Population Issues

[miggles]

Bottom post of the previous page:

This kind of sucks.
With only 72 people online at the time of this screenshot, there are 34 assistants. That's 34 useless people cluttering the hallways without much to do and possibly creating trouble for security, etc.
There really isn't a need for this. Boxstation was not built to accommodate 70+ people, and rounds on Sibyl are clusterfucks because of it.
Should there be a player limit?

EDIT: Not to mention that Badger is constantly lowpop because everyone plays on Sibyl, where there's no lack of people to be found.
Having 2 servers is bad when they are not well balanced, this is what causes server wars and cliques and shit.

[Timbrewolf]

Unlike other multiplayer game's, we are stuck on a single station forever

Say what?

/tg/station has gone through multiple station revisions over its history. We currently run two different station layouts, and at one point we had three servers each with a different station on them (though one had a different host, it was still part of the /tg/ group).

If someone is "stuck" on a server it's because they don't want to adjust or change.

[leibniz]

If someone doesnt like highpop they could play on the server with the lower population.

[Steelpoint]

Unlike other multiplayer game's, we are stuck on a single station forever

Say what?

/tg/station has gone through multiple station revisions over its history. We currently run two different station layouts, and at one point we had three servers each with a different station on them (though one had a different host, it was still part of the /tg/ group).

If someone is "stuck" on a server it's because they don't want to adjust or change.

What I meant by that Anon is that we do not swap out to different maps in game. Map changes rarely occur.

[Lo6a4evskiy]

If someone doesnt like highpop they could play on the server with the lower population.

There. We can just close the thread right here. Here's a simple fact that shows that people prefer highpop anyway.

Your reasoning, Anon, really applies only to admins, who have no choice but to police server no matter the population. People can see the population when they join. People still choose to join and play the jobs you specified despite your claims that it's a "clusterfuck". I'm sure many people enjoy that too.

Instead of forcing people to join the server they don't want to join (more like leave because they won't join lowpop/different map anyway), give the second server something to offer, be worth joining for once.

[Aurx]

>Here's a simple fact that shows that people prefer highpop anyway.
That would only be true if the servers were completely identical aside from mean population. They are not, so player preference cannot solely be attributed to mean population.

[Malkevin]

Most people play on Sybil because playing on a different map is scary.

[oranges]

I think liebniz nailed it. If you don't like the high population why are you not playing on badger, if it's true that high pop is really truly awful we would see the two servers populations moving towards equality and I've not really seen that.

Reality is that most people enjoy having more people because after all, people to people interactions is what the game is about, more people = more game.

[paprika]

Because high pop > low pop

Sybil highpop is bad but badger >20 pop is worse.

Isn't this obvious?

[Lo6a4evskiy]

>Here's a simple fact that shows that people prefer highpop anyway.
That would only be true if the servers were completely identical aside from mean population. They are not, so player preference cannot solely be attributed to mean population.

So? My point is, if people prefer server one even when it's high pop, let them. Why does it matter why exactly they prefer it? They still do. Forcing people to go to the server they wouldn't otherwise choose is fucking stupid.

[miggles]

I think liebniz nailed it. If you don't like the high population why are you not playing on badger, if it's true that high pop is really truly awful we would see the two servers populations moving towards equality and I've not really seen that.

Reality is that most people enjoy having more people because after all, people to people interactions is what the game is about, more people = more game.

because i want to play with around 50 people
not 70-100

[oranges]

Right, and it appears that the majority of players don't seem to share that opinion since the player numbers are not equalising, which is what I would expect if high pop was actually considered bad by the majority of players.

[Timbrewolf]

Summarize all this shit, but Miggles probably said it best.

It's not that people prefer an overcrowded station and LIKE being crammed in there, it's that they more strongly DISLIKE being on a station that feels empty.

We have the ability to even that out and give everyone a chance to play the game with the pace and population it was intended. No more of this forced grey-tide shit.
There's no reason not to do this.

If someone is going to threaten not to play if they can't play on the server they want because it's full...why should we care?
It's your choice between having some fun on the other server or not playing at all. If you seriously believe the whole game is ruined and no fun if you can't be in the room you want every time pls go.

Please go.

You're lying to yourself if you honestly think the game isn't markedly better when the number of people it's actually balanced for is playing. That sweet spot between 40 and 60 players.
We could be having that all the time on both servers. We could be eating cake 24/7.

