(MRP) GET THESE HERETICS OUT THE AIRLOCK

[TheBibleMelts]

disable heretics on MRP. they cause and fuel a play-to-win mindset because it is how they are inherently designed. their presence has been wholly deleterious on the ability to enforce what we want out of the MRP rules via antagonist and crew engagement due to the dynamic that is imposed on the heretic in the sense that they need to game/speedrun/powergame as hard as they can to ascend, and on the crew who in turn are encouraged to powergame or play against the spirit of the MRP rules in order to circumvent.

[Sonnzer]

+1 with everything said.

[NecromancerAnne]

Why are you rage posting a policy thread when I literally already have one up as it is which goes into more detail about the problem and has conditions for re-addition?

Also, you can definitely tell people to stop speedrunning ascension. Like, you can do that. My entire point in the other thread is that you're not doing that enough when you should be if you see this as a problem.

[Kuricityy]

+1

[britgrenadier1]

+1 even though I'm a big heretic fan

Why are you rage posting a policy thread when I literally already have one up as it is which goes into more detail about the problem and has conditions for re-addition?

Also, you can definitely tell people to stop speedrunning ascension. Like, you can do that. My entire point in the other thread is that you're not doing that enough when you should be if you see this as a problem.

you cannot tell people to not do their objectives, that is built into the fiber of MRP. You will lose that appeal, and get a precedent set that will uphold the speedrunning. Also while we're here, this is a code issue. Tics being unstoppable have contributed to the speedrunning, and also the ruthlessness by which they are dealt with. We are still within living memory of a time when catch and release was bog standard SOP for security on manuel. This is no longer the case, and while you can chalk it up to the playerbase changing, I can firmly say that the same sec mains who used to release me on antag rounds 1.5 years ago would never dream of doing something like that today.

[NecromancerAnne]

you cannot tell people to not do their objectives, that is built into the fiber of MRP. You will lose that appeal.

That is not what I said. I said to tell people to slow down and not rush the round to the end. Not to not do their objectives. Although, entirely off the cuff, admins can ask people to vary things up if they're being too one note. That is something with precedence.

[britgrenadier1]

you cannot tell people to not do their objectives, that is built into the fiber of MRP. You will lose that appeal.

That is not what I said. I said to tell people to slow down and not rush the round to the end. Not to not do their objectives. Although, entirely off the cuff, admins can ask people to vary things up if they're being too one note. That is something with precedence.

A heretic's objective is to ascend. Ascending ends the round.

[ItzRiumz]

you cannot tell people to not do their objectives, that is built into the fiber of MRP. You will lose that appeal.

That is not what I said. I said to tell people to slow down and not rush the round to the end. Not to not do their objectives. Although, entirely off the cuff, admins can ask people to vary things up if they're being too one note. That is something with precedence.

I will preface this by saying that I despise our current implementation of heretic and how we've handled this antag.

The problem is that Heretic by its nature forces the person playing it to not slow down. The whole point of heretic is reach the end of their research tree and ascend before they are either caught by security or before the round ends. So now they gotta rush all the tears, rush their targets, and then gather all the ingredients for their final ascension. Oh, and remember that unlike most antagonists who get access to most of their arsenal immediately roundstart, heretics have to play this way to get access to everything in their arsenal. I don't think telling players to slow down is going to be the best thing to do when heretic is coded this way.

[Jake]

+1 even though I'm a big heretic fan

Why are you rage posting a policy thread when I literally already have one up as it is which goes into more detail about the problem and has conditions for re-addition?

Also, you can definitely tell people to stop speedrunning ascension. Like, you can do that. My entire point in the other thread is that you're not doing that enough when you should be if you see this as a problem.

you cannot tell people to not do their objectives, that is built into the fiber of MRP. You will lose that appeal, and get a precedent set that will uphold the speedrunning. Also while we're here, this is a code issue. Tics being unstoppable have contributed to the speedrunning, and also the ruthlessness by which they are dealt with. We are still within living memory of a time when catch and release was bog standard SOP for security on manuel. This is no longer the case, and while you can chalk it up to the playerbase changing, I can firmly say that the same sec mains who used to release me on antag rounds 1.5 years ago would never dream of doing something like that today.

Removing Heretics will lead to the same result as removing Progtot.

That being none at all, players will find something else to complain and we wouldn't have cracked the real problem.

[ItzRiumz]

+1 even though I'm a big heretic fan

Why are you rage posting a policy thread when I literally already have one up as it is which goes into more detail about the problem and has conditions for re-addition?

Also, you can definitely tell people to stop speedrunning ascension. Like, you can do that. My entire point in the other thread is that you're not doing that enough when you should be if you see this as a problem.

you cannot tell people to not do their objectives, that is built into the fiber of MRP. You will lose that appeal, and get a precedent set that will uphold the speedrunning. Also while we're here, this is a code issue. Tics being unstoppable have contributed to the speedrunning, and also the ruthlessness by which they are dealt with. We are still within living memory of a time when catch and release was bog standard SOP for security on manuel. This is no longer the case, and while you can chalk it up to the playerbase changing, I can firmly say that the same sec mains who used to release me on antag rounds 1.5 years ago would never dream of doing something like that today.

Removing Heretics will lead to the same result as removing Progtot.

That being none at all, players will find something else to complain and we wouldn't have cracked the real problem.

A lot of the problems progtot had leads back to heretics and their design philosophy bleeding into traitor. I'm going to be real with you and just straight up say that solo progression antags are bad for our roleplaying server. They don't create any interesting roleplay and only value how fast you can progress while doing things in the fastest most blandest way possible. They're awful for what manny is trying to aim for which is to make a better environment for roleplay. This 'real problem' is progression and the best way to fix it is to remove that progression. Until this is coded however they shouldn't be enabled on manny.

[Jake]

+1 even though I'm a big heretic fan

Why are you rage posting a policy thread when I literally already have one up as it is which goes into more detail about the problem and has conditions for re-addition?

Also, you can definitely tell people to stop speedrunning ascension. Like, you can do that. My entire point in the other thread is that you're not doing that enough when you should be if you see this as a problem.

you cannot tell people to not do their objectives, that is built into the fiber of MRP. You will lose that appeal, and get a precedent set that will uphold the speedrunning. Also while we're here, this is a code issue. Tics being unstoppable have contributed to the speedrunning, and also the ruthlessness by which they are dealt with. We are still within living memory of a time when catch and release was bog standard SOP for security on manuel. This is no longer the case, and while you can chalk it up to the playerbase changing, I can firmly say that the same sec mains who used to release me on antag rounds 1.5 years ago would never dream of doing something like that today.

