The conversion problem

[Xhuis]

Well, it's that time of the year again. Maintainers are making up rules that don't exist, forum posts stray completely off topic when people complain about one of the cults, and OOC has never been angrier. With two new modes on the way, it's time to ask some questions about how people feel.

It's time to talk about conversion. These modes include our cults and rev right now. There's a gamemode refactor in the works and its creator insists that he's going to non-negotiably remove team antagonists in it. So, with tensions rising and people flinging insults more than ever:

How do you feel about conversion? Tell us why it's great, or tell us why it's not. Vote in the poll and share your thoughts. And elaborate! If you're going to take the time to respond, tell us why. This is not a rant thread. If you're going to whine and bitch, just don't bother. Your opinion counts here, and no matter what my opinions are, I respect the majority's will over my own.

[InsaneHyena]

I'm fine with conversion gamemodes - some conversion gamemodes. Cult (the real cult) is my favourite, and rev is absolutely necessary for letting off steam - sometimes it's even fun out of it's own merit. But more than that - no, thanks. Team deathmatches should not be half of the gamemodes.

[Xhuis]

Me? I like conversion modes. It introduces a new gameplay element and keeps lethality less insane. It also lets people play antagonists now and then even if they don't roll it, and get help from others instead of apathetic admins that just link the out-of-date wiki page.

That said, it has its drawbacks, like any mode. Because people aren't willing converts, it might ruin a round. Keeping a team coordinated is a struggle, especially in a game like this, and if one person does something wrong, everyone suffers.

Oh, allow me to say something. If one mode ruins the batch for you, and you vote low (or high!) because of it, say why. I know clockcult is unpopular, so if you don't like it, say why! Just try not to derail the thread too much.

[Oldman Robustin]

And some of us getting extremely bored with traitor/ling now that they've had the same gameplay for 2+ years. It's extremely stale whereas conversion modes (when well designed) offer much more variety due to the teamwork necessary from both sides to win as opposed to "a bunch of solo antags and lone officers run around kill each other".

[captain sawrge]

I love being forced to powergame or else I just lose the round because not participating means one of the sides just inevitably kills you.

[Cheridan]

Team deathmatches should not be half of the gamemodes.

This is ultimately the issue. Rev was/is fine. The only thing that people seem to want to make are new conversion modes, though. The game falls apart when every single round is a different variant of "Sec has to kill the station before the antags overwhelm them 10 to 1."

[InsaneHyena]

I know clockcult is unpopular, so if you don't like it, say why!

1) It was created in the time when the game was bloated with conversion gamemodes. Luckily, another shit mode, gangs, were removed since then, but now you're remaking shadowlings.
2) It's so similiar to cult, it essentially is cult, just boring, bloated, overcomplicated and with slightly different fluff. Not only it offers nothing that cult doesn't offer too, it's worse at what cult offers.
3) It's centered around your snowflake god. I hate it.

[CPTANT]

Conversion modes are certainly overdone.

We got rev, cult gang and cult again.


I think at least one of them should be reworked to not rely on conversion.

Rev for example could perhaps be a lot more interesting if there was a fixed number of revs. That way there would be more plotting, sceming and exploiting the station and less allround deathmatch conversion carnage.

Or one of the cults could have a fixed number of cultists that simply become more powerful the more people they sacrifice.

[InsaneHyena]

Or one of the cults could have a fixed number of cultists that simply become more powerful the more people they sacrifice.

Yeah, speaking of that, there was a time when cult was essentially magical nuke ops, it was called "newcult". People passionately hated it the entire time, but coders were really, really stubborn about reverting it. Then Robustin fixed the entire thing. As it is right now, cult is great. Please don't touch it.

[CPTANT]

I know clockcult is unpopular, so if you don't like it, say why!

1) It was created in the time when the game was bloated with conversion gamemodes. Luckily, another shit mode, gangs, were removed since then, but now you're remaking shadowlings.
2) It's so similiar to cult, it essentially is cult, just boring, bloated, overcomplicated and with slightly different fluff. Not only it offers nothing that cult doesn't offer too, it's worse at what cult offers.
3) It's centered around your snowflake god. I hate it.

Clockcult on its own isn't that bad, but it is simply yet ANOTHER conversion mode (which for some reason has FOUR different ways of converting people) and it doesn't really stand out that much from the other cult. Though the progression system is nice since we have no progression antag. I think a clockcult that focusses around that progression instead of conversion would be way more interesting.


