Vigilantism , escalation and very low roleplaying.

[Kotlol]

Lately in RP rounds... I been seeing more and more players not really roleplaying and just saying stuff LOOC style without LOOC. Now once in a while it doesn't bother me but every round (and I do not play many rounds per week) there is always 1-3 people doing this I interact with. Wich is a pattern...

I also notice players are also waaaaay more vigilant and beating people up out of "self defense" without triggering such an escalation.
I had situations where I was helping someone but they were not staying in their lane. (think a doctor trying to heal you but the guy just grabs healing items for themselves and you try to put em into a cryotube for treatment but they jump out and keep grabbing healing items to the point they attack you to stop you from being a doctor.)

I find this to be a growing trend in high pop RP. Where I see some people just act like an antagonist but in the end wasn't one... but for some reason found it a good idea to run away from security or beat them up cause security "attacked them" (aka baton and tazers).
I seen people break into places they shouldn't or mess with doors cause: "Why not?"
I had security rounds where I been so busy dealing with staff that were clearly doing things they shouldn't like lube bombing as a non antag.
Where as the actual antags barely did anything antaggy or noticed to be an antagonist cause "here comes another lube bombing"

It feels like when I want to talk with these players , they walk away, they don't confirm anything, just act act act and only exchange very minor words... to the point that it feels a lil bit like classic.

I do Ahelp these types of behaviours when I think it breaks the rules. But the increase of these behaviours kinda makes me worried...and I seen some effect antagonists... cause with vigilant non roleplaying people around.. antagonists are quicker to just aggresively blow up/kill people with low interaction.
It feels like 1/10 rounds now security is just "blown up" by an antagonist without much of me knowing why or what.

Now I may feel like the only one since I play like 5 rounds per week these days? And I was reminded today that 5 of my rounds last week, 2 of them had Security BLOWN UP. 

Eitherway I do feel like roleplay is feeling more.. "classic lite" lately. Where when I want to do a specific action with talking is met with... ignored, running away or such.
Am I the only one? Has there been a larger flux of newbees lately? Eitherway.. it feels like roleplay has decreased quite a bit.

PS: That said... I did get some great roleplayers who stick to it. It's just there are a small group of players that only act and not roleplay.

[Torchwick]

Now, I typically play lowpop so take my experience with a grain of salt, but I do often notice similar situations. Namely; I struggle to get radio interaction. I'm not sure if it's an issue of folks not reading the chat window, but sometimes I try to spark up conversation on highpop and get nothing in response.

This could be a multitude of reasons, of course, and I'm not saying one server is better than the other for RP. It all comes down to preference and the speed / style folks enjoy. Just tossing my two cents in to say that sometimes highpop feels like it lacks the enjoyment of letting doctors do doctor rp and engineers do engineering rp without 3 people doing it themselves as a staffie.

Granted, sometimes I hop over on highpop and it's totally chill, so I think it just depends on the time of day, who is playing, etc etc. That's my experience anyhow.

[Emimiyu]

This might be semi-admin feedback posting, but I have been ahelping stuff that been dome repetitively by the same player where one would pick non security role, yet will shows up to hunt antagonist or demanding access for easy antag hunt. Or situation where sec allows some players to hunt antagonist because "They were sec main, so it is fine!". This has happens for months and I feel odd for ahelping same behaviour all over because it feels like metagrudging. Yet, nothing has been done about it and the player keep doing the same thing. I have even seen when people around agreed that someone went too far as non sec when it comes to antag, we have admins helping us with the situation, yet, I keep seeing still the same behaviour and nothing change much.

And this behaviour doesn't even come from new "LRP players". In the discord, I have seen regular player who is non sec main bragging about how they always gather gears and robusting antags. In game, they would walk around in maintenance far from their job area with their gears and "suspiciously" beat up an antag. I have even seen two players who talks about "I am so baaad, but I can't stop stomping antag I see and taking gears to beat up antagonist" On discord, yet this seems normalized.

