Very wrong dynamic weights/costs.

[kiroma]

After config purge, several antags sustained unexplained drastic threat weights changes, they really need at least some justification to be made.

• Heretic - is now 15 - from original 7-6.
  
  • Heretic is designed to fight for resources with other heretic be those - rifts, mats, bodies, loot. While also not being a wiz/nuke level of threat, with current threat only one heretic can spawn round start if he ever does (no one likes this).
    
    Smuggler heretic is 10 (why ?).

• Blood-brother threat cost was also increased by 4 I think - practically a non-antag, no reason to do this.

• Spies - 10 same as BB and Traitor and have same threat Reqs as revs.
  
  • Imo - spies are very strong, but no one shares that opinion, so its too much.

• Changeling is now 15 - too much for too little.
  
  • Changelings are strong antags, but 15 means only 1 can spawn roundstart most of the time, makes hivemind useless. Original value was 6-7 too I think. (Probably ignore this, I might have been extremely wrong about changelings)
  
  
  • While space changeling is 5 (he has 2 additional abilities for free)

• Malf is 10 - if i remember correctly malf had a bigger cost, no wonder I see a malf ai every round.

• Spiders are now 15, why ?
  
  • They are a minor midround - for comparison Voidawalker and Shadowling are 5.

• Aliens are 20, if i remember correctly they were 15, but I might be wrong on this one.

• Also - blob, ninja, skely/warmonger pirates all cost less than basic roundstarts - traitor/heretic/changeling, while being major antags (well you can argue about ninja not being one).

1. This threat cost inflation drastically decreased an average amount of antags spawned (without shitspawn).
2. Has really weird balancing issues,
3. Ghosts now have higher chance to receive antag than any roundstart crew.
4. Malf now spawns every other round.
5. Round numbers are pretty, but impractical, blob costing the same as dragoon, or BB costing the same as Malf is weird.

P.S - Please, this isnt a min-pop thread, yes I know that new config increased min-pop, yes this might be bad, I feel you, but - either create a new thread or please - do not link issues I have with new threat to min-pop issues if you want to discuss min-pop in this thread.
P.S - The main focus of this thread is Heretic and Malf, because those two were affected the most, and the lack of Heretics and prevalence of Malfs can bee seen without looking into config numbers.

[Jake]

Can confirm, on Manuel especially, when the average population is between 15-20 pop these days, no other antagonists besides traitor seem to roll anymore, It makes rounds feel incredibly samey.

[mrmelbert]

When I was fixing the config I had to rebuild it from the ground up so I just operated off of vibes and put in numbers that I thought would be healthy for lowpop (since people were still funneling back into the servers at that point).

Fun fact, Changeling in repo is 16, so 15 is actually already lower.

Malf AI actually has been untouched. Roundstart is 18 in repo (unset in config, so 18) and Midround is 10 in repo (10 in config).
However I think we reduced the weight as a part of a compromise during my term so that might've been cleared.

Also - blob, ninja, skely/warmonger pirates all cost less than basic roundstarts - traitor/heretic/changeling, while being major antags (well you can argue about ninja not being one).

This has largely been the case since D-2021.
More impactful impacts aren't supposed to cost more, they're supposed to have lower weights.

Not saying headmins can't change that, of course they're free too. But I'm just saying it's status quo.

Ghosts now have higher chance to receive antag than any roundstart crew.

This has been the case since dynamic was added.

[kiroma]

Not really. Getting a midround was harder then getting roundstarts, since dynamic is very bad at its job.

My main issue is with Heretic having 15 threat and malf spawning every other round, either midround or round start.

Heretics and malfs are issues that you can see without looking into the numbers, and people saw them day 1.

But other things I just might be blatantly wrong about, since I really only noticed them after looking into config. Though blob does seem to spawn very often right now, but I'm pretty sure half of it was shitspawn.

[Imitates-The-Lizards]

I support whatever results in heretic being rolled more often, and at lower population numbers than 20. I believe before the MSO issue, it was set to requiring 14 - please set it back to somewhere around there.