Progression is tricky to balance since there is a large chance of either snowballing or falling flat, but that's actually even more so the case with conversion modes.

[CPTANT]

Or one of the cults could have a fixed number of cultists that simply become more powerful the more people they sacrifice.

Yeah, speaking of that, there was a time when cult was essentially magical nuke ops, it was called "newcult". People passionately hated it the entire time, but coders were really, really stubborn about reverting it. Then Robustin fixed the entire thing. As it is right now, cult is great. Please don't touch it.

But newcult did suck balls. And it wasn't a progression mode. It was just a conversion mode but instead of cultists, you got turned into constructs. Cultists didn't unlock new power or something

[Incoming]

Currently there are 21 game modes in tgstation code, the current configuration only makes use of nine(!!) of them.

traitorchan 20.3%
double_agents 11.9%
traitor 15.3%
clockwork_cult 6.8%
cult 6.8%
extended 1.7%
nuclear 16.9%
revolution 10.2%
wizard 10.2%

Conversion modes currently hold about a fourth of the rounds on a well populated station. If you call it group antagonist modes and add nuke ops it raises it to about four tenths of all rounds.

Opinions abounds if this is too much percentage for that kind of thing, The loss a few non conversion modes might have bumped the numbers a bit too much in their favor.

So in short: Bring back blob and monkey.

[ShadowDimentio]

Clockcult is the only mode that needs to go besides gang which is already pretty much gone. Clockcult has had like a year since its inception to be good and even though constant tweaks and changes it still isn't good, in fact the times where it's played it's near a complete binary: Either the cult takes over absolutely everything and everyone, or they lose instantly.

Sure, this is true of most conversion modes, but clockcult is unique in that the "starting phase" where the cult is setting up to get dangerous lasts like a fucking hour. It's awful. Conversion modes as a whole however are fine, as the only two alternatives to them are either killing everyone or avoiding everyone, both which aren't very fun.

So don't fucking rip conversion modes out of the game.

[Xhuis]

I know clockcult is unpopular, so if you don't like it, say why!

1) It was created in the time when the game was bloated with conversion gamemodes. Luckily, another shit mode, gangs, were removed since then, but now you're remaking shadowlings.
2) It's so similiar to cult, it essentially is cult, just boring, bloated, overcomplicated and with slightly different fluff. Not only it offers nothing that cult doesn't offer too, it's worse at what cult offers.
3) It's centered around your snowflake god. I hate it.

1. Valid concern. Shadowling redux won't actually need conversion, though, and it's a high investment to get conversion.
2. Validish. It does have a ton of bloat, but that's because it's designed to have a bunch of situational stuff instead of general use tools. Give me that it has cooler sprites and sounds at least!
3. Invalid! Objection! It's not my god, it's PJB's. And he's not a snowflake. The "canon" is just my headcanon. I leave actual lore up to people.

[Haevacht]

I love being forced to powergame or else I just lose the round because not participating means one of the sides just inevitably kills you.

[Cobby]

I love being forced to powergame or else I just lose the round because not participating means one of the sides just inevitably kills you.

This minus the sarcasm.

Antags being actual things that influence the round instead of things you can just opt out is one of my fav parts about conversion modes.

[captain sawrge]

I love being forced to powergame or else I just lose the round because not participating means one of the sides just inevitably kills you.

This minus the sarcasm.

Antags being actual things that influence the round instead of things you can just opt out is one of my fav parts about conversion modes.

That already exists in the form of wizard and ops though.

[Luke Cox]

Conversion modes are fine as long as they don't dominate the rotation. Removing all of them completely is pure fucking autism.

[onleavedontatme]

I like conversion modes sometimes. Some of my favourite rounds have been conversion modes.

But just because I order chocolate cake for desert doesn't mean I want my steak and salad slathered in chocolate syrup.

And if I enjoy warthog races in Halo it doesn't mean I want the whole game to be about cars.

There are so many thousands of team death match games in the world, why does SS13 need to be one of them?

SS13 doesn't even do it very well since we have our scaling and team balance is a fucking joke.

[Luke Cox]

2/3 non-conversion 1/3 conversion is the ideal setup as far as rotation weights are concerned in my opinion

[Remie Richards]

3. Invalid! Objection! It's not my god, it's PJB's. And he's not a snowflake. The "canon" is just my headcanon. I leave actual lore up to people.