[mrpain]

As someone who pretty much exclusively plays Sybil, I would be willing to give other maps and servers a try if they had a population of 40+. The only reason why I haven't really touched badger is the fact that the game is kind of frustrating and slow with lowpop rounds, and that just isnt a problem on Sybil.

[Aurx]

Then go play with your friend on the other server, obviously.

[paprika]

Violaceus just admitted to metagaming with his friend permaban when

[Steelpoint]

So instead of everyone in this thread proclaiming their viewpoint is the "correct' opinion, we instead just settle this and put Boxstation on Badger.

If we want to even out the two servers, you need to encourage people to want to play on the alternative server. Its far better to offer a identical server option instead of forcing people to move over.

Just like a long time ago, you get people hooked on Badger, then you swap the map's around when there is a established player base.

[Timbrewolf]

I don't understand how people can be so attached to one station layout that they refuse to play anywhere else.

You want randomly rotating layouts, there's your dice roll. Does the server have room? No? Guess I'm playing on the other one with the other station.

[Steelpoint]

It's clear something is keeping people off Badger and on Sybil, and I'm confident its the station. As I type there are 20 people on Badger and 85 people on Sybil. Whenever Sybil goes down and Badger get's a population boost, as soon as Sybil is back online people rapidly rejoin it.

I think the map is to blame, and I think that there is little to lose in pushing Boxstation onto Badger for the intrim to see if it effects its long term population. The server population can only go lower at this point, so there's no harm in at least trying to boost its pop.

[Aleph]

Noone plays on Badger because noone plays on Badger. I don't think people would be that anal if the maps would rotate, it's that no one wants to play on the empty server because of itself.

[Timbrewolf]

Noone plays on Badger because noone plays on Badger. I don't think people would be that anal if the maps would rotate, it's that no one wants to play on the empty server because of itself.

It's prettymuch just this.

It's a Catch 22 of people want to play the game with other people. If more people moved to Badger people would play on Badger, and it would be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

But because few people play on Badger, few people play on Badger.

[Grazyn]

Noone plays on Badger because noone plays on Badger. I don't think people would be that anal if the maps would rotate, it's that no one wants to play on the empty server because of itself.

It's prettymuch just this.

It's a Catch 22 of people want to play the game with other people. If more people moved to Badger people would play on Badger, and it would be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

But because few people play on Badger, few people play on Badger.

I suppose you were around 2 years ago when we used to have Sybil 1 and Sybil 2 both running the same map. Guess what, when Sybil 1 was overcrowded to the point of assistantfest people would spill to Sybil 2 and balance it out. IIRC the reason behind Sybil 2 was the population issue, and it wouldn't have worked if it had a different map. Now people would rather join as the 21st assistant on Sybil 1 than play on Badger, and I can't really blame them: the maps aren't nearly as polished as boxstation, e.g. on asteroidstation brig cells can't be used (all access windoors) and putting prisoners in the gulag is the same as releasing them.

As long as one server runs boxstation, if you really want people to play on the server with the poorly maintained map you'll have to force them with an assistantcap or playercap, don't expect them to move on their own. Or, you know, just run the same map on both servers and see if it works out.

[Riley]

Has Sibyl ever been anything but Box? I haven't seen it in my time.

I've seen server positions swapped, plenty of new maps tested on Badger, population spikes in either direction due to lag or crashes, but that's it. It's all half-baked.

If you want a conclusive answer as to whether it's the map or the server/community, pull the rug out from under people. A 2 or 3 day experiment with Box on Badger and Asteroid on Sibyl. If it's really just the map, we should be back to the status quo in a day or two as people log in to their server and figure out why their usual map is all different and then go where they prefer. If we don't hit the status quo, there's clearly something else at work.

[Timbrewolf]

Noone plays on Badger because noone plays on Badger. I don't think people would be that anal if the maps would rotate, it's that no one wants to play on the empty server because of itself.

It's prettymuch just this.

It's a Catch 22 of people want to play the game with other people. If more people moved to Badger people would play on Badger, and it would be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

But because few people play on Badger, few people play on Badger.

I suppose you were around 2 years ago when we used to have Sybil 1 and Sybil 2 both running the same map. Guess what, when Sybil 1 was overcrowded to the point of assistantfest people would spill to Sybil 2 and balance it out. IIRC the reason behind Sybil 2 was the population issue, and it wouldn't have worked if it had a different map. Now people would rather join as the 21st assistant on Sybil 1 than play on Badger, and I can't really blame them: the maps aren't nearly as polished as boxstation, e.g. on asteroidstation brig cells can't be used (all access windoors) and putting prisoners in the gulag is the same as releasing them.