I have seen these behaviour on both highpop and lowpop servers and repetitive ones, yet I feel like nothing has done to this behaviour. And even then, the answer would usually be, "Well, antagonist are valid, crew can beat them up!". But what about stay in your lane and anti powergaming rules?

[Chasu]

I‘ve also noticed a shift in RP “depth”, so to speak. If I had to take a guess as to why this is happening, I‘d say that the newer, less experienced players just flock to the server with more people. Ya can’t really blame them for it, they want to be where people are. They read all the fun stuff on the wiki about making lube smoke and pipebombs and just… do it in game. All that the average player can do in such a case is ahelp it, or attempt to reason with them ingame, though, as Kotlol mentioned, players like that can be very dismissive. It’s a natural consequence of the pop shift from classic to RP. On classic, they could learn the game mechanics in a less restrictive environment, have their fun and then switch to RP if they want to. The average newbie, however, doesn’t know that.

[Gomp]

I haven't played on the main servers since you posted this but what I can definetly say is that there is currently a large amount of new and returning players joining because of the opening of a Nightshade server, I have my doubts though that those players would behave like this. I also can't say I have experienced the same things you have in the last few weeks but since I am on the european timezone I basically play a completely different game.

[Lord_earthfire]

This has to be a timezone thing....

Because when i play i see nothing like that. To be honest, i feel our culture currently is too docile and appreciate new players joining because of nightshade. I mean, how often do i have seen people go *eyebrow instead of robusting the clown that broke into chemistry... at least do something and not ignore it and expect sec to handle it.

It is shaking up the culture and this is **exciting**.

Of course, if the behaviour goes intro straight up validhunting or greytiding, ahelp that. But we shouldn't discourage people from trying out new things and going against "expected" behaviour. It is also true that many new players have the tendency to... not talk? But this is something many grow out of given enough rounds.

[Taylorstar]

Over the last few months I've been pushing harder to play as a more aggressive antag because as Eathfire said there is a feeling that things are too docile, now I'm not saying the antags aren't being aggressive, in truth I've seen some really promising antaggery making me think if these people get more time they can really cook.

I have no problem with people stepping up to help security, defend medbay or protect their department, these are all usually things I target and expect some kind of resistance to push against me. Personally I think people should have some expectation that if you fight a clown, he may slip you with a banana. Upset the MD? the guys got a dart gun. Vampire flying about killing people? Chaplains got a bible and a gun and with that  I fully agree that people need to remain in their lanes, I don't expect to go into hydroponics and find someone armed with a looted stun baton riot shield etc but if they turn around with a chainsaw its fair game.

The most fun I've had in space station 13 is when I've actively been in that chase, whether I'm chasing or being chased. I'd like to think in the rounds where I have been antagonist and I have presented myself as a station wide threat more people have had fun and enjoyed themselves as oppose to rounds where I'm stealthily antagonizing people. Not everyone has that confidence, or the skill. You may not have the time to escalate fully and I cant count how many times myself or others have missed communication traffic and then asked "where was the escalation?!" in ghost chat.

It doesn't take much effort to tick that passing grade for escalating, a few lines, a small build up, a cheesy one liner before a vamp glare is usually enough. But bare in mind by the same token if you make that effort your hoping the person on the other side is reciprocating that RP and when you make your move they aren't just going to shut down the RP like how people used to wordlessly run away at the first sign of a capu ling sting.

I realize that many of my kills will fall under the same bracket of how there's a few actions and a little dialogue then even more action and probably death & disengagement. But hopefully by the time you've been killed you knew what was coming. A few times I've worried did I do enough to escalate the situation the most recent time was when I was confronted by Captain Ranni Stella and Security officer David Done, I had been reported for carrying dangerous contraband. When confronted I asked if they had a favorite game, theirs was hide and seek also tag I revealed mine to be battleships and unleashed said dangerous contraband with no real time for people to react.


An aggressive more energetic station atmosphere isn't a bad thing,I often find myself bored and sometimes cryoing midround if nothing appears to be going on. If I'm cutting things short with people, it usually cause I'm rushing around trying to prepare myself for something big or trying to help the flow of the shift growing into something more.