Removing Heretics will lead to the same result as removing Progtot.

That being none at all, players will find something else to complain and we wouldn't have cracked the real problem.

A lot of the problems progtot had leads back to heretics and their design philosophy bleeding into traitor. I'm going to be real with you and just straight up say that solo progression antags are bad for our roleplaying server. They don't create any interesting roleplay and only value how fast you can progress while doing things in the fastest most blandest way possible. They're awful for what manny is trying to aim for which is to make a better environment for roleplay. This 'real problem' is progression and the best way to fix it is to remove that progression. Until this is coded however they shouldn't be enabled on manny.

Roleplay is not a replacement for chaos.

Good thing removing progtot didn't actually change anything and guess what? Neither will removing Heretics.

Some other progression antagonist will take their place, because literally every crew mechanic is progression based.

[ItzRiumz]

+1 even though I'm a big heretic fan

Why are you rage posting a policy thread when I literally already have one up as it is which goes into more detail about the problem and has conditions for re-addition?

Also, you can definitely tell people to stop speedrunning ascension. Like, you can do that. My entire point in the other thread is that you're not doing that enough when you should be if you see this as a problem.

you cannot tell people to not do their objectives, that is built into the fiber of MRP. You will lose that appeal, and get a precedent set that will uphold the speedrunning. Also while we're here, this is a code issue. Tics being unstoppable have contributed to the speedrunning, and also the ruthlessness by which they are dealt with. We are still within living memory of a time when catch and release was bog standard SOP for security on manuel. This is no longer the case, and while you can chalk it up to the playerbase changing, I can firmly say that the same sec mains who used to release me on antag rounds 1.5 years ago would never dream of doing something like that today.

Removing Heretics will lead to the same result as removing Progtot.

That being none at all, players will find something else to complain and we wouldn't have cracked the real problem.

A lot of the problems progtot had leads back to heretics and their design philosophy bleeding into traitor. I'm going to be real with you and just straight up say that solo progression antags are bad for our roleplaying server. They don't create any interesting roleplay and only value how fast you can progress while doing things in the fastest most blandest way possible. They're awful for what manny is trying to aim for which is to make a better environment for roleplay. This 'real problem' is progression and the best way to fix it is to remove that progression. Until this is coded however they shouldn't be enabled on manny.

Roleplay is not a replacement for chaos.

Good thing removing progtot didn't actually change anything and guess what? Neither will removing Heretics.

Some other progression antagonist will take their place, because literally every crew mechanic is progression based.

You're right that roleplay is not a replacement for chaos. However the chaos progression antags created was often dull and uninteresting due to the fact it played out like a script every time.

Progtots removal did change things, it fixed the awfulness of traitor with their boring and dull side objective interactions such as, 'kill a station pet which no one cares about' and, 'place syndicate posters that people immediately tear down and don't give a shit about'. Never mind the fact it also fixed the MASSIVE amount of TC skilled traitors would amass because they got all the side objectives down to a science. Traitor is now back to what it should be, a sandbox antag with almost a fully unlocked arsenal roundstart who can now focus on making the round interesting using that arsenal instead of repeatedly chasing side objectives the whole round so they can reach the endgame objective to end the round in a boring and predetermined way.

I don't see how crew mechanics being progression based is related to antag progression at all. The crew need something to do while the antag goes around causing their chaos cause otherwise nobody would be playing the game. Also guess what, an antagonist without progression doesn't have to fully rely on the roundstart arsenal they are given. It turns out they can also abuse the progression the crew makes to cause even more chaos and interesting roleplay moments.

[Redbert]

If "heretic cannot be balanced for both LRP and MRP" then simply remove it for MRP and we stop having this problem. If we'd like to try again after the 'Heretic Rework™', maybe we can, but for now, I think the balance of the role is unacceptable. The main difference between LRP and MRP isn't even the amount of RP between players, it's MRP rule 4. The best way to deal with a good heretic is to apply constant pressure, this cannot really be done on MRP unless security and AI have a ridiculous amount of coordination. The antag is balanced around being a global threat and having the entire crew hunt them if they're doing well, this does not exist on MRP.

Heretic is not a sandbox antag, they've never really made the round as interesting as any other antag, it's just the same thing over and over. The antag is designed around 'gaming' and that's not healthy for MRP. I hate the competitiveness that exists in players speeding their way to ascension. Sure, it can be labeled as a player problem, but the behavior is heavily incentivized by the mechanics of heretic. Heretic is very slippery and very strong, the combination of the two don't leave much room for talking. We even unrestricted heretics when they ascend, we reward players for greentexting when that's not really what we should be striving for on MRP.

I also don't think it's fair for an admin to ever tell a player something along the lines of 'hey, you're too good, please chill out a bit', that opens the door for a lot of lame administration issues.

[Kassori]

As much as I am not a fan of heretics and quite critical of them, that is almost entirely because of the way they're typically played. I also think it would be an utter shame to remove them from Manuel and MRP entirely. They have plenty of potential for neat gimmicks, but I agree entirely with the nature of progressive antags putting pressure on progressing above all else. I can't really offer much besides offer code solutions, like, what it wasn't really feasible to silently ascend? Would making it loud by nature, with a timed ritual to defend or automatic announcement warning they're close help? I don't know, but I'd like to see more constructive ideas. There's been a lot of work put into them, perhaps too much, and while they're unpopular to play against in their current state, the people playing them do tend to quite enjoy it. If both sides hated it, I'd be content to dump it, but that isn't the case.

[Imitates-The-Lizards]

Completely disagree, LRP doesn't even have the population to spawn heretic at all any more. Disabling it on MRP is the same thing as just removing it from the codebase.

And like Kassori said, there are plenty of solutions to changing heretic, including the impending heretic rework which Jake has put a shit ton of effort in to, which we have a thread open on the discord about. If you want it disabled only until the point that gets merged, I guess that's fine, but, y'know, give our coders a chance here. We dealt with birdshot for ages, we can give the coding team some time to fix things now that there's all this hullabaloo about heretics.

