Policy Discussion Fire Round: Disable all latejoin and midround progression antagonists from Dynamic

[Armhulen]

Real quick way you can massively improve dynamic, headmins! Disable any antagonist that has progression mechanics from midrounds and latejoins. Dynamic rounds where all the latejoins and midrounds turn out to be progression antags end up being a wet fart. They work great when the round starts with them, let's see more of those static antagonists like lings, pirates, dragons, blobs, nukies, revs, wizards, and all the other things that are not impacted by when they join the round.

Super easy change. Guaranteed to improve the game or your money back.

[BeeSting12]

I don't have anything to contribute other than 100% agreement with this post.

[Indie-ana Jones]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't sleeper agent Dynamic's fallback when it chooses not to pick anything else? Doesn't that make it pretty much impossible to stop them?

Also, in conjunction with this change, you probably would want to up the starting threat values and lower the midround ones. If you don't I reckon the game would just swamp you with ghost role antags while giving little to nothing roundstart as it does currently, and I don't think that'd be terribly fun. Regardless, the changes would need to be tested and iterated upon, I doubt it would be perfect first try.

[Armhulen]

Smart! Yes, I'd make those adjustments too.

[saprasam]

midround traitor & heretic end up doing very little due to both a combination of being gimped by joining late, and progtots doing objectives for the next 15 minutes which accomplish literally nothing

[Archie700]

Keep progtot, they can do the static objectives just fine and are at least more free to do what they want in LRP.
Remove revs in exchange, just an annoyance to suddenly have the shuttle no leave because revolutionaries have spawned and we already have a more visible antagonist in blob.

[Jacquerel]

Progression traitors get a reputation gain bonus to “catch up” faster if they’re midround but I do honestly wonder if, as the function of rep is just a round time gate, they should always simply start with as much rep as they would have had if they were here at the start of the round.
That’s really more code than policy though.

[NecromancerAnne]

I'm gonna agree with goof on discord, honestly. If you want more static antagonists for midrounds, why not the old, static version of traitor in the midround? It is inherently delayed by dynamic, and has the downside of not being able to increase its TC AND unable to achieve a final objective.

[TheRex9001]

I'm gonna agree with goof on discord, honestly. If you want more static antagonists for midrounds, why not the old, static version of traitor in the midround? It is inherently delayed by dynamic, and has the downside of not being able to increase its TC AND unable to achieve a final objective.

Gonna agree with this as well, there is no reason not to have the old traitor in the midround, its a static threat and can be quite the shake up

[Pandarsenic]

YES

GOD YES

OLD TRAITOR COME BACK AS A MIDROUND PLEASE

[Armhulen]

I'm gonna agree with goof on discord, honestly. If you want more static antagonists for midrounds, why not the old, static version of traitor in the midround? It is inherently delayed by dynamic, and has the downside of not being able to increase its TC AND unable to achieve a final objective.

Because that's not policy, that's code, and it's not me you have to convince that that's a good idea, it's other maintainers

[NecromancerAnne]

Well if that's off the tables, then no, I would prefer the status quo. I think what you're suggesting is these rolls are resulting in less appearances of bigger threats, which I think is short-sighted in how increasing the frequency of these threats simultaneously could be quite exhausting to the players having to experience them.

I don't even agree with the assessment that prog antags only result in low impact rounds. Dynamic injects a high impact threat almost every round, and even the ones with only prog antags, if they happen at all, are fine. I think they keep rounds from devolving too often into slogs with little to expect beyond the big name threats that will show up if threat isn't being spent more on the lower impact antagonists. A change like this may as well be pushing those roundstart antagonists into the bin by the time they're actually ramping up.

I'd caution being too enthusiastic about inserting too many major threats. It might overwhelm players to the point of giving up on playing out a round. I know I've checked out a few times when dynamic has chosen to throw so many threats at once it has devolved into a tdm between all of them trying to end the round. I'm not even able to do anything but wait to see which one succeeds. It sucks, because it is detached from what proceeded it and who were already building up the round to where it was.

