Limit sybil to only metastation/icebox/tramstation

[TheLoLSwat]

Sybil is cooked



it wouldnt hurt to try things to make sybil not-as-cooked and I dont think theres a better place to start than map rotation. It doesnt have to be these hard 3 maps but any shakeup would be welcome

[DrAmazing343]

It would be valuable to look at the most pop dippy maps/times of day and try to draw correlations.

[PapaMichael]

It would be valuable to look at the most pop dippy maps/times of day and try to draw correlations.

MSO crunched that and there was zero perceptible correlation

[TheRex9001]

I don't really think this is within the administrative teams rights, I'm worried that this will just be burning a bridge between the mappers and admins. Gather some more data on map drops I guess but ultimately I think map rotation should be left to the maintainer team.

[TheRex9001]

Data for Sybil:

[Jacquerel]

I simply do not believe that any maps are at fault for pop loss, every time we've consulted our population metrics vs maps it has not born out this assumption

[DrAmazing343]

It would be valuable to look at the most pop dippy maps/times of day and try to draw correlations.

MSO crunched that and there was zero perceptible correlation

Good info, thank you for the link.

If the data says there’s no perceptible correlation, I’m in agreement with Rex that this burns bridges needlessly.

[iwishforducks]

Data for Sybil:
Screenshot 2024-05-05 215119.png

how is this even measured? is it connections? does pop count observing players? does it count people who dc?

i know for a fact sometimes i’ve logged off because i didnt feel like playing the next map. or maybe i connect to the server, see the map, and leave.

perhaps people leave after they play on a map they dont like too. i know that sometimes i’ll play a map i dislike and it burns me out for the night.

perhaps these maps end up hurting the overall population. maybe it only truly affects the players that play multiple rounds a day, whom end up having to play said map which causes them to shorten their sessions.

i dont know, this data doesnt tell the whole story and im kind of tired that people are using this as a stopping point rather than a talking point. there’s clearly more to the story than just numbers on a graph

[Vekter]

No.

[TheRex9001]

Data for Sybil:
Screenshot 2024-05-05 215119.png

how is this even measured? is it connections? does pop count observing players? does it count people who dc?

i know for a fact sometimes i’ve logged off because i didnt feel like playing the next map. or maybe i connect to the server, see the map, and leave.

perhaps people leave after they play on a map they dont like too. i know that sometimes i’ll play a map i dislike and it burns me out for the night.

perhaps these maps end up hurting the overall population. maybe it only truly affects the players that play multiple rounds a day, whom end up having to play said map which causes them to shorten their sessions.

i dont know, this data doesnt tell the whole story and im kind of tired that people are using this as a stopping point rather than a talking point. there’s clearly more to the story than just numbers on a graph

Im not sure how its measured, but I’m sure MSO would be open to disclose. In any case I still think these are arguements that should be brought to the maintainers and not headmins because its the former who actually chooses what maps are/arent in rotation.

[Vekter]

In any case I still think these are arguements that should be brought to the maintainers and not headmins because its the former who actually chooses what maps are/arent in rotation.

Technically, whatever map rotation each server uses is in config, so headmins could change it if they want to. They won't, though, because:

1) There's a generally accepted agreement that the maintainers/maptainers have say on what maps are played on the server and changing that without their input will cause unnecessary drama.
2) The headmins are not likely to magically just decide that it's okay to have only one server run a specific set of maps when we've not done that for the last eight years (as far as I'm aware) and the statistics are not showing that most people have an issue with these maps.
3) MSO is not going to let them because of point #1 and also because MSO wants the map rotation to be divided between the maps so they all get some playtime/feedback to improve them.

From a more personal standpoint, as someone who's been in the community for off and on over around twelve years, the community has always complained about one map or another. There are many players who only want the servers to run a single map because they don't like the others and, while many of them have fair points as to issues with those maps, they don't seem to understand that the point of making people play them is to help resolve legitimate issues with those maps. There's always going to be people who don't like maps like Icebox and Birdshot because they don't like The Vibes, but when it comes to actual, tangible criticism, the only way to actually gather that and see if the problems have been fixed is to make people play the maps.

