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Ideas for improving Rev
#1
Right now, Rev rounds that I've seen typically go one of two ways:

1. Revs quickly overwhelm and kill all the heads with little resistance from sec or the regular crew
2. As 1, but a single head survives and spends the rest of the round playing hide and seek to run out the clock on centcom gibbing everyone

Sometimes I've seen a variant of 2 where through admin intervention the last head is given the ability to go toe to toe with an entire revolutionary cadre, but this is fairly rare. Even rarer (that I know of) is an on the ball sec team and cooperative crew that can take down the revolution on their own.

This last part is compounded by the apparent reluctance of revs and crew with loyalty implants to do battle with one another. In a previous round I was in there were several instances of implanted crew voluntarily getting them cut out so they could be revs again. None of us in deadchat were sure what to make of that but it feels like kind of a shit thing to do.

All of this means that I don't really think rev is in a good place as a roundtype and could use some improvement. I have a couple thoughts on that and would like to have some feedback or other suggestions in the thread. My basic ideas for improving rev are as follows:

A. Start a few random crew with loyalty implants - One of the big complaints about rev is that the rev heads are able to rapidly convert the entire crew and gain an overwhelming numbers advantage which gets worse as server population goes up. This tends to mean that scenario 2 I talked about above is nearly inevitable on very crowded stations. Loyalty implanting random crew at roundstart might slow the advance of the revolution and provide the heads with a supply of guaranteed manpower to draw from. I was brought up however that telling the crew this at the start of the round would lead to metagaming shittery, so if possible it may be a good idea to give the implants secretly and only reveal them when someone tries to convert the crewman in question.

B. Prevent the last head from being able to hide in one spot forever and run out the clock. Admittedly this one may be a bit more of a kneejerk after I watched the MD hide under a medibot in arrivals maint for 20 minutes last night, but I still feel like it's one of the big weaknesses of rev. If the heads are forced into hiding, getting them to move every so often and maybe beat up the occasional wandering rev I think would be a good change. I don't really have solid ideas for getting this done other than perhaps PDA messages to surviving rev heads but maybe the thread will come up with something good.

I have also heard suggestions in deadchat that sechuds should have a dedicated icon for loyalty implanted crew so sec can know who is on their side better. I personally think another status set through the computers would be a preferable way of doing this compared to, say, how prodocs work with health implants to provide additional options for subterfuge.

Anyway that's a lot of wordjo  about rev rounds and how I think they could be better. Am I on the right track here or completely off base?
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#2

  1. SEC hud should display loyalty implanted people
  2. Stick loyalty implants and sec hud in every head office locker 
  3. Make loyalty implants like light AI laws: You are compelled to remain loyal but self preservation and obeying rules takes precedent. (I.E. sec can order you to hand over an item but not murder a man or to kill yourself) 
  4. Give Rev heads a gang like timed objective. Tell them to control certain areas, and place up propaganda and graffiti. If they're successful, they get new tools, weapons, and can recruit more people
  5. Create a secondary objective for winning the round as Rev and Crew. Maybe a kind of capture the flag mechanic based around the authentication disk
I think this could the round slower and more team based.
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#3
I like all of Franks ideas about the loyalty implants but not so much about the new objectives.
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#4
Concur with KikiMofo. I think Frank 4th and 5th suggestions might make an interesting mode on its own or maybe an addon to Gang, but I don't think the solution is to slow the game mode. The strict time-limit and its accompanying announcements encourage shorter, fast-paced rounds, and I personally prefer the high chaos of these kinds of modes.

Instead of slowing the Revs down, I'd prefer to quicken the Heads. This is why I like having more loyalty implants and more loyalty-implanted crew. It makes counter-revolutionary implanting easier and faster, since people won't have to break into the Armor and/or Sec or pay a somewhat hefty sum for more, and it evens the numbers, since the Heads'll have an actual base of supporters, instead just themselves, an oft-sparse Sec team, and apathetic crew. Together, they should encourage Heads to realize they have a fighting chance and try to fight the revolution, instead of hiding in space like a bore.

The one problem I see with people starting out loyalty-implanted is that some might try to extract implants out of themselves or others to figure out if it's Rev, similar to how, back when the shuttle call was simply rejected, people would call the shuttle early to see if it was rev. This could easily be fixed if it occured in all rounds.