[Misdoubtful]

Part of me would really like to try this out for a week or two just to see how it plays out! Its interesting to have data to be able to consider about these things.

In the early days Mothblocks made a simulator for threat and I was working on and had to set aside a simulator for what specific threats would roll.

[Indie-ana Jones]

Also, why do you guys think that latejoin progtot is any different from old traitor aside from having side objectives to do for more TC? You're usually at the reputation cap by the time you get it and once that hurdle is past, the only difference between traitor and progtot is stuff like the contractor kit (which I know does matter to a lot of people).

That being said, I disagree with Anne on this one. Practically every round I join on Sybil nowadays, is just a mix of traitors and heretics who don't do anything at all other than get hit once by a baton and then arrested. It feels like I'm playing greenshift over and over unless Dynamic picks something else. By the time Dynamic starts rolling out the big threats from the heavy midround category, the crew has already called or will immediately call the shuttle to avoid the threat entirely. As someone who plays SS13 for the crisis simulator aspect of things going wrong, its been very stale.

[Pandarsenic]

It sounds like you're seeing a lot of Traitors who are rep-gated from buying the E-bow and thus have few answers to the Funny Baton Time

[Armhulen]

Sounds like a code change which again we can't change in a policy discussion thread...

[Vekter]

The only concern I have here is that it might result in things like rounds that have two blobs or two space dragons. That's never fun.

[BrianBackslide]

Double blob actually makes it a threat. Not really a bad problem, per se. Double dragon could be a problem, though. There might not be enough diversity in the antag pool to make this work.

I'd love to see classic tots come back as midrounds so they aren't forced to play catch up with the rest of the station, but I realize the futility of trying to make maintainers see reason.

[The Wrench]

The only problem with readding old traitor, would be that it would double the amount of maintenance that traitor requires. It would pretty much double the amount of work required to add things to the game. The maintainers as the people who actually have to maintain the code have a right to not arbitrarily double their workload FNR.

Best solution here would be to learn to cope with biddle and maybe with time love it.

[Jacquerel]

It would actually probably be pretty easy in code to add the capability to spawn a traitor with all of the progression mechanics disabled and wouldn't add a particularly huge amount of maintenance debt (it's just turning stuff off)
If what you meant was "a traitor who doesn't have reputation timelocks at all" then that's not going to happen anyway

[Farquaar]

The only problem with readding old traitor, would be that it would double the amount of maintenance that traitor requires. It would pretty much double the amount of work required to add things to the game. The maintainers as the people who actually have to maintain the code have a right to not arbitrarily double their workload FNR.

We could compensate for the doubling of maintenance by readding old traitor by subsequently halving it by removing the prog traitor mechanic.

[The Wrench]

The only problem with readding old traitor, would be that it would double the amount of maintenance that traitor requires. It would pretty much double the amount of work required to add things to the game. The maintainers as the people who actually have to maintain the code have a right to not arbitrarily double their workload FNR.

We could compensate for the doubling of maintenance by readding old traitor by subsequently halving it by removing the prog traitor mechanic.

Unfortunately, progression mechanics aren’t going anywhere because people can’t be trusted to not bomb medbay shift start

[Farquaar]

The only problem with readding old traitor, would be that it would double the amount of maintenance that traitor requires. It would pretty much double the amount of work required to add things to the game. The maintainers as the people who actually have to maintain the code have a right to not arbitrarily double their workload FNR.

We could compensate for the doubling of maintenance by readding old traitor by subsequently halving it by removing the prog traitor mechanic.

Unfortunately, progression mechanics aren’t going anywhere because people can’t be trusted to not bomb medbay shift start

Nothing wrong with a shiftstart department bombing every now and then. It changes the texture of the round.

[Pandarsenic]

Every problem with shiftstart medical bombs is actually a problem with Engineers who are too unskilled to fix the department.

[Farquaar]

Every problem with shiftstart medical bombs is actually a problem with Engineers who are too unskilled to fix the department.

Partially a skill issue, partially a code issue in my view. Something to speed up repiping of atmos and rewiring of electricity could improve rebuilding times. Speed up the busywork so engineers can have more fun with layouts, machinery, decorations etc.