[Bepis]

I can't stand heretic as an antag, either playing as or against. I really hope it gets removed from the codebase, or at the very least sent down to LRP so I don't have to deal with it in the future. It's terrible to deal with, can't stand playing the world's worst version of Stop Touching Yourself. I really wish it was never added to begin with, and siloing it away from Manny is a pretty good alternative.

[britgrenadier1]

+1 even though I'm a big heretic fan

Why are you rage posting a policy thread when I literally already have one up as it is which goes into more detail about the problem and has conditions for re-addition?

Also, you can definitely tell people to stop speedrunning ascension. Like, you can do that. My entire point in the other thread is that you're not doing that enough when you should be if you see this as a problem.

you cannot tell people to not do their objectives, that is built into the fiber of MRP. You will lose that appeal, and get a precedent set that will uphold the speedrunning. Also while we're here, this is a code issue. Tics being unstoppable have contributed to the speedrunning, and also the ruthlessness by which they are dealt with. We are still within living memory of a time when catch and release was bog standard SOP for security on manuel. This is no longer the case, and while you can chalk it up to the playerbase changing, I can firmly say that the same sec mains who used to release me on antag rounds 1.5 years ago would never dream of doing something like that today.

Removing Heretics will lead to the same result as removing Progtot.

That being none at all, players will find something else to complain and we wouldn't have cracked the real problem.

Progtot removal is pretty great actually. Tots have gone back to their sabotaging and assassinating ways and we don’t have to deal with 15 minute battle cruiser slop.

[dendydoom]

heretic is and always has been extremely feast or famine which leads to a contingent of players who excel and the rest who die early. it encourages optimal play by its very implementation and while this is not necessarily a bad thing it's definitely something that would frustrate players to no end for us to place an arbitrary policy speed limiter on which would be different for every single admin. how do you quantify what's too fast in a way that can be intuitively understood by players and (generally) consistently enforced by admins?

if anything at all, heretics should at the very least just be unrestricted because of their ascension mechanic and the fact that players have no imposed restriction on their meta knowledge. we all know what a heretic will do if left alone, they will kill the entire station and end reality. probably a good idea to liquidate them into a nutrient rich slurry and feed them to the death nettle crop.

if you want my boomer opinion that many gamers will throw their hands uproariously at, it's that an antag being fun to play against is massively more important than it being satisfying to play as. if they're super annoying to endure the existence of, then it's only natural that you want to throw them out because they're not going to do a clever gimmick or introduce a fun teamwork scenario for the crew, they're going to snowball into a monster from the shadows and then suddenly run it down mid every single time. satisfying for that 1 person sure, but where is the "satisfaction" for everyone else to interact with that on the other end?

Removing Heretics will lead to the same result as removing Progtot.

fantastic news, i pushed for progtots removal for years and could not be happier to see the back of it. good riddance!

[britgrenadier1]

if anything at all, heretics should at the very least just be unrestricted because of their ascension mechanic and the fact that players have no imposed restriction on their meta knowledge. we all know what a heretic will do if left alone, they will kill the entire station and end reality. probably a good idea to liquidate them into a nutrient rich slurry and feed them to the death nettle crop.

if you want my boomer opinion that many gamers will throw their hands uproariously at, it's that an antag being fun to play against is massively more important than it being satisfying to play as. if they're super annoying to endure the existence of, then it's only natural that you want to throw them out because they're not going to do a clever gimmick or introduce a fun teamwork scenario for the crew, they're going to snowball into a monster from the shadows and then suddenly run it down mid every single time. satisfying for that 1 person sure, but where is the "satisfaction" for everyone else to interact with that on the other end?

Excellent post as usual, and big +1 to at least unrestricting them so the long arm of the crew can snipe the bad man when he is on the cusp of opening a literal portal to hell or transforming into a flesh eating worm. I’ll take the pay dock if it violates some corporate SOP somewhere I’m just trying to SURVIVE man.


Edit: revive the let heretics say fuck in eldritch tongue thread. If you’re a heretic I don’t really want to see maxcap carpet bombing, I want to see eldritch departmental massacres.

[TheLoLSwat]

I enjoy playing heretic and wouldn’t like to see them removed, especially when there are much better solutions on the table

[mrmelbert]

If "heretic cannot be balanced for both LRP and MRP" then simply remove it for MRP and we stop having this problem. If we'd like to try again after the 'Heretic Rework™", maybe we can

If I had a nickel for every time heretic was disabled on MRP pending a rework, I'd have two nickels. Which is not a lot but it's weird that it happened twice.

[Redbert]

revive the let heretics say fuck in eldritch tongue thread. If you’re a heretic I don’t really want to see maxcap carpet bombing, I want to see eldritch departmental massacres.

if anything at all, heretics should at the very least just be unrestricted because of their ascension mechanic

When I said it doesn't work because of MRP 4, I wasn't proposing removing MRP 4 specifically for heretic...
I don't think we should ever unrestrict a crew based antag, even if they're restricted to solely using heretic toolkit to bone. Giving players the ability to slowly cull through the crew one department at a time because they decided to use feast of owls at minute 2 sounds like an extremely miserable experience.
Unrestricting heretic does not help solve the issue of heretic not speaking or interacting with other players, it just partially resolves a balance problem. It just opens up a whole new can of worms that I don't want to be a part of.

Sybil is dead, we don't need to revive it through Manny.

[Jacquerel]

the cycle of unrestricting and re-restricting changeling doesn't make me hopeful that this is a useful solution to any particular problem

[dendydoom]

revive the let heretics say fuck in eldritch tongue thread. If you’re a heretic I don’t really want to see maxcap carpet bombing, I want to see eldritch departmental massacres.

if anything at all, heretics should at the very least just be unrestricted because of their ascension mechanic

When I said it doesn't work because of MRP 4, I wasn't proposing removing MRP 4 specifically for heretic...
I don't think we should ever unrestrict a crew based antag, even if they're restricted to solely using heretic toolkit to bone. Giving players the ability to slowly cull through the crew one department at a time because they decided to use feast of owls at minute 2 sounds like an extremely miserable experience.
Unrestricting heretic does not help solve the issue of heretic not speaking or interacting with other players, it just partially resolves a balance problem. It just opens up a whole new can of worms that I don't want to be a part of.