As long as one server runs boxstation, if you really want people to play on the server with the poorly maintained map you'll have to force them with an assistantcap or playercap, don't expect them to move on their own. Or, you know, just run the same map on both servers and see if it works out.

What are you talking about?

At the time Sybil 1 was regarded the "pubbie" server and Sybil 2 was regarded as the "cool kids'" server.

Sybil 1 always had a higher pop of people who hated the circlejerk that happened on Sybil 2, or just went with the first server because it was first. The server wars were fucking awful even though both stations were exactly the same. When we ran a third server for a while sybil 2 split between people who stayed there and people who wanted to try to make an EVEN COOLER KIDS server on TLE's pet project. When that stopped being hosted most people returned to Sybil 2, and a few people just left entirely.

I could go on and talk about more server evolution and rivalries between them but come on man. If you were really active at the time you would know people from each server mostly hated the opposite server for the silliest reasons, that the population between the two was hardly ever balanced, etc. etc.

I adminned mostly on Sibyl 1 because it had a ton of pop but I was one of the few who did. I remember because I was constantly complaining about the spread of coverage. Sibyl 1 would have 50% more players and like, two trialmins and someone AFK while Sibyl 2 had 6 admins on (including the guy who was AFK on Sibyl 1, but playing on Sibyl 2).

It's at least true that we initially created Sibyl 2 to try to split the population 50/50 between the two servers but that never happened, because we never tried instituting an actual cap and making it happen. It's more or less exactly the same shit that happens now between Sibyl and Badger.

[Grazyn]

I was talking about peak hours, when overcrowding started to become a factor and outweighed the general dislike for Sybil 2 metajerk. I agree that during the day you had the same distribuiton we have now, but on peak hours you wouldn't see 100 players on Sybil 1 and 30 on Sybil 2. People would rather move to #2 (and suffer the circlejerk) than join the assistantfest, the exact opposite of what we have now.
Why?
Because you have 2 factors that prevent people from moving to a different server: a community they don't like, or a map they don't like. But while a community circlejerk is watered down by a population overflow from the overcrowded server, you still have the map issue.
That's why I think that the only way to solve this is to have the same map on both servers. Doesn't matter if it's boxstation or asteroidstation, as long as it's the same.

[Steelpoint]

Hence why I suggested we try putting Boxstation on both servers for a week or two and see what the population numbers are.

[Lo6a4evskiy]

I don't understand how people can be so attached to one station layout that they refuse to play anywhere else.

That doesn't give you the right to ignore opinions like that, now does it?

Hence why I suggested we try putting Boxstation on both servers for a week or two and see what the population numbers are.

I think this is probably the best solution for the time being. Frankly, splitting up community is never good anyway and it's obvious that map matters a great deal.

[leibniz]

I think the thing that could attract people to server 2 (whatever its called these days, maybe server 1) is a slightly different ruleset which is more focused on roleplay, more strict with griefing and murder, so a bit more similar to bay.
The badger regulars would probably like it, but I am not sure, they should comment on it.

[Steelpoint]

When I was in high school Drama there was one thing we were taught, "KISS". Keep it simple stupid.

Start small and swap out the maps first and see what effect that has before we start drafting up new rules and stuff.

[Lo6a4evskiy]

I think the thing that could attract people to server 2 (whatever its called these days, maybe server 1) is a slightly different ruleset which is more focused on roleplay, more strict with griefing and murder, so a bit more similar to bay.
The badger regulars would probably like it, but I am not sure, they should comment on it.

This will end up splitting community even more, which is bad.

[Lo6a4evskiy]

Frankly I don't understand how you can set up two different servers, and map is a HUGE deal in SS13, much more than in other games, and expect 50/50 ratio out of it.

Seriously, make them the same at least temporarily. Even if just to test what that will do.

Otherwise, don't expect things to improve. And placing a hard cap would be horrible, since it's apparent that people prefer one server over the other in the current state of things.

[Timbrewolf]

That doesn't give you the right to ignore opinions like that, now does it?

If people's reasoning for not wanting to help keep the game balanced between both servers is that self-centered, yeah I think we can ignore that.

There's little technical downside to putting a player cap on. The only opposition is this "me first!" type opinion.
It balances players so antag rounds have a more appropriate number of players.
It ensures fewer jobless assistants running around.
It ensures everyone has room to breathe as well as people to play the game with.
It breaks up metafriending circlejerks and introduces players to other players they might not otherwise meet.