There's not going to be a compromise on this any time soon - the maintainers have been very clear that they do not want players to be able to directly pick and choose what maps they play for the above reasons. If you don't like a map, switch servers and play on another one until it's gone, otherwise you're kind of out of luck.

I personally don't see any issue with any of the maps that make them completely and totally unplayable and haven't heard any criticism that has changed my mind on them. They're fine. Some people have valid criticism, others just like to complain and would probably do so if we only had one map anyway.

As far as concerns regarding Sybil not being populated, Sybil and Basil kind of go back and forth on population every so often - Sybil used to be the less populated of the two. I'd also be interested in seeing what the stats were around this season last year, because I recall this conversation coming up from time to time and I think it's just because of school obligations as the school year winds down.

[TheSmallBlue]

Why is Delta not on this list. What did Delta do to you.

[MooCow12]

Just hold off for a week or two, this is a really busy time for young adults in america which is likely the largest demographic that sybil is made of.

Semester is at its end, exams and tests and projects are being shoved down our throats.

[iwishforducks]

In any case I still think these are arguements that should be brought to the maintainers and not headmins because its the former who actually chooses what maps are/arent in rotation.

i agree

[BonChoi]

I think, in a more general sweep, that I would support more drastic measures being taken by the headmin team / MSO to try and salvage some of Sybil's pop. Maybe not limiting the maps as a start, but other things as well.

Yes, it's true that it's a busy time for a lot of SS13 players but I really think that US LRP is in a bad, bad state right now.

[PKPenguin321]

Seems apt to put something like this to a poll

[TheBibleMelts]

just try it for a couple weeks, and then check the data that comes out of that. nothing to lose.

[NecromancerAnne]

Since the data available does not suggest there is even a correlation between population and the map currently up on the server, what benefit is there to limiting sybil's rotation? Why these three particular maps to begin with?

There is no prospect of anything meaningful being accomplished by doing this, so I see no value in capitulating to the people already convinced these maps are somehow objectively inferior. Which I imagine is what informed this thread in the first place. It's even funny to see icebox in this shortlist given only a few years ago we had the chapel suicide incident based on these same reasons.

[Indie-ana Jones]

Just remove Birdshot from sybil rotation or remove weighted voting. Players (the ones who actually play on the map) have shown great discontent with both of these additions, so maybe appealing to them somehow might actually help the situation? Crazy, I know, but surely it's better than a server with like 7 people on it at most.

[Vekter]

Just remove Birdshot from sybil rotation or remove weighted voting. Players (the ones who actually play on the map) have shown great discontent with both of these additions, so maybe appealing to them somehow might actually help the situation? Crazy, I know, but surely it's better than a server with like 7 people on it at most.

Two months later: "Just remove Northstar from sybil rotation. Players (the ones who actually play on the map) have shown great discontent with this addition, so maybe appealing to them somehow might actually help the situation? Crazy, I know, but surely it's better than a server with like 7 people on it at most."

Two months after that: "Just remove Icebox from sybil rotation. Players (the ones who actually play on the map) have shown great discontent with this addition, so maybe appealing to them somehow might actually help the situation? Crazy, I know, but surely it's better than a server with like 7 people on it at most."

Etc. etc.

[iwishforducks]

that is the dumbest slippery slope i have read in a while man. come on.

[Indie-ana Jones]

It's been almost or over a year dude, I'm surprised you don't remember but we've removed maps in the past for being unpopular (Birdboat being one of them!). Unlike Tram, I don't think Birdshots going to get a massive overhaul that changes the overall public opinion anytime soon.

Also, just curious, but if you had to pick between 3-pop Sybil and disabling Birdshot on Sybil, which would you pick?

[Jacquerel]

I mean maybe once you do it and it makes no difference people will stop suggesting it, but even typing that out I'm thinking "that doesn't sound like our players at all"

[Indie-ana Jones]

What players

[Vekter]

It's been almost or over a year dude, I'm surprised you don't remember but we've removed maps in the past for being unpopular (Birdboat being one of them!). Unlike Tram, I don't think Birdshots going to get a massive overhaul that changes the overall public opinion anytime soon.