Sybil is dead, we don't need to revive it through Manny.

heretic is inherently driven by its mechanics, it has no real roleplay application beyond what is created as a result of it engaging purely with its progression tracks. asking players on the other side of that to engage in roleplay that for all intents and purposes doesn't exist for the heretic and their decision-making is a massive disconnect. unrestricting them is a compromise and i don't see why we couldn't implement something like what we have with the obsessed antag, in that the crew can deal with them but they can't randomly kill outside of their objectives just because of their antag status.

otherwise this was a compromise suggestion because i agree with you, the real solution is to just disable them on mrp because they don't support a roleplaying mindset

[Redbert]

heretic is inherently driven by its mechanics, it has no real roleplay application beyond what is created as a result of it engaging purely with its progression tracks. asking players on the other side of that to engage in roleplay that for all intents and purposes doesn't exist for the heretic and their decision-making is a massive disconnect. unrestricting them is a compromise and i don't see why we couldn't implement something like what we have with the obsessed antag, in that the crew can deal with them but they can't randomly kill outside of their objectives just because of their antag status.

otherwise this was a compromise suggestion because i agree with you, the real solution is to just disable them on mrp because they don't support a roleplaying mindset

I really don't like the idea of one-way restriction. I don't know if you've ever dealt with plain clothes security as an antag on MRP, but it sucks. First strike is so incredibly strong in the current state of the game. No antags are strong enough to deal with an efficient unprompted attack.
It sucks because players do and will take advantage of the inherent protection they get because the antag cannot kill them unprompted. I believe most of the frustration players feel when losing comes from being unable to get a chance to fight. One-way restriction kind of amplifies the problem and provides more situations for cringe behavior to appear.

Again, modifying who can hunt heretic is a balance solution, it doesn't provide more RP. I would actually argue it that it would make any sort of communication from either side more rare in situations involving heretics.

[Blacklist897]

disable heretics on MRP. they cause and fuel a play-to-win mindset because it is how they are inherently designed. their presence has been wholly deleterious on the ability to enforce what we want out of the MRP rules via antagonist and crew engagement due to the dynamic that is imposed on the heretic in the sense that they need to game/speedrun/powergame as hard as they can to ascend, and on the crew who in turn are encouraged to powergame or play against the spirit of the MRP rules in order to circumvent.

I want you to know that both these xemo based policy threads are the first thing in quite a while thats made me want to go back and help unshittenfy manuel
I played quite a bit of paradise, and it seems that you and dendy are the only ones here who really understand the classic spacestation sovl

[dendydoom]

I really don't like the idea of one-way restriction. I don't know if you've ever dealt with plain clothes security as an antag on MRP, but it sucks. First strike is so incredibly strong in the current state of the game. No antags are strong enough to deal with an efficient unprompted attack.
It sucks because players do and will take advantage of the inherent protection they get because the antag cannot kill them unprompted. I believe most of the frustration players feel when losing comes from being unable to get a chance to fight. One-way restriction kind of amplifies the problem and provides more situations for cringe behavior to appear.

Again, modifying who can hunt heretic is a balance solution, it doesn't provide more RP. I would actually argue it that it would make any sort of communication from either side more rare in situations involving heretics.

yes, it sucks when people use that benefit in a meta way to create a reliable and hard to beat strategy.

you raise good points, and i more or less agree entirely. i would be fine with disabling heretics on mrp. they seem to bring a lot more lrp style engagement that would thrive in that kind of environment with people who enjoy rule 4, so even if there is no rework, i would also be fine with having an antag thats just designed and good for lrp. in that context you could perhaps bring back their lethality with things like the old style gibbing sacrifice

[NecromancerAnne]

the real solution is to just disable them on mrp because they don't support a roleplaying mindset

Bullshit.

This has nothing to do with the role itself. It has everything to do with the pilots. It has everything to do with policy and enforcement.

This role was made for those with higher skill to exceed in it, and only those with the skill input necessary. With that, this means those who are already succeeding in the antagonist are those very capable in of themselves to do...literally anything. As any role. With very scarce resources. They're killers and will remain killers no matter how much you would want them not to be by taking away their toys. Those lower on the rung just get devoured by validhunters. Lets not pretend like there isn't at least a half dozen dead failed heretics to one Joe Antag who has done this so many times, he knows it like the back of his hand. This also isn't like progression traitor, which resulted in people putting in extremely low effort actions with minimal engagement for significant payoff. This is an antagonist that urges the pilot towards confrontation, and demands a lot of expertise to reach ascension. Not that they need to, as there are alternative paths built in that someone who doesn't want to play like that can explore, but it is the way it maintains power with its main adversaries if they do. There are options, but the ones people notice are those who are confrontational and succeeding.

It is the responsibility of those who are more capable to moderate themselves and try and push for a more novel environment and experience. It is the responsibility of administrators to remind those people why this is important. It is the responsibility of everyone to try and maintain a degree of restraint and detachment from failure to keep things relatively smooth.

I'm sorry that Joe Antag looms so large over everyone that it dwarfs out Rodney Newfren, who was the heretic who died 10 minutes in after funne handing someone and whose existence has fallen out of everyones memory like predatory goldfish. But the problem is really like maybe a handful of Joe Antags who could be just talked too about chilling out. For real. This is not a controversial take. Core Rule 4 is not as much of a sacred cow on Manuel as it is on LRP.

And if we do remove heretic from MRP, I will say again. There will be another problem child. And it will keep going. A majority of the people +1'ing this are not interested in server health and I know that to be true. Everything I've seen from some of them points me to believe they dislike heretic because there is a chance it can win if the pilot is just right. They are interested only in succeeding, and they hate failure to the point they would sooner undermine the MRP spirit than accept failure as a possibility. These are not the reasons we should be making this change. This is childish. And it is self-defeating. They'll evaporate once there is no longer anything of interest after succeeding so often that it becomes routine, and we get left with the crumbs.

[TheBibleMelts]

the real solution is to just disable them on mrp because they don't support a roleplaying mindset

Bullshit.

This has nothing to do with the role itself. It has everything to do with the pilots. It has everything to do with policy and enforcement.