The technical downside
Someone has to add the cap and test it to make sure it works. A counter on the main page showing how much room is left in each server would be nice too. Also I'd like a PS4 for Christmas that shit looks neat all my friends have one come on mom and dad.

[Lo6a4evskiy]

I'm yet to see you change your mind about anything, so I guess I'll save my breathe. Points were made, but I guess they're too self-centered.

[Timbrewolf]

"We are, all of us, creatures of habit, and when the seeeming necessity for schooling ourselves in new ways ceases to exist, we fall naturally and easily into the manner and customs which long usage has implanted ineradicably within us."

Even if it's less than optimal people will keep doing it because it's what they do and will bitch if you try to change it.

[Malkevin]

Experiment!
Swap the port numbers of the server around for two weeks.

See how many Sybil players end up connecting to Basil and staying because its now 1337 (but with metastation), or how many migrate to 2337 because of mah Box

[Timbrewolf]

I think a better experiment would be to put box on both stations and a playercap to see how this would actually work in practice than continuing to argue about our population theories.

[Steelpoint]

Keep It Simple Stupid.

Start with putting box on both servers, then we can go from there.

[Aleph]

Hell, I would play on asteroid more if the pop actually got to the recommended levels, like 40-60, but everyone plays on Sybil so I have to do the same

[leibniz]

I think the thing that could attract people to server 2 (whatever its called these days, maybe server 1) is a slightly different ruleset which is more focused on roleplay, more strict with griefing and murder, so a bit more similar to bay.
The badger regulars would probably like it, but I am not sure, they should comment on it.

This will end up splitting community even more, which is bad.

What if the community is already split?
For example, take a look at this:
https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=1761
Different players want different things. I can imagine that there are several people who would enjoy less murderbone, deeper roleplay, etc.
And maybe different rules could support that, but at the same time, they would make another part of the playerbase unhappy.

So you are right, it would be a split, and I am not saying it is what we should do, just wondering if people would actually like a slower server.

[Akkryls]

Hell, I would play on asteroid more if the pop actually got to the recommended levels, like 40-60, but everyone plays on Sybil so I have to do the same

Unfortunately this is what I've started to do too.

I used to be a staunch Badger/Basil player, but this was back when Metacide was still updating his map and we had a more reasonable player count on the server.
I play Sybil now because nothing fucking happens on server 2. And when something is happening, it's just admin events which are just artificially inflating the population.

Unfortunately I don't think there's any specific solution to fixing the problems. I mean you could put Basil/Badger (Whatever it's currently called) on the Byond homepage so people can join it via the pager, and that would probably boost the population, however at the expense of having John Doe and his hundred meta friends descend onto the server.

[mattroks101]

Noone plays on Badger because noone plays on Badger. I don't think people would be that anal if the maps would rotate, it's that no one wants to play on the empty server because of itself.

It's prettymuch just this.

It's a Catch 22 of people want to play the game with other people. If more people moved to Badger people would play on Badger, and it would be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

But because few people play on Badger, few people play on Badger.

This right here. I can confirm that. I've only played on Badger about once or twice, and then I never went back, simply because Sybil had more people playing on it. It's more fun with more people, and because Badger usually only has about 20-30 people on it, it's more empty and not as fun. I sadly can't think of a solution, but I know for sure that's at least one of the problems. If not THE problem.

[Reimoo]

Did someone already suggest a bigger map other than Metastation with more job slots?

[paprika]

The game is balanced around the current job slots. Rev, cult, nuke op, etc would all be thrown way the fuck off balance unless each game mode was recalculated to make up for an increased amount of players. I know there already -are- a higher number of players than 60 or whatever, but a lot of those are mostly assistants who don't really do anything anyway. More regular job slots = more sec = harder balance for antags, HoS can barely micromanage shit (queue one of 10 sec officers being kidnapped and looted without anyone noticing) and the same goes for additional heads.

