The state of grief and its causes.

[Shadowflame909]

Before we get into this conversation, I must first address that this is no easy matter to fix. It's easier to say something, and not act on it. In truth, it'd be easier to start a new version of ss13 from the ground up then rapidly shift our gears to stop the underlying problem that leads us to this point. But, I feel like a summary of the emotions of a griefer will better help us deal with it and understand it.

Now, Why do people grief?

The short answer is boredom. The long answer is burn-out leading to boredom. Let me explain. I cannot speak for other servers, but on /tg/ a casual medium pop round revolves around surviving the events of a state of the art station going wrong, via sabotage. The way things go wrong is similar to a game of Mafia or Werewolf. An unknown villain is lurking around and is taking out the crew by whatever means necessary. Once the crew realizes this is happening, tension rises and their trust falters. They have to get out of this hell-hole before becoming another victim. Hysteria ensues.

This short summary of events has more or less evolved into an even deeper self-contained lore that gets rid of the anti-trust aspects. This is well-defined in Rule 2 Precedent 2. "Similar to how characters are allowed to know everything about in-game mechanics or antagonists under rule 2, characters are allowed to have persistent knowledge/relationships/friendships with the caveat that knowledge of a character being an antagonist from a previous round is not used. "

So, everyone knows what the villain of the story is capable of. So then, after a while, they all become aware of the people who can either be potential allies or enemies.

Where am I going with this? Where does grief fall into this?

So like a weird mishmash of ingredients, SS13 will lead you to by force, self-insert into your role in the chain of events and do whatever it takes to survive/complete your characters goals. Now here's the outlier. The cardinal enemy of everything SS13 stands for. Boredom.

A bored player has no desire to self-insert. A bored player will do whatever they need to, to receive some enjoyment out of this game. The bored player takes over the role of the villain by force and throws the entertained player into the carnage that is devoid of any understanding or passion. A bored player plays this game like GTA and unconsciously views everyone else as NPCs.

By doing this, they make more Burnt-Out. Bored players.

Now our smart ss13 "players" have found ways to combat this internal boredom that eats up at them and steals all passion after many times of going through the motions.

They play Jobs with very large amounts of content that they can never fully get through because of how short rounds are. (Another way Boredom destroys the entertained.) They explore the ruins in space. They get into tension-filled fights with simple mobs on lavaland, or they themselves are the villains of the story and inspire tension into the hearts of the others. Lastly, they rely on the great whims of the imposing admins to spice up the shift, maybe by sending the large amounts of players to their doom in the gateway?

Lastly, here is my argumentative conclusion where I try to make you take a stance. This game requires two things to defeat boredom and to defeat grief once and for all. A simple design that someone who's never touched a computer can understand. A fun way to interact with that simple design. If you're missing any of these key elements, grief and escalation win out.

What do you say to this, people of Traditional Games station? Am I right on the nose that grief is simply the manifestation of boredom looking for fun? Players, Admins, and coders have fallen to these feelings alike. If you don't believe me, just check the FNR section and look at the most common reason for successful admin complaints, and bans in general. (Outside of Metacomms, of course.)

Or do you disagree and have another opinion? Like and Subscribe, and leave a comment below.

If we want to get rid of bans. We just have to get rid of boredom.

[oranges]

Bro

[tinodrima7020]

You just posted cringe.

[ThanatosRa]

I thought you were trying to start a conversation about grieving.

[Shadowflame909]

That is the plan.

The more we understand why players grief and start playing /TG/ like it's a single player open world game. We can fix it successfully.

I think it's a lack of content and burn-out from the already done easy content. Plain and simple.

[ThanatosRa]

No. I mean grieving. Like what you do when your mom died or something. Like we're going to talk about the complexities of being Human

[Shadowflame909]

Well, there's a lack of discussion in general anyways. So you can do that if you want.

[CDranzer]

See this is why you shouldn't ban him because then he goes and starts writing up shit like this

But I mean yeah grief is born of boredom but what the hell is the solution besides "make the game more interesting"? Like I don't disagree with what you're saying but that's mainly because I'm not sure you're saying anything at all

[Shadowflame909]

Well, CDranzer. When I play the game, I look at the jobs that grief the least and the jobs that grief and greytided the most.

The least would be, Mining, Xenobiology, Virology, All of Service except for the Janitor and Clown/Mime.