This role was made for those with higher skill to exceed in it, and only those with the skill input necessary. With that, this means those who are already succeeding in the antagonist are those very capable in of themselves to do...literally anything. As any role. With very scarce resources. They're killers and will remain killers no matter how much you would want them not to be by taking away their toys. Those lower on the rung just get devoured by validhunters. Lets not pretend like there isn't at least a half dozen dead failed heretics to one Joe Antag who has done this so many times, he knows it like the back of his hand. This also isn't like progression traitor, which resulted in people putting in extremely low effort actions with minimal engagement for significant payoff. This is an antagonist that urges the pilot towards confrontation, and demands a lot of expertise to reach ascension. Not that they need to, as there are alternative paths built in that someone who doesn't want to play like that can explore, but it is the way it maintains power with its main adversaries if they do. There are options, but the ones people notice are those who are confrontational and succeeding.

It is the responsibility of those who are more capable to moderate themselves and try and push for a more novel environment and experience. It is the responsibility of administrators to remind those people why this is important. It is the responsibility of everyone to try and maintain a degree of restraint and detachment from failure to keep things relatively smooth.

I'm sorry that Joe Antag looms so large over everyone that it dwarfs out Rodney Newfren, who was the heretic who died 10 minutes in after funne handing someone and whose existence has fallen out of everyones memory like predatory goldfish. But the problem is really like maybe a handful of Joe Antags who could be just talked too about chilling out. For real. This is not a controversial take. Core Rule 4 is not as much of a sacred cow on Manuel as it is on LRP.

And if we do remove heretic from MRP, I will say again. There will be another problem child. And it will keep going. A majority of the people +1'ing this are not interested in server health and I know that to be true. Everything I've seen from some of them points me to believe they dislike heretic because there is a chance it can win if the pilot is just right. They are interested only in succeeding, and they hate failure to the point they would sooner undermine the MRP spirit than accept failure as a possibility. These are not the reasons we should be making this change. This is childish. And it is self-defeating. They'll evaporate once there is no longer anything of interest after succeeding so often that it becomes routine, and we get left with the crumbs.

i haven't really seen much to discredit the very real points that its designed to be a very insular antagonist that doesn't really do anything to contribute to any ecosystem but their own in a round.

[NecromancerAnne]

Our antagonist roles cause problems, hurt people, and create strife. They are conflict starters, and they are problem makers. They are an opposition. That is why we have them at all.

It is absolutely not insular, none of them can be. That's an utter paradox, unless what you consider to be a tolerable antagonist is one that never pokes its head above the water enough for anyone to notice.

[Bepis]

It is the responsibility of those who are more capable to moderate themselves

That just doesn't happen, we can probably pull a dozen examples of that within the past year

[NecromancerAnne]

It is the responsibility of those who are more capable to moderate themselves

That just doesn't happen, we can probably pull a dozen examples of that within the past year

If players can't self-moderate, thats why admins exist. That's literally the core purpose of the role. They're a referee.

[Bepis]

If players can't self-moderate, thats why admins exist. That's literally the core purpose of the role. They're a referee.

You say that, but it takes actual weeks of complaints/players crashing out on discord for admins to step in on things like that(referencing Fortnite Durand, for the record). And at least lately, when I am playing if admins are actually on it's a coinflip if you're getting responded to at all. Then again I have no idea what goes on behind the scenes and don't want to be unfair. It's tangential to the topic, here.

That's an utter paradox, unless what you consider to be a tolerable antagonist is one that never pokes its head above the water enough for anyone to notice.

I think that's a mischaracterization (strawman?), no one is saying antags shouldn't do antag things or be irrelevant to the round.

[dendydoom]

the real solution is to just disable them on mrp because they don't support a roleplaying mindset

Bullshit.

This has nothing to do with the role itself. It has everything to do with the pilots. It has everything to do with policy and enforcement.

This role was made for those with higher skill to exceed in it, and only those with the skill input necessary. With that, this means those who are already succeeding in the antagonist are those very capable in of themselves to do...literally anything. As any role. With very scarce resources. They're killers and will remain killers no matter how much you would want them not to be by taking away their toys. Those lower on the rung just get devoured by validhunters. Lets not pretend like there isn't at least a half dozen dead failed heretics to one Joe Antag who has done this so many times, he knows it like the back of his hand. This also isn't like progression traitor, which resulted in people putting in extremely low effort actions with minimal engagement for significant payoff. This is an antagonist that urges the pilot towards confrontation, and demands a lot of expertise to reach ascension. Not that they need to, as there are alternative paths built in that someone who doesn't want to play like that can explore, but it is the way it maintains power with its main adversaries if they do. There are options, but the ones people notice are those who are confrontational and succeeding.

It is the responsibility of those who are more capable to moderate themselves and try and push for a more novel environment and experience. It is the responsibility of administrators to remind those people why this is important. It is the responsibility of everyone to try and maintain a degree of restraint and detachment from failure to keep things relatively smooth.

I'm sorry that Joe Antag looms so large over everyone that it dwarfs out Rodney Newfren, who was the heretic who died 10 minutes in after funne handing someone and whose existence has fallen out of everyones memory like predatory goldfish. But the problem is really like maybe a handful of Joe Antags who could be just talked too about chilling out. For real. This is not a controversial take. Core Rule 4 is not as much of a sacred cow on Manuel as it is on LRP.

And if we do remove heretic from MRP, I will say again. There will be another problem child. And it will keep going. A majority of the people +1'ing this are not interested in server health and I know that to be true. Everything I've seen from some of them points me to believe they dislike heretic because there is a chance it can win if the pilot is just right. They are interested only in succeeding, and they hate failure to the point they would sooner undermine the MRP spirit than accept failure as a possibility. These are not the reasons we should be making this change. This is childish. And it is self-defeating. They'll evaporate once there is no longer anything of interest after succeeding so often that it becomes routine, and we get left with the crumbs.

you call it bullshit (no idea why you're being this aggressive) but then you go on to just affirm my position that the antag encourages optimal play by its design and leads to a contingent of skilled players reliably winning at the cost of all else.