Two servers is better. Change badger to box. Asteroid sucks. The servers should be almost perfectly identical because people on sybil won't change from sybil if it's not sybil with open job slots. People changed for like 2 days when it was switched to asteroid but that literally always happens when there's a big new thing on a server -- also because sybil went down a few times. We don't want a 'bigger' space station 13 server, we want an EMPIRE of space station 13 servers. That's like having a full 32 player tf2 server and saying 'lol let's just up the player count to 50, what could possibly go wrong?' Take notes from other games for this sort of thing, server hosts on other games are very successful because of proper server management and not arbitrary 'wow people really like our server let's not do anything about the fact that nobody wants to play on the second one but 10 regulars'

If people want to play on a different map, make a third server. Trying to jew people into playing metastation/etc by changing the server name, calling server two "SERVER 1" is not going to work, period. The excess 20 players every day on sybil when it's at 100+ players want SYBIL 2, not BADGER or BASIL. I recognize that there ARE people who want different maps, want something fresh, want a niche roleplayer server that's more lowpop, but the health of our server is suffering because we're catering to a serious minority. I'm not trying to shit on those people because I used to be one of them, but we're better off with a third server for them instead of trying to force sybil overflow to play nice with the small group of badger/basil people we have now.

[Timbrewolf]

When what I would call the "overflow" of one server nearly doubles the pop of the other server, it's a serious sign that something is wrong here.

We didn't initially create two servers to offer two unique flavors of /tg/station.
We created two servers to handle an exploding population of players.

And I hate to suggest it because I almost like the weird way the two servers have stabilized, the truth is never server is really operating like it's supposed to. One is underpopulated and one is overpopulated. We've got two plants: one plant is dying from getting too much water and the other is dying from not getting enough.

We need to split that resource between the two of them.

[Steelpoint]

How many times do I have to say this.

SWAP

BADGER

TO

BOXSTATION

Do that for a week or two and I bet you Badger's population will improve. Because at this point that's the only feasible thing we can do, as well as it BEING THE EASIEST THING WE CAN DO THAT TAKES LITTLE/NO EFFORT TO DO!

[paprika]

No the fucking shills for other maps will come out of the woodworks and say 'map swapping? OH PLS PUT THIS EPIC MAP ON THE SERVER' like they always do, completely ignoring the reason we wanted to switch badger's map in the first place

[ColonicAcid]

badgers population is fine.
15 players off peak time is plenty and we're improving each week peaktime wise.

box internet defence force pls go.

[dezzmont]

I specifically avoid badger because it is different. Even though Sibyl 1 and 2 had a very different culture I didn't actually avoid either because they were presented as the same thing.

While there is certainly some psychology in the difference between Badger and Sibyl, that may be the point. It is different. Its name is different, its map is different, and it is very open and in your face, which is exactly why the pops do not stay equalized after Sibyl comes back up. You can't act like the fact they are presented as seperate radically different entities doesn't play into the fact they are treated as different entities.

Also, as was pointed out: KISS, as well as use a methodology to judge the change. Do your best to zero the root problem after hypothesizing it. If the question is "Is this the anchoring bias or are people actually put off by the differences" you could have a simple 3 part test over the course of a month to figure it out, by first changing the name of Badger to Sibyl as well as the layout and waiting to see if the server population equalizes. You can then attempt to apply enforced server population ratios for two weeks, and see if that is enough to break the anchoring bias if a simple change didn't. And if once removed people start to treat the servers differently again you would need to go back to the drawing board to look for a new root cause.

[Wyzack]

Few things. Firstly boxstation is shit, and this opinion is not really that rare. Secondly, most badger players like where our population is at. Personally i dislike anything over 35. Switching it to boxstation just so that we can host the extra Sibyl players that you don't want seems like a real kick in the pants to badger regulars. The fact of the matter is that the two servers are different and have generally different playstyles. It seems like the only people who feel like badger has a population issue is people who don't play there. Cant we just leave well enough alone and not force boxstation on us?

[paprika]

Having an overflow of players is hurting sybil, our primary server, so fuck what you think okay? Server 2 culture is stupid as fuck.

[MMMiracles]

I think its more of an issue that theres a huge fucking cultural difference between server 1 and 2. Not just the map difference, but playstyle in general.

Sybil tends to be more fast paced due to the player population, which leads to people who like that playstyle going there. Badger tends to be slower paced due to the smaller player cap, which mean those who go there enjoy a smaller round with more arr-pee opportunities. Its been like that for awhile, even if both servers just started as 'server 1 and 2'.

The only option that wouldn't end in shitting on another group would involve optimizing sybil's map to suit the 60+ pop it usually gets, i.e. adding more roundstart slots and expanding the map to fit the population so it isn't 30+ graytide worldwide.

[Wyzack]

I know Paprka is always a dick as is in his nature, but is this what the people in charge feel too? Server 2 can only exist as it is for as long as our space is not useful to the server 1 crowd? Because right now we hit 30ish players consistently at peak times and things are pretty great. Cocking the whole deal up for the benefit of the people who play on server 1 seems like bullshit