Velard's*

[Xhuis]

3. Invalid! Objection! It's not my god, it's PJB's. And he's not a snowflake. The "canon" is just my headcanon. I leave actual lore up to people.

Velard's*

REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

[ShadowDimentio]

I love being forced to powergame or else I just lose the round because not participating means one of the sides just inevitably kills you.

This minus the sarcasm.

Antags being actual things that influence the round instead of things you can just opt out is one of my fav parts about conversion modes.

That already exists in the form of wizard and ops though.

Friendly operatives is something I've literally never seen and it sounds retarded. Friendly wizards are boring as fuck and you should feel bad if you willingly burn your once a year wizard roll on healing the assistant that died to his own welderbomb.

Also "this already exists so lets remove four gamemodes" is a garbage argument.

[D&B]

Back when chameleon sets were a thing my commander ordered us to put suits on to buy the disk.

[ShadowDimentio]

I heard about that. Gimmicks are rad and should be encouraged, but how gimmicky a mode can be is a frankly stupid measurement for the quality of a mode.

[Xhuis]

I saw ops win the disk in Texas Hold 'Em once. Was legendary.

[InsaneHyena]

Back when chameleon sets were a thing my commander ordered us to put suits on to buy the disk.

[youtube]enpsaYIebH4[/youtube]

[ShadowDimentio]

That was a terrible event video, nothing happened nearly the whole time until the ops got sick of trying to gimmick their way to the disk and shot the cap dead.

[cedarbridge]

Team antagonist modes are cooperative (when the players are) and inclusive. These are two things that add a lot of fun to them as general game modes. Its not "oh boy I hope I'm one of the 5 people who roll a freedom to griff card" but rather "oh boy I get to spread the joys of griff to everyone." The fact that we have so much of our antagonist stuff focused on "rolling for antag" is troubling and puts undue focus on the antags as more desirable than normal crew. Team modes give you an incentive to include more players in your fun instead of just walking the line between remove as many as possible and avoiding removing as many as possible.

[onleavedontatme]

>one of the stricter new admins, firmly on the side of disliking "IC issues" and "escalation"
>my favourite modes are the ones where everyone is allowed to kill everyone for no reason

I'm confused

[IcePacks]

Revolutionary rounds work because there is a mostly-defined force that is not antagonists, and the antagonists have a very clearly-defined goal. Cultists can often be anyone with any number of goals, and are therefore posses an element of surprise, which goes a very long way in circumventing security's efforts to stop them.

That's pretty much all I've got. Gang sucked, I guess?

[AnonymousNow]

Personally I'm fond of conversion gamemodes as they let people get in on the action without necessarily just being seen as valids by the antagonists. I'm fond of clockwork cult for being relatively bloodless (lol), but still antagonistic.

The notion of removing team antagonists is such a stupid one that it batters my brain.

[Cik]

there is no conversion problem, and if there is it's just because of gamemode weighting my man

conversion is fun, once in a while

[cedarbridge]

>one of the stricter new admins, firmly on the side of disliking "IC issues" and "escalation"
>my favourite modes are the ones where everyone is allowed to kill everyone for no reason

I'm confused

If you meant me, I've probably turned over more things as IC issues than not. That said, I stand by my statement. I really dislike the focus on antag status as a sort of lucky prize to a few select individuals granted by RNGesus. Team antags allow for cooperation among antags and even require it in most cases. That's pretty cool. Rev usually doesn't require much cooperation apart from "form the mob" but even then it still brings the station together in a way that solo traitor/ling doesn't. Its pretty rare that departments crank out neat stuff and actually use it unless they're granted antag status and conversion antags give the rule-required cover to start printing out all of those dangerous science toys nobody ever makes or other fun things.

That's not to say I want to see something as degenerate as TDM (which, admittedly, is basically what rev is) and I do kinda dislike the current "is it valid" culture, but I don't see better options right now. Its also why I tend to like side antags that involve more players in the round (abductors, borers and the very rare devil; no xenos though fuck xenos)

[D&B]

One of my biggest gripes with conversion modes is that it takes one person to fuck up to give out everyone. They're too centered on being able to keep down.

Clock I absolutely loathe because tower defense doesn't belong in the current iteration of the game. It's clunky and overcomplicated and although winning feels good, it doesn't feel fun.

[Luke Cox]

Blood cult is nice because even if you have one dumbass, you can just ignore them and carry on

[bandit]

I'm fine with conversion gamemodes, the problem is we've removed a lot of non-conversion modes, such as malf.