Also, just curious, but if you had to pick between 3-pop Sybil and disabling Birdshot on Sybil, which would you pick?

3-pop Sybil because the maps aren't the issue, the issue is that players refuse to report problems with other players and instead either just bail on the game entirely when the 30th idiot in a grey jumpsuit has broken into their department this week or they go to MRP.

It's curious that only Sybil is having these issues when Manuel still pushes pop cap almost every day. Both servers share the same map rotation. Could it be that this is less about actual concern with the low pop numbers on Sybil and more trying to push to get maps you don't like removed because you think it's a good opportunity?

that is the dumbest slippery slope i have read in a while man. come on.

If there were two maps and one was Metastation and the other was "Metastation with a single tile changed", people would still start wars over which one was better. I have been in this community for ages now, probably longer than anyone else in this thread. I can tell you right now that the complaining about us moving from Box to Meta was insane, and now today everyone considers Meta to be our best map. Bitching about maps is a /tg/ national pastime, and I don't think you fix it by doing anything but running a single map (which sucks because it's boring).

[iwishforducks]

that is the dumbest slippery slope i have read in a while man. come on.

If there were two maps and one was Metastation and the other was "Metastation with a single tile changed", people would still start wars over which one was better. I have been in this community for ages now, probably longer than anyone else in this thread. I can tell you right now that the complaining about us moving from Box to Meta was insane, and now today everyone considers Meta to be our best map. Bitching about maps is a /tg/ national pastime, and I don't think you fix it by doing anything but running a single map (which sucks because it's boring).

i dont necessarily disagree that players can sometimes be really resistant to change. but i think you're making this way too much about an "us vs them" for little to no reason. birdshot is just not a fun map.

[TheSmallBlue]

I don't think it's that serious. Aren't these exam weeks in the US?

[Not-Dorsidarf]

Birdshot is the worst map in rotation. I don't think that statement should be remotely controversial. It isnt OMGWTFBBQSUXXORS like ooc crybabies scream, its just not as good to play on as any of our other maps.

Removing it from rotation is unlikely to do anything to pop though, I'm pretty sure thats just a seasonal thing combined with the "once pop hits critically low levels people stop joining the server at all" aspect

[Vekter]

Birdshot is the worst map in rotation. I don't think that statement should be remotely controversial. It isnt OMGWTFBBQSUXXORS like ooc crybabies scream, its just not as good to play on as any of our other maps.

Removing it from rotation is unlikely to do anything to pop though, I'm pretty sure thats just a seasonal thing combined with the "once pop hits critically low levels people stop joining the server at all" aspect

Right, but there has to be a worst map. Is the issue that the map is significantly worse than what's already there or is it that it's the worst map by virtue of one map having to be the worst if we're ranking them all?

i dont necessarily disagree that players can sometimes be really resistant to change. but i think you're making this way too much about an "us vs them" for little to no reason. birdshot is just not a fun map.

Ducks I'm going to level with you: The constant whining about map quality is getting old. It was old three years ago when people bitched about Kilo constantly, it's old now. I would appreciate if people would just enjoy what we have and help give feedback to the map creators who are working on maps they don't like instead of making everything out to be "This map is killing /tg/". It's not "us vs them", it's "can we move past bitching for the sake of bitching and work with what we have".

[Not-Dorsidarf]

Birdshot is the worst map in rotation. I don't think that statement should be remotely controversial. It isnt OMGWTFBBQSUXXORS like ooc crybabies scream, its just not as good to play on as any of our other maps.

Removing it from rotation is unlikely to do anything to pop though, I'm pretty sure thats just a seasonal thing combined with the "once pop hits critically low levels people stop joining the server at all" aspect

Right, but there has to be a worst map. Is the issue that the map is significantly worse than what's already there or is it that it's the worst map by virtue of one map having to be the worst if we're ranking them all?