The most would be, Assistant, Janitor, Atmos-Tech, Chemistry, Captain/HoP.

Cargo would be in the middle of these two, sometimes they're saving up for the bicycle. Other times they're guns blazing and bored. Clown and Mime focus on causing entertainment. But the line gets iffy because sometimes it's just for themselves only. Ala Space Lube and Invisible Walling the HoP line.

Lets used Xenobiology as my main example. It's one of the most Jam-Packed jobs that you can only really harvest one aspect of its true potential, (One Tier 4.) 45 minutes in if your speed running. Not even talking about cross-breeding. There's so much to do, that the xenobiologist rarely ever leaves unless a carp breaks in. Or they're malnourished, or murdered! Even an antagonist can get caught up in the content with how much there is to do. That they forget about being an antagonist.

Now with this out of the way. I say Content is key when bringing grief down. The gateway was a good way to alleviate some of that High-Pop. By sending them to there deaths, with hopes of fortune and amazing items/powers. IE. Syndicate Hideout ruin where every syndikat has an LG-saw that'll three shot you. Wizard Den ruin with Magic Missle and Fireball. Or the Wishgranter ruin with the faithless forever spawning out of holes, and it's a maze where you have to go to the end and use the wish-granter. Turning you into a shadow-person with an objective.

The gateway had three problems. It caused pre-game loading lag, gave out OP content, and took away too much of the crew's population.

As we can see now, /TG/ is constantly Jam-Packed with a crew. More crew means fewer people to do the fun jobs, and more boredom going around.

I feel like sending 29/30 people to their deaths in the gateway to chill out some of that High-Pop madness would be a decent start at lowering the grief that stems from lack of content of a job.

To do this, the ruins would have to be very Long and very difficult. At least don't have someone coming out of there with sweet loot until an hour in. Since at that point, any department on the station has the potential to cause more death then a Nuke ever could.

[wesoda25]

A true shadow post, I had no idea where he was going with it right to the very end.

Although you gotta know people become bored because they’ve already explored all in game content, burnt players don’t play xenobio every round. Burnt players play whatever roles they find variability in, its why I main security and assistant. In the end they either quit or get banned.

Also I don’t see tide as an issue and for the most part never will. I think really the issue is too many people interpret tiding as something done to personally fuck you over. I know I do as a stress reliever, because its funny and fun. Its why so many sec mains get banned, they take tiding personally and start grudging. At the end of the day, theres a difference between tiding and being a dick.

[teepeepee]

When I play the game, I look at the jobs that grief the least and the jobs that grief and greytided the most.

The least would be (...) Virology

what the fuck are you talking about, my character becomes a nigger 8/10 shifts because there's always that one funny viro that releases revitiligo

[Shadowflame909]

Sometimes the chef serves burnt food. Jobs can have content, but not all players will use it.

[Tlaltecuhtli]

grief is bannable, if you see grief report it to the admins instead of here

[PKPenguin321]

Actually people grief because it is funny

[IkeTG]

OP doesn't understand the one fundamental rule of online sandbox games

eventually everything becomes a form of cops and robbers and there's literally nothing you can do to stop it

[cedarbridge]

OP doesn't understand the one fundamental rule of online sandbox games

eventually everything becomes a form of cops and robbers and there's literally nothing you can do to stop it

It's simple. We ban the assistant mains.

[IkeTG]

that's how mafia works

[NikNakFlak]

This is his second post filled with a bunch of bullshit that boils down to him begging for the gateway again. The first was that policy thread. Just drop it dude or stop padding your gateway begging

[Cobby]

or make a gateway that's worth entertaining while trying to make it not cheesable (if loot exists) AND entice people to use it (if loot doesn't lol)

[Cobby]

Also oml stop playing for a while if you get burnt out if you can't contribute. Hell, even if you can it's sometimes what you need to do if you've exhausted everything.

[Shadowflame909]

If you don't like the gateway idea then what's another option to cast away the bored population. Bans are just a bandaid that lost its stickyness and keeps falling off no matter how many times you reapply it.

We need a more permanent solution that'll ultimately lower the amount of people being banned.

The gateway could be it.

[Qbmax32]

shadowflame posts are like fwoosh posts but not as funny

[Super Aggro Crag]

Grief is a natural response to loss. It is the suffering one feels when something or someone the individual loves is taken away. The grief associated with death is familiar to most people, but individuals grieve in connection with a variety of losses throughout their lives, such as unemployment, ill health or the end of a relationship.Loss can be categorized as either physical or abstract, the physical loss being related to something that the individual can touch or measure, such as losing a spouse through death, while other types of loss are abstract, and relate to aspects of a person’s social interactions.