[PKPenguin321]

I'm fine with conversion gamemodes, the problem is we've removed a lot of non-conversion modes, such as malf.

Kind of a bad example because malf was shit but yeah I'd like to see more straightforward antags like traitor and ling, or even have some big baddie antags like blob fixed up

[PKPenguin321]

Oh but that's not to say I don't dig conversion modes, I love the variety (inb4 "its just a deconversion cargo camp every time!!!"), and I think as long as we scale down the round type probability for conversion modes as we add new ones so they don't overtake straightforward antags there's no point in turning them down "because they're a conversion mode"

[Reece]

I dislike clockcult because building a base is fucking cancerous and essentially unworkable on medium pop because of people treating maint as a sideroad.

[Qbopper]

I think conversion antags should continue to exist despite my personal hatred of them, but I'd like to see more "coop" gamemodes

Nukeops is sort of what I mean in that the crew unites against one threat, but it's not a great example because as soon as war is delcared/someone sees the ops the game becomes a deathmatch and normal station duties just sorta stop happening, same as blob

I can't come up with any ideas to change conversion modes or ideas for new modes, though, so my opinion means very little

[BeeSting12]

The only good conversion modes are oldcult and revs. Clock cult is either "get dunked early on" or an hour of nothing happening, clock cult gets OP shit, and summon. No middle ground. One of the things I like about conversion modes is that they include everyone in the fun, it's not just one person gets to be antagonist like in wizard. They're a really nice break from the normal.

[XDTM]

One thing i dislike about cults and rev is that they're very anti-gimmick: they don't have a leader to give the team a direction, so everyone either does their own thing or follows the meta, making the rounds take the same direction most of the time, resulting in the loss of the team if there are more people who do their own thing or the team's win if there are more people following the meta.

For example, making spears/explosive spears/toxin bombs and running towards the nearest head is usually the quickest way to win revolution, but since it's so fast it prevents more elaborate strategies, such as mech armies, forced head deportation to lavaland, or other nonstandard tactics.

[Durkel]

The problem with conversion modes is that even though the methods may be different, the outcome is almost always the same. You don't have room to really get creative because the crew is going to power game the hardest to not die due to the fact you have 352525 tools for shit, and your other team mates are going to do likewise.

Bring back gang, remove it's objectives, set a limit on how many people you can recruit and just let people fuck around as gangsters.

[ShadowDimentio]

Gang is hot garbage and no amount of conversion limits will change that.

[PKPenguin321]

Gang is hot garbage and no amount of conversion limits will change that.

Gang was god tier and easily my favorite mode for a couple months after it was released, but eventually the meta to play as/against gangs "optimally" set in and killed it

[CPTANT]

Gang is hot garbage and no amount of conversion limits will change that.

Gang was god tier and easily my favorite mode for a couple months after it was released, but eventually the meta to play as/against gangs "optimally" set in and killed it

I blame implant breakers.

[InsaneHyena]

> Gamemode actively encourages security to become nazis the moment they stop a graffiti, and force implant everyone, because otherwise they get overwhelmed and killed in twenty minutes
Hm-m-m, I wonder why this gamemode failed

[ShadowDimentio]

Gang is hot garbage and no amount of conversion limits will change that.

Gang was god tier and easily my favorite mode for a couple months after it was released, but eventually the meta to play as/against gangs "optimally" set in and killed it

I've said it once I'll say it again: Gang was over the second jobs were rolled, and that's shit.

[Steelpoint]

I like conversion game modes, but with the way they are made you have to be wary of having their odds of occurring too high.

One time when we had a higher percentage chance of conversion rounds triggering, one issue I found we were having was 'security fatigue'. Playing as security during a conversion game mode can be a high stress event, and constantly going from one conversion round to another as security can quickly take its toll.

There is also how Gang attempted to completely sideline security with implant breakers and similar game play decisions. Instead of supplanting security it instead turned security into a balls to the wall death camp with security oft times acting worse than the very gangs they were trying to stop. With mass executions of innocent people being the norm for the sake of survival.

Fortunately that's not as critical a issue now days, but still the number one OOC complaint I see after any conversion game mode are people complaining about how security acted during the round.

Wish there was a easier way for the HoS to declare Martial Law outside of Red Alert, cause Martial Law is always a mess in real life, which is exactly what happens during a conversion game mode.