I think we should let people get more aggressive and encourage more of aggression and more of the "lite" RP, because its better than nothing, and people can build up and refine their work. further more we shouldn't condemn or hold antags to that high of a standard because its a lot of pressure that sometimes doesn't happen for months, (I had my first wraith round in 3 years yesterday). I think all we can ask is that people enjoy themselves and try to make things as fun for others as they can and hopefully improve and get better with each round they play.

Last week a vampire tried to kill my character Bobby in the ranch, their opening move was to use hypnotise on me, I easily walked out of range of it but then it clicked this person needed guidance, so I walked back and guided them on how to kill me OOCly, using the glare -> hypnotise -> Grab -> choke -> bite. to which gave them a greater level of success, fortunately we had a few other experienced players who was willing to go looser on the RP for the sake of helping an antagonist get experience and grow. Did I break RP rule 1 make an effort to RP by putting more effort in to teaching someone new? maybe but it was rewarded with RP further down the line and a player growing in experience and confidence.

I know you may not find it comfortable finding the quality of RP being lighter than your used to, as someone who came from a persistant based HRP or seasonal HRP, the transition to lighter RP was shocking and also more liberating. If people are struggling to reach that first rung on the ladder or take that step we need to be patient and encouraging to help them to take those steps and climb higher and do better.

We have a potential new tide of players coming in, I don't think its fair to hold em to a high standard but to get them on the path of improving to delivering a quality of RP and game play that we can be proud of, whether that is escalating or staying in their lane and not overstepping.

Ultimately its the administration team that decide how much wiggle room and leniency these new people can have, but we as experienced players who can help guide these people and show a standard they can aspire for and achieve. Personally I'd like to focus on retaining as many of this current wave of new players as we can then work on improving afterwards.

[Kotlol]

Seems there is a timezone difference for me and people posting here.
I also notice you as ANTAGS are being more pro-active. Wich as antag is fine, I just wish there was more build up sometimes.

I do notice also some people saying: "It's kinda fine to let people experiment??"
But... that experimentation is them breaking clear standard rules like "tresspassing into bridge to take the lunch of the superiors"
And the reason: "Cause I feel like it." And then get mad when they get baton'd to the face and brigged.
Cause to me.. that's what an obivious antag would do to start a minor grudge.
And that's when they hold a grudge against security... and I end up chasing them.. thinking they are an antag provoking me into chasing.. and at the end of the round: "Nope just staffy mcstafferson."

Now trespasing to me is a greyline in RPing to decide if that is ANTAGGING or NOT.
Cause... sometimes it's just for an interaction or getting something but you been waiting 5 mins for someone to respond to give you a tool from that department.
But a lot of the times.. I see people breaking in cause "I can and it's experimenting" and they leave the doors broken and it just becomes annoying... and if it becomes very annoying to the point doors might break or shock.. I am basically thinking "minor antagging?"

Eh I guess that kinda stuff is why I ahelp it. Eitherway I lately it has been dieing down again when I play so it wasn't as concerning... but it did felt concerning during rounds where Security BLEW UP AGAIN by one antagonist.
Also most of these large damaging explosions and singulooses just.. "ends the round" without much of a fight.
Station too damaged after 45 mins... might as well end the round since engineering doesn't want to fix anything anymore and the singuloose ate like 3 engineers.
Cause I was too busy hunting that staffy who's experimenting and seems to be at every crime scene and left evidence of their minor crimes (like door tampering with prints on em)

But when I sec and I tell crewmates to stay back... nothing annoys me more then the crewmate, walking in the dialogue of sec vs antag... grabbing the antag and suplexing them. Or when the fight starts, they run infront of security and... take all the shots ment for the antag. Anyway this is just a vent now.
The situation in the last 2 weeks have improved massively, LOOC is more used. Less staffies are breaking and entering. Antags are escalating properly... (Heck one shift they blew up Security BUT WE KNEW IT WAS THEM! Since they were caught doing other crimes before. It felt appriorate.)

So yes this was just a wave of new players being unlike most new players.. TOO AGGRESIVE insted of TOO PASSIVE.