I think its significantly worse in that it doesn't have anything going for it. All the other controversial maps have something to like. Norfstar has a very unusual ship theme and layout with masses of Z-level play, stairs, ladders, and elevators everywhere. Icebox is a planetstation with Z-level play, the only good general-pop prison, and has unique mining content. Tram has the pedestrian killer 3000. Birdshot is just... a slightly small station with a lot of bad design work.

I think that a map whose gimmick is being "a bit crap on purpose" like birdshot or tram has to have something going for it too, or else all people will remember is that its not as much fun to play on as [favorite map].

[Vekter]

I think its significantly worse in that it doesn't have anything going for it. All the other controversial maps have something to like. Norfstar has a very unusual ship theme and layout with masses of Z-level play, stairs, ladders, and elevators everywhere. Icebox is a planetstation with Z-level play, the only good general-pop prison, and has unique mining content. Tram has the pedestrian killer 3000. Birdshot is just... a slightly small station with a lot of bad design work.

I think that a map whose gimmick is being "a bit crap on purpose" like birdshot or tram has to have something going for it too, or else all people will remember is that its not as much fun to play on as [favorite map].

I'm always confused by this, because I hear people talk about playing on Birdshot like they don't think it's interesting or cool to play on this broken piece of shit station that Nanotrasen has just completely stopped putting money into. I genuinely feel like somehow something is wrong with me at this point.

[Indie-ana Jones]

I'm always confused by this, because I hear people talk about playing on Birdshot like they don't think it's interesting or cool to play on this broken piece of shit station that Nanotrasen has just completely stopped putting money into. I genuinely feel like somehow something is wrong with me at this point.

The way I see it, there's an interesting way and a not-so-interesting way to do that kind of station. Ideally, it should come with opportunities the other maps don't have in the form of exploitable infrastructure, in such a way that an antagonist or the like can incorporate the design flaws into their plans in order to tell a fun story that wouldn't be possible on other maps.

While Birdshot visually looks run down, it doesn't really factor into how you play on the map at all as its pretty much just a visual thing. What matters much more is Birdshot's incredibly obtuse layout and lack of resources available on other maps, which negatively affects everyone and essentially just serves to slow down and annoy as opposed to change things up in an interesting way. The only thing people can really make an interesting scenario out of is the exposed Medbday, and usually that just entails parking the nukie ship right next to it and watching everyone inside get shot to death.

I would say the current implementation of Birdshot is more comparable to pre-rework Tram, where the goal of its design its primarily meant to annoy players. Like Birdshot today, Tram was rightfully criticized when it released because its primary design was to be annoying and it didn't really add anything interesting (the tram used to be way more buggy and much, much slower). After its massive rework, the issues of the map were rectified and its now regarded much better by the playerbase, since the tram got made into an actually usable means of transport and alternative means of getting around were also added.

[Vekter]

The only thing people can really make an interesting scenario out of is the exposed Medbday, and usually that just entails parking the nukie ship right next to it and watching everyone inside get shot to death.

Off-topic but this sounds rad as fuck

[Indie-ana Jones]

Off-topic but this sounds rad as fuck

Credit where credit is due, it is indeed rad as fuck.

[Not-Dorsidarf]

I think its significantly worse in that it doesn't have anything going for it. All the other controversial maps have something to like. Norfstar has a very unusual ship theme and layout with masses of Z-level play, stairs, ladders, and elevators everywhere. Icebox is a planetstation with Z-level play, the only good general-pop prison, and has unique mining content. Tram has the pedestrian killer 3000. Birdshot is just... a slightly small station with a lot of bad design work.

I think that a map whose gimmick is being "a bit crap on purpose" like birdshot or tram has to have something going for it too, or else all people will remember is that its not as much fun to play on as [favorite map].

I'm always confused by this, because I hear people talk about playing on Birdshot like they don't think it's interesting or cool to play on this broken piece of shit station that Nanotrasen has just completely stopped putting money into. I genuinely feel like somehow something is wrong with me at this point.