[Malkraz]

I can't believe shadowflame is a genuine mind reader

[Shadowflame909]

I apologize for being too obtuse about my theories if it's coming off a genuine shitpost.

I just want to see more progress that isn't solely coming from the code-base.

My viewpoint is that if the nail keeps falling out of the wood no matter how many times you hammer it in. It might be better to go with something new for a change.

[Farquaar]

A player who griefs instead of just taking a break when they get bored should rethink their attitude towards multiplayer games.

[Shadowflame909]

Let me try it from another perspective.

Grief is an Unconscious act.

How is it unconscious Shadow? That guy is clearly busting the sec officers kneecaps and stealing his shit.

Ok, that might not be the right word.

What I'm trying to say is, A griefer is a player who's desire for fun outways any other ambitions he may have had in that game.

Desire creeps up on you in many ways, hunger, thirst, breathing, love, hate. You have things that at a point that you'll want to receive no matter what the costs. You'll think about those costs after you receive it.

That's basically how a griefer operates in grief mode.

It's why people are so regretful (usually) after a situation has transpired.

Desire and Grief are basically synonymous with each other. Grief is just desire acted out.

Grief is the point of no return. It happens a lot, and the most you can do is punish said griefer.

What I would like to do, is to have more in-game options to stop it from going that far.

Feed that Desire with mechanics that hurt nobody.

VR was a potential solution, but it ultimately felt un-rewarding and pointless. 99% of the players want some reflection of their efforts in their pursuit for fun at the end of the shift.

It's why Mining works so well.

If we can single out more methods to detract an unaware burnt out player from harming the crew, and to instead harm I don't know. Some Mob in another Z-Level. Then we've found our ticket to lowering the number of people being banned. And lowering the number of people being burnt out in general.

This includes the admin team.

[IkeTG]

dude everyone understands that people grief when they're bored, there's no reason to reinvent the wheel with long-winded diatribes

[Denton]

tl;dr

[Shadowflame909]

If we add in ways to distract burnt out players and griefers. The happiness of our community will go up by 100% and so will the amount of "RP" that gets done.

[IkeTG]

i guess the point to make is that if you consider players whom grief a symptom rather than, you know, players, you're always going to end up pissing on someone's shoes

[MisterPerson]

I'd bet money that most players who grief aren't "bored veterans", they're just assholes. They were gonna grief anyways, no matter how much content there was. 90/10 rule bro, 90% of problems are caused by 10% of people. Trust me, I know griefers, I've griefed, I know how griefers think. Griefing is fun.

Not that I'm arguing that more content is bad or anything. I mean yeah of course there should be more content, I just seriously doubt that adding more content will actually reduce griefing.

[SaveVatznick]

Desire creeps up on you in many ways, hunger, thirst, breathing, love, hate. You have things that at a point that you'll want to receive no matter what the costs. You'll think about those costs after you receive it.

That's basically how a griefer operates in grief mode.

It's why people are so regretful (usually) after a situation has transpired.

Never once on this server, on these forums, or on the discord, have I ever seen remorse.

[Shadowflame909]

I link to every successful ban appeal ever

[Super Aggro Crag]

I link to every successful ban appeal ever

shadowflame you're stupid as fuck dude

[CDranzer]

Gonna have to defend shadowflame on this one, I have seen people show remorse after chaotic murderboning. Not always, but sometimes.

[Ispiria]

Shadow I like you and I really really want to fully read, process, and respond to your post, but your habit of randomly capitalizing Words for no Reason and inserting periods. Where they don't belong. Really. Triggers me.

I haven't gotten through a post of yours longer than a couple lines in, like, a year, and this makes me sad.

[Aloraydrel]

Seek mental aid

[Whoneedspacee]

Unironically I've always said and it's always been true that every time I get banned it was usually a result of me being bored of the game. Sometimes you just get so bored you cross the line with the meming and it comes out just not fun at all for anyone. Hell the round where I bought like 30 null crates as a non antag totes the line of fun and disrupting the round ridiculously (though i think it was more fun for most people at least), on any other server you'd probably be banned for anything like that.