Still, I love the idea that engineers, if they put their mind to it, get a whole round to redesign a department from the ground up every so often. Secure tech storage exists, in part, for this very reason.

[Armhulen]

Every problem with shiftstart medical bombs is actually a problem with Engineers who are too unskilled to fix the department.

And the fact that, when progression traitors was PR'd, medical bombing to restart the round was incredibly common. Don't like the map? medbay bomb. Got arrested really early on? Wait the sentence, medbay bomb. Shits and giggles? Medbay bomb. It is fun to bomb medbay! It really is, but the station just never comes back from it if it happens in the first 5 minutes. There's no time for anyone to be ready to react to it either, and the round is henceforth tainted

[Striders13]

I mean syndie bombs already got nerfed in addition to being rep-locked. So uh, whatever?
Crew probably has a better chance now that antag bombs are terrible for bombing and it's better to use a ttv.

[Not-Dorsidarf]

Every problem with shiftstart medical bombs is actually a problem with Engineers who are too unskilled to fix the department.

If construction wasn't becoming ever more complicated, time consuming, and resource intensive while the amount of resources available to the crew stays the same or down, engineers might bother to do more than throw a breach grenade into departmental craters to stop the air leaking out while the shuttle arrives.

[datorangebottle]

Every problem with shiftstart medical bombs is actually a problem with Engineers who are too unskilled to fix the department.

You're wrong here.
Is there a problem with engineers not wanting to or not knowing how to repair the station? Sure. It's absolutely not the only factor in the shuttle getting called whenever an explosion happens.
There's actually a problem with the shuttle getting called out from under them even when they do want to fix the station, because there are 7+ non-engineering people with shuttle access and any one of them can get the shuttle called, with five of them being especially effective at stopping the CE from recalling it.
I stopped playing engineer because whenever I started putting in effort to repair something, the shuttle invariably got called.

[Pandarsenic]

Every problem with shiftstart medical bombs is actually a problem with Engineers who are too unskilled to fix the department.

You're wrong here.
Is there a problem with engineers not wanting to or not knowing how to repair the station? Sure. It's absolutely not the only factor in the shuttle getting called whenever an explosion happens.
There's actually a problem with the shuttle getting called out from under them even when they do want to fix the station, because there are 7+ non-engineering people with shuttle access and any one of them can get the shuttle called, with five of them being especially effective at stopping the CE from recalling it.
I stopped playing engineer because whenever I started putting in effort to repair something, the shuttle invariably got called.

That is... painfully relatable, I suppose. There's nothing worse than the shuttle getting called and yelling that you're halfway done fixing things and still seeing it creep past the no-return mark just before (or after) you finish.

[Not-Dorsidarf]

Every problem with shiftstart medical bombs is actually a problem with Engineers who are too unskilled to fix the department.

You're wrong here.
Is there a problem with engineers not wanting to or not knowing how to repair the station? Sure. It's absolutely not the only factor in the shuttle getting called whenever an explosion happens.
There's actually a problem with the shuttle getting called out from under them even when they do want to fix the station, because there are 7+ non-engineering people with shuttle access and any one of them can get the shuttle called, with five of them being especially effective at stopping the CE from recalling it.
I stopped playing engineer because whenever I started putting in effort to repair something, the shuttle invariably got called.

I guess the corollary is that the other 40-60 players on the station are rarely interested in waiting twenty minutes or more in a badly damaged dangerous place, unable to do their jobs or walk around the station due to firelock hell, just to see if engineering can sort of fix things, which they usually can't or won't anyway.

[CMDR_Gungnir]

I wouldn't want to see this without some better midround/latejoin options. Dragons and Blobs will end up being the most common and they're both round-enders (in different ways) that require All Hands On Deck.

One of the big issues with Detective right now is that things are quiet for a while, and you start your investigation, but before you ever get the chance to finish said investigation, UH OH! There's a big roundending threat now!!! The big roundending threat that the Traitors and Heretics use to do their crime during because people are distracted, but the Det needs to be helping deal with them and thus doesn't get the opportunity to investigate. Then by the time it's over, that tot's ready to Final Objective, and the Heretic is halfway done with grabbing his bodies for ascension.