you then assert this is not a design problem. how? you didn't answer my earlier question. how do you quantify what is too fast in a way that's intuitively understood by players and consistently enforceable by admins when you yourself confirm that the antag encourages optimal play to succeed? you haven't addressed any of the tension in the discussion, you're just coming at me and others and disregarding what we have to say in order to blame it on admins. if the antag encourages optimal play but you want admins to enforce an arbitrary limiter on their progression tracks via policy, how is that not a design problem? you're asking us to put a roadblock in front of the very thing the antag demands for players to succeed because there is no other interpretation for the antagonist to tell a narrative for the round. they don't exist to die a glorious death for the funny, they exist to ascend and every other outcome is a total failure. you can't enforce arbitrary roleplay expectations around something that's structurally driven *by design* and expect players to just be like, totally cool with it. you want people to let go of winning to tell a good narrative. good! i agree with you. heretic by design encourages winning at all costs. that is a design problem if the goal is to encourage interesting narratives that don't focus on winning. it is problematic on mrp when it involves a restricted antagonist. no other antagonist is like this and restricted for good reason. it is something that works fine on lrp because of rule 4 where the competitive nature can flourish.

if you want to be the one to set that enforcement standard then be my guest. because you know what will happen, players will complain that they don't understand what's expected of them, that they're being set up to fail when the game tells them to do one thing and we force them to do another, and it'll lead to lengthy public appeals and an overturn which burns out the admin. but if you think differently then ill gladly wait to be proven wrong. funnily enough, here's you agreeing to this sentiment.

i already have a solution that ive been employing when adminning rounds, and it's to disable heretic from rolling when i'm the dungeon master.

finally, your last paragraph is just rude. there will always be problems because this is a constantly evolving game that is anything but static. even if we take what you say to be true, the possibility of there being other problems doesn't make this one not a problem. you then saying other people are arguing in bad faith and not understanding your infallible genius as a designer is sincerely fucked up and im shocked to hear it coming from you. what is up with you lately? our admin team is massively burnt out, we struggle to find anyone to fill new positions, and you want to give a cop out answer while telling everyone who disagrees with you that they don't care about server health? you have had a front row seat to some of my most vulnerable moments managing this community. i have lost sleep over it, ive cried over it to the point that ive had to excuse myself from discussions because i couldn't read the text on the screen through my tears. your attitude in this final paragraph is enough to make me want to block you and wash my hands of you altogether. you're sabotaging what was a good discussion and reducing all of that nuance down to lazy admins and entitled players. if you want to be that conceited, then it would be just as easy to invoke the separation and tell maintainers to cope. would that be productive?

[Bepis]

Well said Dendy, thank you

[Redbert]

And if we do remove heretic from MRP, I will say again. There will be another problem child. And it will keep going. A majority of the people +1'ing this are not interested in server health and I know that to be true. Everything I've seen from some of them points me to believe they dislike heretic because there is a chance it can win if the pilot is just right. They are interested only in succeeding, and they hate failure to the point they would sooner undermine the MRP spirit than accept failure as a possibility. These are not the reasons we should be making this change. This is childish. And it is self-defeating. They'll evaporate once there is no longer anything of interest after succeeding so often that it becomes routine, and we get left with the crumbs.

I don't know how to respond to this other than 'nuh uh'.
I can't speak for myself, but the other players in support are pretty good at the game. Maybe they like to frag a little bit too much, but generally, if they know what they're doing, they will know if something is balanced/fun or not. I've seen these players excel as both heretic and fighting heretic, if they say that heretic doesn't really have viable counterplay options, I would take their word for it.
I've seen these players laugh in deadchat after dying, I've seen them @ their opponent on discord and say GG after losing. I genuinely don't think it's about winning or losing in this context, heretic just isn't a fun fight at a certain point, no matter how equal the players skill level. Feedback shouldn't be ignored when it comes from great players just as it shouldn't be ignored when it comes from new players.

[NecromancerAnne]

-snip-

Alright, you are right, I am being horrendous. Though I feel like I got taken a bit by surprised when TBM fired up a group of people in Manuelcord, dropped the thread and seemed to be rushing a bunch of people towards axing a whole mode from the game when I have been trying to start the conversation in a civil manner and seemingly that not going terribly far. So forgive me for being rude, this discussion feels like someone has kicked the feet out from under me on a matter I give a shit about, and I am getting rude about it now.

To show the hand a bit, here is the position as I see it. Because unfortunately I do have a hand in the rework and know how much efforts gone in.

These considerations that have been brought up to remove it, the ascension and progression, are not going away with that rework. Lengthen ascension time, give alternatives to progression. If those are unacceptable, then we're going nowhere. The goal of rework is ease of play for new comers to let more people be able to engage with it and stop it being an elitist gamer mode and let more people have fun with it, but also narrow down the power of an individual heretic so they're not exponentially getting stronger with time, just stronger. But the ascension was probably still going to be as strong as ever.

We've had some speed bumps in that development. I'm pretty convinced this is a wall. And its a wall whose victims aren't just the people unfortunate to have wasted time on a rework, who I don't think you're obligated to give a shit about just because I'm bringing it up. We've had plenty of people sink hours of time into a project only for it to go nowhere. Just look at Families (which is relevant for the next part).

In the past, the maintainer teams been pretty adamant about keeping the two rulesets consistent in terms of what content is on both. If we remove a mode from one of these rulesets, I fear we lose any reason to maintain it for LRP. Moreso, I fear it widens the rift between the two rulesets in a way that proves we made a mistake with how we approached this project in the first place. There shouldn't be 'this is appropriate for MRP/LRP' because it should work for either. The reason we didn't end up with Families being maintained I think had some part in this, with people having the opinion it wasn't fitting for both.

I'd love someone else to come say 'no we'll keep it alive' because my gut tells me that may not happen. That's a whole mode and a lot of stuff in the game to maintain for only one half of our official servers.

And on top of that, I think MRP was built on the premise of working with the same content as LRP, but avoiding playstyles which reduce the potential for player interaction. A very basic way in which those interactions are reduced is the kind of gameplay that prompted the creation of MRP in the first place. Which was ostensibly speedrunning the round to an end by forcing a shuttle at 25 minutes. This was happening with or without a finale like ascension. And I do not think ascension alone is responsible for this. Because I think, by our rules, even our traitors and spies and changelings can achieve this same result if they're eager enough and know the loopholes. (its grand sabotage)

I don't have a concrete solution for how to enforce, because MRP is a little loose and fast on purpose. A context based discussion on a case to case basis. But my point with how few people are succeeding right now because of the design as it is, which is being worked away from, means that there is a high likelihood that the number of people to ask to try something different this time is not very high at all. Maybe a small handful, who likely will succeed in other roles regardless of the antagonist. You are in your right to disable antags for a round, do more precise guidance with antagonists by coaching them on what to do next with custom objectives or conflicts (which I think is actually the right call and I like the hands on GM'ing, but takes a lot out of people so I don't think it is a sustainable solution), and I believe, if you see someone drawing a lot of heat really quickly, maybe just tap them on the shoulder and say 'hey, dude, next time you get this antag, maybe try the Feast of Owls and see what you can do in the sidepaths. You've already proven to everyone how fast you can ascend so consider alternatives, we've had a lot of ascensions lately'.

