User:PowerfulBacon/FutureOfAntags

Overview

The current state of antagonists and crew interaction is in a bit of a weird place. I have identified the following problems:

• Players avoid interacting with antagonists in any way that could help them
• Players avoid interacting with any form of combat, including situations where people are being kidnapped/killed directly adjacent to them.
• Antagonists do not seem to be acting

These 3 problems fall under the same umbrella of players choosing not to act on the situations unfolding around them. Players choosing to ignore and not participate in situations unfolding around them is contrary to our goals of encouraging roleplay, as the lack of any form of interaction is a worst case scenario for us.

Observations

• Ninja with 4 other people adjacent to them, starts kidnapping a player. Players attack the net, but nobody touches the ninja except from 1 player who only uses disarm intent.
• Ninja is in security, all players are standing there. Heretic comes in and starts killing security. The ninja just stands and watches.
• Security tends to be caught in awkward positions where they let an antagonists roam the station freely even while they have clear contraband present. This extends to ninja which don't seem to get attacked at all unless they attack security first. Players seem to be avoiding initiating combat themselves, even when the situation is playing out in a way that makes sense to do so.

Statements from players

I posed the question to see why nobody was doing anything and these are some general responses that I got, paraphrased:

• If you see someone being attacked, you are only allowed to do anything if you are security/head, it is in your department.
• Trying to step in risks a bwoink, or gets you called a validhunter.
• Interactions are limited between crew and antags as both sides fear bans.
• Interactions are boiling down to 'sleep on this rune, you'll be fine'
• Shuttle is a time to tab out
• Doctor is meant to heal people, don't want to get in trouble for attacking someone OOC

Players also initially gave the reason that they don't want their character to die, but I questioned this as players were still choosing to remain near the antagonist:

• Why leave the only place where something is happening
• Fleeing could make you a target

Causes

There are 3 points which I believe are particularly prevelant in encouraging the behaviour that we are seeing:

• The self-antag rule is being treated as a rule which denies all forms of helping antagonists, including where the player has a roleplay reason to do so. (This appears to include both threats and selfish reasons to assist antagonists)
• Players are sometimes seen as valid-hunting if they engage an antagonists, even when the antagonist brings a fight to their location.
• Our approach to balancing some powerful antagonist items has heavily limited what antagonists are capable of, and they are no longer able to hold their own against security. Players have responded to this by playing antagonists in non-bold ways and achieving objectives entirely through stealth, or being blatant but doing things that just get ignored by security.

The rule related issues may either be a misinterpretation by the community, or misenforcement by the admins. Which ever one it is doesn't matter, as it still gives the same problem and requires action.

Proposals

Antagonist Balance

• Antagonists should be powerful enough to hold their own in combat against security. They still should be somewhat limited in the amount that they can use their great power, but they should be able to have great power. Things that are fun should be somewhat overpowered.
• The number of antagonists spawned by dynamic should be reduced, to compensate for more powerful antagonists.
• Antagonists should naturally tend towards causing some accidental damage to people around them, so that acting in populated areas is likely to force more people to get involved in a way that either puts them in combat, or forces them to flee.

Security

• When an arrest warrant is created, inform the player that it targets. This intends to make arrests feel less sudden, and lets security arrest obvious but non-violent antagonists in a way that doesn't feel unfair to the player. I think that this will make them more likely to enforce rules against blatant but non-acting antagonists.