxaber]

It's time for
Enforce no murderbone with mechanics rather than rules.

Moodloss on murdering

>hijack shuttle due to objectives
>get crippling depression and move at walk speed

you'll have to be smaarter with how you hijack it then won't you

Or just use indirect killing methods to bypass the mood debuff, just like we have to use indirect suicides to bypass the suicide blocking.

[obscolene]

It's time for
Enforce no murderbone with mechanics rather than rules.

Moodloss on murdering

>hijack shuttle due to objectives
>get crippling depression and move at walk speed

you'll have to be smaarter with how you hijack it then won't you

this is a goofball-tier post. "me code thing and any and all adverse side effects of it whatsoever is intended feature, just deal with it. me no change it"

[Dr_bee]

It's time for
Enforce no murderbone with mechanics rather than rules.

Moodloss on murdering

>hijack shuttle due to objectives
>get crippling depression and move at walk speed

you'll have to be smaarter with how you hijack it then won't you

this is a goofball-tier post. "me code thing and any and all adverse side effects of it whatsoever is intended feature, just deal with it. me no change it"

Antags are basically immune to the mood system and thus immune to hunger anyway, because reasons.

[charmisokay]

For each objective you complete, you get +1tc next time you traitor - if you complete all your objectives.
When you complete all your objectives (except for escape), you can press a button to add a new objective.

[teepeepee]

For each objective you complete, you get +1tc next time you traitor - if you complete all your objectives.
When you complete all your objectives (except for escape), you can press a button to add a new objective.

this will just make it so captains cremate their antique, the HOS gun, the hand teles, the CE magboots and the hypospray every round lmao