Will they understand? I don't know. Is it scalable? I don't know. Can we monitor the problem all the time? The intent is we shouldn't but if we're around, we can take the reigns. It might help alleviate the pressure.

There are definitely design problems at play here, but I have to ask; is engaging in the games conflicts only for those who have the time and skill to do so, and everyone else shit out of luck? If we made it easier for people to engage on par with other players with greater experience, does this lifting of the floor mean that RR Rule 6 cannot be reasonably applied? Who is RR Rule 4 meant for, if not to stop people from engaging in an unfair arms race? Is this process not meant to be cutting each other slack?

[Jake]

the real solution is to just disable them on mrp because they don't support a roleplaying mindset

Bullshit.

This has nothing to do with the role itself. It has everything to do with the pilots. It has everything to do with policy and enforcement.

This role was made for those with higher skill to exceed in it, and only those with the skill input necessary. With that, this means those who are already succeeding in the antagonist are those very capable in of themselves to do...literally anything. As any role. With very scarce resources. They're killers and will remain killers no matter how much you would want them not to be by taking away their toys. Those lower on the rung just get devoured by validhunters. Lets not pretend like there isn't at least a half dozen dead failed heretics to one Joe Antag who has done this so many times, he knows it like the back of his hand. This also isn't like progression traitor, which resulted in people putting in extremely low effort actions with minimal engagement for significant payoff. This is an antagonist that urges the pilot towards confrontation, and demands a lot of expertise to reach ascension. Not that they need to, as there are alternative paths built in that someone who doesn't want to play like that can explore, but it is the way it maintains power with its main adversaries if they do. There are options, but the ones people notice are those who are confrontational and succeeding.

It is the responsibility of those who are more capable to moderate themselves and try and push for a more novel environment and experience. It is the responsibility of administrators to remind those people why this is important. It is the responsibility of everyone to try and maintain a degree of restraint and detachment from failure to keep things relatively smooth.

I'm sorry that Joe Antag looms so large over everyone that it dwarfs out Rodney Newfren, who was the heretic who died 10 minutes in after funne handing someone and whose existence has fallen out of everyones memory like predatory goldfish. But the problem is really like maybe a handful of Joe Antags who could be just talked too about chilling out. For real. This is not a controversial take. Core Rule 4 is not as much of a sacred cow on Manuel as it is on LRP.

And if we do remove heretic from MRP, I will say again. There will be another problem child. And it will keep going. A majority of the people +1'ing this are not interested in server health and I know that to be true. Everything I've seen from some of them points me to believe they dislike heretic because there is a chance it can win if the pilot is just right. They are interested only in succeeding, and they hate failure to the point they would sooner undermine the MRP spirit than accept failure as a possibility. These are not the reasons we should be making this change. This is childish. And it is self-defeating. They'll evaporate once there is no longer anything of interest after succeeding so often that it becomes routine, and we get left with the crumbs.

you call it bullshit (no idea why you're being this aggressive) but then you go on to just affirm my position that the antag encourages optimal play by its design and leads to a contingent of skilled players reliably winning at the cost of all else.

you then assert this is not a design problem. how? you didn't answer my earlier question. how do you quantify what is too fast in a way that's intuitively understood by players and consistently enforceable by admins when you yourself confirm that the antag encourages optimal play to succeed? you haven't addressed any of the tension in the discussion, you're just coming at me and others and disregarding what we have to say in order to blame it on admins. if the antag encourages optimal play but you want admins to enforce an arbitrary limiter on their progression tracks via policy, how is that not a design problem? you're asking us to put a roadblock in front of the very thing the antag demands for players to succeed because there is no other interpretation for the antagonist to tell a narrative for the round. they don't exist to die a glorious death for the funny, they exist to ascend and every other outcome is a total failure. you can't enforce arbitrary roleplay expectations around something that's structurally driven *by design* and expect players to just be like, totally cool with it. you want people to let go of winning to tell a good narrative. good! i agree with you. heretic by design encourages winning at all costs. that is a design problem if the goal is to encourage interesting narratives that don't focus on winning. it is problematic on mrp when it involves a restricted antagonist. no other antagonist is like this and restricted for good reason. it is something that works fine on lrp because of rule 4 where the competitive nature can flourish.

if you want to be the one to set that enforcement standard then be my guest. because you know what will happen, players will complain that they don't understand what's expected of them, that they're being set up to fail when the game tells them to do one thing and we force them to do another, and it'll lead to lengthy public appeals and an overturn which burns out the admin. but if you think differently then ill gladly wait to be proven wrong. funnily enough, here's you agreeing to this sentiment.

i already have a solution that ive been employing when adminning rounds, and it's to disable heretic from rolling when i'm the dungeon master.

finally, your last paragraph is just rude. there will always be problems because this is a constantly evolving game that is anything but static. even if we take what you say to be true, the possibility of there being other problems doesn't make this one not a problem. you then saying other people are arguing in bad faith and not understanding your infallible genius as a designer is sincerely fucked up and im shocked to hear it coming from you. what is up with you lately? our admin team is massively burnt out, we struggle to find anyone to fill new positions, and you want to give a cop out answer while telling everyone who disagrees with you that they don't care about server health? you have had a front row seat to some of my most vulnerable moments managing this community. i have lost sleep over it, ive cried over it to the point that ive had to excuse myself from discussions because i couldn't read the text on the screen through my tears. your attitude in this final paragraph is enough to make me want to block you and wash my hands of you altogether. you're sabotaging what was a good discussion and reducing all of that nuance down to lazy admins and entitled players. if you want to be that conceited, then it would be just as easy to invoke the separation and tell maintainers to cope. would that be productive?

Anne is not calling out the admins, but some of the players who just want heretic gone because they don't tolerate the fact that they might not always win against the antagonist.

We have plenty of other baddies that are purely objective-focused and encourage optimal play; don't be ridiculous, MRP is open to the opportunity of exception, not that the exception should be the norm.