I'll generally play for a few months with a clean ass record but slowly and surely I'll mostly likely descend into doing stupid shit for the sake of trying to do something unique.

I'm kind of hoping that I won't do this this time and I've been enjoying just teaching people and round gimmicks that dont directly mess with people but it is definitely in my nature to come close to that line.

Honestly if admins want to combat this I'd just say do more admin events more often. The game gets monotonous and at some point you get stuck in the meta of doing the same thing over and over and you feel stuck doing that no matter how thrill seeking you are. Having a reason to do things other than what you would normally do is just a good change of pace. I had a fun round where centcomm sent us a shitton of canisters of gas (tritium nitryl etc) and told us to make a supermatter engine out of it and I had a blast building that with all of the engineers.

Some might say take a break but honestly I don't know when I've reached that point until its too late most of the time.

Onto the shitpost portion of this thread.

Really if you want the gateway though then someone needs to put HELLA effort into making it not shit. As it is now it is basically the solarium, minus the lore, minus unique items, and minus the foreboding atmosphere and ambience. It just isn't good.

[Shadowflame909]

I told you guys.

Look at Kerbin Fiber.

Look at Asher Clarke.

Look at Whoneedspacee.

The "ok" players who actually enjoy this game, succumb to boredom and then start griefing.

There's that small minority that just griefs and has no interested in the non-antagonist content, but ultimately...

Boredom = Grief.

[cedarbridge]

small majority

Quality post

[Shadowflame909]

I'm suffering from a minor fever, so my brain is in potato mode

[Super Aggro Crag]

thats not a fever thats your brain overheating from thinking too hard about shit no one cares about

[wesoda25]

Unironically I've always said and it's always been true that every time I get banned it was usually a result of me being bored of the game. Sometimes you just get so bored you cross the line with the meming and it comes out just not fun at all for anyone. Hell the round where I bought like 30 null crates as a non antag totes the line of fun and disrupting the round ridiculously (though i think it was more fun for most people at least), on any other server you'd probably be banned for anything like that.

I'll generally play for a few months with a clean ass record but slowly and surely I'll mostly likely descend into doing stupid shit for the sake of trying to do something unique.

I'm kind of hoping that I won't do this this time and I've been enjoying just teaching people and round gimmicks that dont directly mess with people but it is definitely in my nature to come close to that line.

Honestly if admins want to combat this I'd just say do more admin events more often. The game gets monotonous and at some point you get stuck in the meta of doing the same thing over and over and you feel stuck doing that no matter how thrill seeking you are. Having a reason to do things other than what you would normally do is just a good change of pace. I had a fun round where centcomm sent us a shitton of canisters of gas (tritium nitryl etc) and told us to make a supermatter engine out of it and I had a blast building that with all of the engineers.

Some might say take a break but honestly I don't know when I've reached that point until its too late most of the time.

Onto the shitpost portion of this thread.

Really if you want the gateway though then someone needs to put HELLA effort into making it not shit. As it is now it is basically the solarium, minus the lore, minus unique items, and minus the foreboding atmosphere and ambience. It just isn't good.

fucking facts right here every time i get banned or noted for bad stuff its like 90% when i stop giving a shit and hope for a ban (excluding the times when i was just dumb and didnt know wha ti was doing)

[Calibraptor]

Tbh I agree on the level that bored and burnt out players start to find more and more griefy ways of entertaining themselves, but I don't think bringing back the gateway is the way to go unless it's rebalanced.

[W65]

I dunno why the causes of grief in this game would be different than any other multiplayer game. There're otherwise-normal folks who get bored and try new and boundary-pushing ways of amusing themselves, small people who fabricate victories of ego for themselves by kicking over other peoples' sand castles, and trolls who just enjoy watching (or imagining) other people get mad.

[peoplearestrange]

Think your pretty much on the nose, but a lot of it is to gain a reaction. I guess its triggered by bored and peoples inability to understand or recognise their own burnout. And even when they do realise they are bored/burnt out they kinda just keep going through the motions and dont know what else to do.

Which is odd to me when there are SO many games about these days... Even for cheap or free.

[Dax Dupont]

Never thought I'd see the day where I'd agree with Shadowflame909.

Though the grief turning more people into shitters is pretty true.

We arguably need to be stricter and at the same time run more engaging events to break out the monotone. Not just button spam of course.

[angelstarri]

Actually people grief because it is funny

based