(04-13-2019, 07:26 AM)Grizzwold Wrote: Admittedly this one may be a bit more of a kneejerk after I watched the MD hide under a medibot in arrivals maint for 20 minutes last night, but I still feel like it's one of the big weaknesses of rev.

Trust me, it's not kneejerk, for it happens quite often. One guy at least taunted us while providing advice on how to find him, but it was still extraordinarily annoying. The sad thing is that, as I wrote on the wiki page, they're actually hurting themselves.

Some guy suggested that at 30 minutes or some such, the Head Revs should get pinpointers for the remaining heads. If we needed to dress this up in "lore", we could say something like "Syndicate intelligence has detected that [STATION] has not fallen to the revolution yet. To expedite the process, we have given you a special device that will help you locate the remaining targets." If we wanted to do a similar thing for the Heads, we could say it came from those same "Anti-Riot" people who announce they've detected a revolution 40 minutes into the round.

Someone else also thought about having some sort of emergency cabinet that would have an in-game book/manual on what the revolution is and what to do about it. Interesting, but not sure how much it'd improve things.
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#5
(04-13-2019, 07:26 AM)Grizzwold Wrote: In a previous round I was in there were several instances of implanted crew voluntarily getting them cut out so they could be revs again. None of us in deadchat were sure what to make of that but it feels like kind of a shit thing to do.
IMO people who do this and/or intentionally let themselves get converted should get the same punishment as people who suicide/go braindead whenever they aren't an antagonist: permanent-until-appeal antag ban.

Also people who are antag banned should have their heads explode if they get converted by a rev.
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#6
I like the idea of head revs getting pinpointer for the heads at like 30 minutes AND the heads of crew get pinpointers leading to the head revs at the same time. That would at least make it even.
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#7
(04-13-2019, 07:26 AM)Grizzwold Wrote: This last part is compounded by the apparent reluctance of revs and crew with loyalty implants to do battle with one another. In a previous round I was in there were several instances of implanted crew voluntarily getting them cut out so they could be revs again. None of us in deadchat were sure what to make of that but it feels like kind of a shit thing to do.

This is against the rules, not to mention the spirit of the game. There is no question. Frankly, it makes me angry to hear that it is a common occurrence. Doing this is as bad as killing your master as a mindslave or antag-rolling like Birb says.

If you see regular crewmember who was loyalty implanted or not, assisting revs or attempting to become a rev, you should adminhelp it because they are breaking the rules. I suppose that some people might justify it to themselves because in gang mode crewmembers are encouraged to turn themselves into antags. But I think that if one stopped to think it through RP-wise, then it should become painfully painfully obvious that this is against the rules.
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#8
Idea: Have Rev conversion involve Rev Heads spawning in Rev Conversion chamber. Similar to the port a puke, people have to be placed inside to be converted. Each conversion spits out items to help the Revs, including trackers.

Revs hunker down somewhere and build in a corner of the station until they get enough people, Heads have an incentive to move about, since they need to destroy the conversion chambers and keep them from getting trackers
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#9
What if loyalty implants allowed you to see other loyalty-implanted people without needing a sechud, in the same vein as Revs?
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#10
(04-14-2019, 10:57 PM)Zamujasa Wrote: What if loyalty implants allowed you to see other loyalty-implanted people without needing a sechud, in the same vein as Revs?

I would like if the loyalty implants showed ANYTHING at all. Ive loyalty implanted someone and then they leave and then come back to sec later and the other officer think they are a rev and beat them up. Its some bullshit.
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#11
Flaborized's idea of giving the revs pinpointers after 40 minutes is still a great idea
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#12
How about nerfed pinpointers.
Nerfed pinpointers could get updated only, say, every three minutes to force a head to keep moving while not straight up leading to them.
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#13
(04-15-2019, 07:33 AM)OMJ Wrote: Flaborized's idea of giving the revs pinpointers after 40 minutes is still a great idea

I like the idea where both sides get pinpointers to the other side's leaders.
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#14
Another suggestion- there should be a way to get more sechuds!1!11!one!
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#15
More sechuds would be nice. I'm wary of making them too prolific since they do work as sunglasses if the heads go around outfitting everyone with a pair, but putting a couple in one of the sec crates from QM or the sec vendors would be fine I think.

I do also like the nerfed pinpointers idea. It gives some opportunity for hiding temporarily but still forces players to be less static.
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