I think if Birdshot wants to play the shitty station angle as its only option, it doesn't go nearly far enough. Oh, theres some trashed corners in the service zone, and thats about it beyond awkward layout and the weird space pod medbay that gets destroyed every other round and then nobody can get medicine so they call the shuttle immediately. If Tram's shitty-station gimmick was just "we have a really really long and wide central hallway that connects everything" instead of the murderous tram, I think I'd place it in the same "uninterestingly bad" bin.

[Omega_DarkPotato]

I'm always confused by this, because I hear people talk about playing on Birdshot like they don't think it's interesting or cool to play on this broken piece of shit station that Nanotrasen has just completely stopped putting money into. I genuinely feel like somehow something is wrong with me at this point.

The problem is that "broken piece of shit" eventually just gets the same sort of handling on how to fix it- especially since as Dorsi points out this isn't "interestingly bad" with design choices that are exploitable by antagonists or particularly goofy crew, but rather more of boringly-bad with just extra chore work you have to do to make the map feel usable or enjoyable to work in.

Nukie ship parking in medbay to kill everyone inside is neat, but that's kind of it, and it works with exactly one antagonist type. Everyone else all gets to experience The Suck on a map that's akin to a bad villain: not even fun to hate.

[MooCow12]

Another "design flaw" that people can play around on birdshot is the ai sat is very close to several areas on the station meanwhile meta,delta,tram,icebox, and even northstar only have 1 or 2 places you can build a launchpad that can reach the ai sat and teleport directly onto its core and instakill it.

This isnt a small thing it changes the entire dynamic of playing ai to having to worry about launchpads and even wanting your borgs to put you in a disposal loop just incase someone builds one because of such a large area you have to deny
a pad being built in, and some of that area is in bridge maintenance where its going to be difficult to cover..



The lack of roundstart resources also means uh...fuck you if there are warops, you pretty much HAVE to buy BYOS for the matts.

[oranges]

[PKPenguin321]

to be fair "the data" would be a lot more convincing if you ran the experiment suggested by this thread and actually did just run one map for a while, then you could say "hey we did that and it didnt do anything"

[Vekter]

to be fair "the data" would be a lot more convincing if you ran the experiment suggested by this thread and actually did just run one map for a while, then you could say "hey we did that and it didnt do anything"

I feel like the people who want that done are kind of hoping that maintainers will just go "eh it didn't work" and leave it like that because they don't give enough of a shit.

There's not really any point in running your experiment anyway because we already have data that says it's not related to the maps.

[PKPenguin321]

yeah but it would sure shut everyone up on this topic wouldnt it

[NecromancerAnne]

Who gives a shit what they think, they're wrong.

[iwishforducks]

there are way too many variables to draw any kind of conclusions from population change and maps

[PKPenguin321]

Who gives a shit what they think, they're wrong.

right and it would prove that and shut them up

[Jacquerel]

Who gives a shit what they think, they're wrong.

right and it would prove that and shut them up

but we already have data to prove them wrong and they don't shut up, why would we assume more data would help?

[PKPenguin321]

because it would be a distinct controlled experiment with no frills that's easy to understand and impossible to ignore or dismiss as opposed to extrapolations from historical data that are unwieldy and arguably don't account for other factors

[Vekter]

because it would be a distinct controlled experiment with no frills that's easy to understand and impossible to ignore or dismiss as opposed to extrapolations from historical data that are unwieldy and arguably don't account for other factors

You can feel free to insult me for this, but I don't really think the correct solution to "people unironically suggesting we remove maps from a server because they're butthurt about those maps" is to do what they ask us to do.

[dendydoom]

we account for things like pop changes between rounds, but the factor i'm most interested in (which i'm not sure we account for or if you can even extrapolate it from the existing data) is whether or not seeing a map other than one of these on the lobby screen, compounded with low population, makes people not play.

[Vekter]

we account for things like pop changes between rounds, but the factor i'm most interested in (which i'm not sure we account for or if you can even extrapolate it from the existing data) is whether or not seeing a map other than one of these on the lobby screen, compounded with low population, makes people not play.

I feel like the only way to really tell if that's the case would be a poll?

[Not-Dorsidarf]

Theres definitely at least some people who join in, see its a map they dont like, and immediately run mapvote