I've always been a firm believer that most of the focus should be on Human(oid) vs Human(oid). I don't mind Nukies, or Wizards, but blobs and dragons shouldn't be as common as they are (and even more so, would be with this change).

These are all (mostly) separate points.

[vect0r]

I think that we shouldn't disable humanoids from midrounds, but we should replace the progs with non progs, like ling and- ohh wait, that's our ONLY non prog crew antag, other then likes revs. I feel like that is something that might need some change.

[Timberpoes]

We'll be trialling this one basically just to allow anyone interested to do research, gather feedback and anecdotes and generally see what impact a greater focus on non-progressive antags as midrounds and beyond has.

I've reached out to Mothblocks to help set up the config for this and they've agreed to help out. There may be a few little issues to iron out, but this policy discussion will be updated when the change goes live and people will be able to provide their feedback and experiences from there.

To be clear, this is probably never going to turn into a permanent change even if it's universally adored and the current status quo is universally behated (I made this word up) - but the objective and subjective data that any interested parties gather during this trial run will definitely inform future decisions.

[CMDR_Gungnir]

So what things are left, as far as Crew-based midround and latejoin antags are concerned? Just Changeling? Both Heretic and Traitor would be considered 'progression'.

[MooCow12]

Late joining / sleeper antags tend to already be at a disadvantage to begin with regardless of their antag currency/progression getting a boost since for the next 5-10 minutes youll need to complete a checklist of tools to be even be able to start antagging.


>better access and / or tools
>a weapon/stun item (even traitors need nonsyndie gear)

>heretics have to find a safe place to put their runes

changelings skip these two
>some way to deal with wounds
>some way to recover health (steal medkit from medbay)

changelings are by far the best late join since ontop of their scaling being horrible (absorptions only give them more blocks on their shield which nobody uses because it doesnt mean jack against batons) they dont have to deal with the medical system and therefore dont have to prepare for it.


late malf ais are also really unfun, recently i was playing as a borg and my ai became malf as the shuttle was docking so we couldnt even do anything
malf ai has to spend several minutes hacking apcs
while borgs spend several minutes trying to get upgrades or set up the sat or make sure apcs are safe to hack (again so the ai can scale over time which they dont get much of to begin with)

[sinfulbliss]

After getting a lot of midrounds recently I think the real issue is with progtot midround as opposed to heretic midround. Heretic midround you can come in at the 45 minute mark on LRP, and still do sacs and ascend after 30 min or so.

But progtot’ rep system is really brutal against midrounds, ordinarily it takes 20-30 min for a progtot to progress enough to unlock their full kit, and unlike heretic once they’ve finally done this it’s not like they’re an unstoppable ascended Lord of the Night, they’re just a dude with their uplink unlocked. It takes time to actually do something with the kit you’ve spent time unlocking, time which you no longer have as a midround tot. Funnily enough I’ve found traitor midround best on deadpop skeleton shifts where they can latejoin and still have an hour to do stuff, or sleeper agent which is always gonna be fun since you switch from good guy to bad guy.

[GPeckman]

I'd say latejoin heretic is worse, because if any heretics spawned before you then all the easily accessible heretic rifts will already be taken, and because heretics get a research point for free every 20 minutes, but late joiners IIRC don't get points for time passed before they joined. So latejoin heretics have to sacrifice people to get any points, but they have to do so with almost none of the heretic toolkit except the funny hand and heretic blades.

[BrianBackslide]

The duality of man.

Both progtags are weak by design, so it's no wonder that the problem gets exacerbated when they're a midround. IMO, largely their performance is going to depend on how the round's threats have softened up the crew or not. Even "classic" traitors still got stopped plenty often by sec and crew alike.

[TheBibleMelts]

word from the ocelot is that nobody had the know-how to do this easily and the original creator of the thread has since retired to shady acres, so i'm shuffling this off until someone wants to reignite it.