[ItzRiumz]

Heretics should not be rolling below 20 pop. They usually get out of hand on lowpop due to no security and there not being enough people to stop them from rolling over the crew and ascending.

[subject217]

Heretic being higher in cost is a good thing. It should stay that way. It should also stay out of lowpop, it's a round destroying solo antag that is very hard to kill without proper Security.

[iain0]

Your poll is ... you can just vote for everything, the only measure here is which gets more votes, there's fundamentally no way of voting that anything shouldn't change without ensuring you vote for several other things to ensure your least favorite idea gets left behind. There can never be an outcome to this poll that "everything is fine" or "maybe we should nerf stuff", only a guaranteed one or more "we should change this!". Sampling bias

Like maybe i dont care about most of what is proposed but agree that changing heretic is a bad idea, doubly so anything that brings it into lower pops more, its a stabby antag that mass murders to evolve into a mass murder end game, very poor fit for lower populations IMO. But there's literally no way of expressing this on your poll. Also as another antag that specifically targets heads of staff not a fan, so populating 4-5 heretics every other round is just a big marker on heads of staff, beyond revs also existing, and beyond the same completely random chance anyone has of being a generic target. They're an okay antag but probably already exist and ascend often enough.

But there's no way of representing this on the poll.

I'll also note that on terry at least most rounds are called by the crew in the 40-60 minute mark and very often leaves a bunch of threat on the board, usually they evac just as another antag is about to spawn ; from this perspective midround cost is irrelevant versus midround frequency ; decreasing midrounds just means more midrounds can fire but since they cant because the crew ends the round (so they can wait out the initial 20 minute quiet period once more) it's just more threat left on the board.

Pops below about 18 i think cant spawn anything but traitors. And that's probably fine. Not a lot of things about this game are tuned for such populations. I think stations with no command/sec don't actually spawn anything.

[Imitates-The-Lizards]

Heretics should not be rolling below 20 pop. They usually get out of hand on lowpop due to no security and there not being enough people to stop them from rolling over the crew and ascending.

Well the alternative is "You never get to play heretic ever" unless you happen to play exactly for the roughly 6 hour period of highpop. So during the other 3/4ths of the day, I hope you enjoy only seeing.... traitor, and "Basically traitor" (spy/blood brother).

Let me tell you, that got old around one or two thousand in game hours ago for me. I want more fun antags and less "You know this content you enjoy exists, but you never get to see it because of popreqs".

[kiroma]

How did pop even come up here - the issue isn't with min pop, but with basic threat. Heretic doesn't spawn often on high pop either. I don't think anyone had an issue with old heretic threat.

Iain - why would I add something that I never even suggested or mentioned into the poll ? (lowering min-pop)

The poll is there for people to vote on what threats they think were done poorly in new config. If you think the new config is perfect - just write it in the thread, its not like the poll is the main deciding factor here.

And I see no one arguing that heretic spawning so much less is a good thing or that malf should spawn every other round (which are there main issues I care about). Min-pop is the only thing that been discussed but I don't have any opinion about that, because I don't play on low pop.

[kiroma]

so populating 4-5 heretics every other round is just a big marker on heads of staff, beyond revs also existing, and beyond the same completely random chance anyone has of being a generic target. They're an okay antag but probably already exist and ascend often enough.

This feels like an opinion formed pre-config purge, this wont populate station with 4-5 heretics, it will populate it with at least more than 1 heretic at midnight-sun 60 pop.

If it is - ye I agree, heretics shouldn't get changed, the issue they did get changed, and changed into spawning almost as rarely as wiz, while something like malf now spawns every other round, while having a nuke button.

[Jake]

I don't like how essentialy every antag besides traitor is essentialy blocked at minus 20 pop, which is the average population on manuel these days, It really doesn't allow players who can only play during that time band the opportunity to even give those roles a try.