"Optimal play" and meta strats are intrinsic to every aspect of the game; you remove one meta, another one is gonna form, it's not something you have control over as a game designer.

As the guy who contributed to what Heretic has become over the last year, I feel a bit responsible for this situation arising, but then again some of the demands the players expect of me when balancing Heretic are just unreasonable.

Should I really balance Heretic around players like Trexter ? who one human the AI as an acting captain to silently plasmaflood and round remove all of security simply for existing?

let's say Heretic faces the same fate as Progtot, what's gonna be next on the chopping block? How many aspects of our game are we willing to sacrifice before we need to tell to practice a modicum of restraint on the roleplay server?

[dendydoom]

I dont think I am the one being ridiculous here by a long shot. If restraint needs to be shown, then start with yourself. or will we see a note appeal in a few weeks if an admin tells you to "slow down"? I'm basically done with this thread. requiring constant subjective (which no one can answer how its meant to be applied fairly) admin throttling to be feasible is a design issue and not an expectation that can be placed on admins. optimal play is inevitable but heretic requires it by design and aggressively rewards it and encourages it. other round ending antagonists are unrestricted. read my post.

slippery slope argument is pointless here. many antags have come and gone when they've stopped being fun. game is still going. still evolving. still being developed for. it's just as important for our cycle that we can give things up and start others. +1 to removing heretics on mrp. cheers.

[Bepis]

It's not a matter of not wanting to get round removed or 'losing', that's such a bad argument. Dying and losing are integral parts of the game. I don't think anyone was arguing that.

[NecromancerAnne]

If you ask me I wanna be killed more often by the other roles, its been a long time since a traitor has attempted to assassinate me.

[britgrenadier1]

the real solution is to just disable them on mrp because they don't support a roleplaying mindset

Snip.

Snip
funnily enough, here's you agreeing to this sentiment.

Snip

Anne is not calling out the admins, but some of the players who just want heretic gone because they don't tolerate the fact that they might not always win against the antagonist.

We have plenty of other baddies that are purely objective-focused and encourage optimal play; don't be ridiculous, MRP is open to the opportunity of exception, not that the exception should be the norm.

"Optimal play" and meta strats are intrinsic to every aspect of the game; you remove one meta, another one is gonna form, it's not something you have control over as a game designer.

As the guy who contributed to what Heretic has become over the last year, I feel a bit responsible for this situation arising, but then again some of the demands the players expect of me when balancing Heretic are just unreasonable.

Should I really balance Heretic around players like Trexter ? who one human the AI as an acting captain to silently plasmaflood and round remove all of security simply for existing?

let's say Heretic faces the same fate as Progtot, what's gonna be next on the chopping block? How many aspects of our game are we willing to sacrifice before we need to tell to practice a modicum of restraint on the roleplay server?

First of all, snip your quotes.

Second, you are almost solely responsible for the total balance shitshow heretic is in right now. Time and time again multiple people (not just me) have given feedback in both constructive and admittedly angry tones to you about how awful these changes are. It’s absolutely no wonder why people want it removed when heretic is nigh unstoppable in the hands of a skilled player, it’s not fun to play around.

Also while we’re here, I don’t give a singular fuck about dying. I frankly hate the idea that anyone thinks I’m complaining about balance because I’m losing fights. I’ve never been like that, and the first things I type in deadchat after dying is usually good fight or that was a good run. Anyone who insinuates that I’m malding over the 1% of fights I lose can fuck right off. I’ve always malded about the fact that anyone that isn’t at the cutting edge of the meta is gonna get steamrolled by heretic and that is bad for the game.

[TheRex9001]

Can we simmer down a little? I know this is a subject people are passionate about but being shitty to each other is just going to entrench positions and make this far less productive.

[TheBibleMelts]

i'm just vibing here waiting to see if my points and concerns with the antagonist from my OP are at all convincingly refuted, which they have not been.

i pushed to unrestrict changelings and my experiment failed. crew-based antagonists are unable to have progression mechanics without causing inherent issues with how we at least want our MRP server to be played.

the amount of powercreep pushed onto heretics specifically over time have just resulted in an acceleration to the outcome that they need to be disabled, since there doesn't seem to be any direct recognition or efforts towards curbing the core issue spoken about in this thread.

[tttruancy]

Yeah idk this just doesn't seem like a real problem, reduce the weight of heretic if you feel like the resultant stories are getting bland or repetitive, but the idea that a progression solo antag is incompatible with MRP doesn't make any sense to me. Heretic tends to build tension rather nicely and having round enders results in better stories than having every shift peter out quietly at 2hrs when half of the crew is ssd and a shuttle vote gets called.

Don't think it has the same problems as progtot because most of progtot 's farmable side objectives were best achieved by avoiding player interaction - killing pets and sabotaging lathes when players aren't around.

[bingusdingus]

I think the idea that an antag requires an admin to be around to keep them in check is laughable. Heretic has gotten a pass for god knows why and its just become a snowball of unfun that only serves the people that play it. I hate that they get EVERY TOOL and became a swiss army knife antag that can adapt flawlessly to any situation with the right knowledge more than any other antag. Ascension is a dumb mechanic and only serves to give heretics a reward for rushing their objective by being able to grief for the rest of the round and nobody can do anything about it. Make Heretic as rare as Wizard, in my opinion, they're about equivalent power at this point. I always hated Heretic, it's unfun, conceptually lazy, and rewards only the people that are chronically playing SS13 and can locate every item, and master every path. The design ethos behind heretic is textbook part of the reason why new players find SS13 so inaccessible.

[xzero314]

Very much so against this idea. Heretic is the most fun antag in tg. It is nowhere near as problematic as it is made out to be.

[MothNyan]

Very much so against this idea. Heretic is the most fun antag in tg. It is nowhere near as problematic as it is made out to be.

It's also the least fun antag to play against!

I think there's a serious problem when an antag is only fun for one person in a multiplayer environment. At least wizards whole schtick is to cause the most damage as possible, which is fun to observe.

[Antheus]

I am against this. As a player who alternates between silicon and command, I am often a target for heretics. Being killed by a heretic is no big deal, you get returned to the station and can carry on with life (maybe screaming about the hands a lil). An ascended heretic does result in the shuttle having to be called, but at that point the round is usually at a point where it should be called anyways.

I think removing it would be a net negative for MRP