Goonhub
03-15-2019, 12:26 AM
(This post was last modified: 03-15-2019, 01:22 AM by Xeram. Edited 1 time in total.
Edit Reason: post-semi-ranty clarity
)
The AI is not vital. The AI does not have key duties that nobody else can complete that will negatively impact everyone else in the round. Many rounds go by without an AI even with 20 players because an absurdly high number of players have it set to unwanted because anything else nearly guarantees you are the AI now and forever.
Can we please collectively agree to quit pretending the AI is anything but a convenience for staff assistants to get into places 95% of the time? The job is honestly not nearly as important as everyone seems to make it out to be. Everything you could ask of an AI can be done yourself or by another player. Many rounds where I decided to try to hop in for AI was spent doing a minute of basic setup, greeting the crew, looking around for things to do, then nobody having any need of me or interacting in any way for half an hour. Looking at it from how an AI typically performs and what the community considers "acceptable' (read: Not being the literal embodiment of unfun), the AI seems to fill the same role IC as mentors do OOC. Most of what they do is assisting players who don't know other ways to get into places or do things accomplish things (or those who do know but are feeling lazy).
Quick edit to be clear: I think we should turn off the all-consuming vacuum that is high AI priority. The actual relevance it has to a round is minuscule compared to just having another person. It never really warranted being so high in the first place imo.
Can we please collectively agree to quit pretending the AI is anything but a convenience for staff assistants to get into places 95% of the time? The job is honestly not nearly as important as everyone seems to make it out to be. Everything you could ask of an AI can be done yourself or by another player. Many rounds where I decided to try to hop in for AI was spent doing a minute of basic setup, greeting the crew, looking around for things to do, then nobody having any need of me or interacting in any way for half an hour. Looking at it from how an AI typically performs and what the community considers "acceptable' (read: Not being the literal embodiment of unfun), the AI seems to fill the same role IC as mentors do OOC. Most of what they do is assisting players who don't know other ways to get into places or do things accomplish things (or those who do know but are feeling lazy).
Quick edit to be clear: I think we should turn off the all-consuming vacuum that is high AI priority. The actual relevance it has to a round is minuscule compared to just having another person. It never really warranted being so high in the first place imo.