[Omega_DarkPotato]

Posted this in a thread in the discord's policybus channel, but my initial response to this is

Heretic, although exceptionally cool and beloved by at least one other member of the headmin team, is currently treated (and sometimes fairly) as something more of a round-ending threat, akin to cult or nukeops, due to the fact that an ascending heretic will basically end the round. Due to how powerful it can get when snowballing and how strong it is should it get off the ground, I don't particularly like seeing heretic on very low pop shifts where the amount of people who can actually work against one is so low that whoever gets heretic also gets handed a "you win, round ends" button.
In the same vein, I think that when pop gets off the ground, getting a handful of heretics might be better than just one- they do compete with each other for rifts, and competition with each other and the crew sounds like a great time for all.

BB "not being an antag" is an imagination issue. You can definitely antagonize with nothing but a gray jumpsuit and a baseball bat if you know how to convince people to tide with you.

Changeling hivemind not working is something I genuinely do not care about, they're exceptionally powerful murder machines with tools that are inherent to them and cannot be easily removed. I'm fine with them at slightly lower pops than heretic, as I'm not convinced you need as much of a team to respond to them but I also think they should be a heavy point buy for the dynamic system.

Malf is too cheap. Another potentially round-ending threat.

re: midrounds like spider, aliens, blob- I'm always going to be more preferential towards another traitor, heretic, revolutionary, changeling simply because they interact with the crew more. Greater interaction means a better story- and although I've got a soft spot in my heart for blobs where the entire station needs to team up to deal with the problem, it's just not as inspiring for me in terms of how a player could use it to make an interesting story for themselves either.

I think malf is a little too cheap, and I'd like to see heretic roll very rarely on lowpop but maybe it can have a slight threat cost decrease for higher pops. Or maybe its threat stays the same, but it's got a low scaling cost so that when it does pop you get a handful instead of just one.

[Timberpoes]

Somehow I think the current headmin term are going to timeout on any major dynamic changes, but I'm leaving this open incase any trickle through to the next headmin term.

The incoming elects are free to close this at their discretion if they have either 1. no interest in changing dynamic or 2. want a fresh discussion thread on the topic that they can engage with from the start or 3. any other reason.

[xzero314]

Lately I have seen blood cult spawn more often on manuel than heretic. Really need to make heretic more common

[Metek]

• Heretic - is now 15 - from original 7-6.
  
  • Heretic is designed to fight for resources with other heretic be those - rifts, mats, bodies, loot. While also not being a wiz/nuke level of threat,

Heretic is at least wizard level threat and usually higher if their player is particularly sweaty with the ability synergy. They have almost every single ability that wizard does, as well as an armor piercing 3-5 hit crit blade that serves as an instant escape tool and an infinitely regenerating stun baton that can't be taken from them unless you chop their arms off.

[Jake]

• Heretic - is now 15 - from original 7-6.
  
  • Heretic is designed to fight for resources with other heretic be those - rifts, mats, bodies, loot. While also not being a wiz/nuke level of threat,

Heretic is at least wizard level threat and usually higher if their player is particularly sweaty with the ability synergy. They have almost every single ability that wizard does, as well as an armor piercing 3-5 hit crit blade that serves as an instant escape tool and an infinitely regenerating stun baton that can't be taken from them unless you chop their arms off.

Heretic is nowhere near as dangerous as wizard until they ascend, an event that is still incredibly rare

they have vastly different abilities, Wizard spells are a lot more simple and overt, they cannot really be compared.

And a good 95% of players who roll heretic get rolled anyway.

Let's not balance our game around sweaties, please.

[massa]

heretic is a disposable shit antag that almost never ascends

most heretics afaik don't bother and use it as carte blanche for other designs or plans, because heretic's mechanics are obtuse and rather absurd anyway. using your heretic abilities will get you killed, not using them might not. it's basically solo rev.

[iain0]

We've pushed some changes, the threat changes aren't as far as some people have desired in this thread but looking to make smaller incremental changes rather than risk overshooting the mark.

Beyond threat cost changes some other changes were made to dynamic, please see the relevant config change at viewtopic.php?p=777293#p777293

Lets see how this plays out for a bit.