disagreements about some recent balance changes

[UrsulaMejor]

Yea, im taking a break. Yea, it has everything to do with recent changes. Ive been playing goon for about a year, and up until 2021, there was just constant new features, new things, new content. However, since, well, it feels like since the original atmos agent b nerf, was that in march? Nothing new, content wise has been started, and the only thing finished, was podwars. Yea, theres tons of small minor things, but nothing new since chickens. 


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but trying to do things how the old team did stuff when theres a completely new team is just not working. Im not here to complain about the admin team, I think all of you are amazing. However, theres no direction for goonstation, no plan. The old team also had a bit more structure. Wizards, had more say, and were older admins.

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You guys say you're being more transparent then ever, and thats true, but your completely different people then before, the "structure" is gone, and you have the community submitting PR's too.

I love you guys, I do. But, there needs to be a plan, a direction that goons heading.

The fact that you've only been playing a year is the direct cause for why you think these things. As someone who has been here nearly 10 years, let me clarify a few things:

First, there's a reason why they're called dev "cycles"; the nature of life, development, game design, and goonstation is not constant. Goon has always had expansion and contraction cycles. Generally, goon goes through an expansion cycle towards the end of the year, as people get off or start school, start holiday season, etc. In late 2019 there was new stuff being added almost daily in December. 2020 was similar. 2021 will likely also be similar.

Personally, I work in an industry that sees its most work happen in the spring and summer. I'm too busy to add significant things this time of year. Chickens, for example, were started in October and finished by the end of last year. The case is similar for a lot of people in our community.

Also, there's a ton of stuff that's been added that you're neglecting. Just scrolling through the changelog I see: hairbows, several new space prefabs, golden peas plant mutation, mechanics can edit airlock access now, new bar drinks, the ability to eject and share traitor uplink telecrystals, a ton of new chef bakery stuff, new QGP, new character faces, a ton of monkey clothing items, player-constructable vending machines, 5 MORE bar drinks... You can call them "minor things", but that's only the changes from the last month, and the game you see today is built up on these minor things. Nearly 20 whole years of them. That's 240 months.

Oh, and let's not forget the new Human sprite, which represented several hundred hours of collective work??? That happened only recently! That was HUGE.

Second, the Goonstation team is always changing. This isn't a matter of something that's happened since open source; as people burn out, the admin team cycles. As people rediscover the game, admins from ye olden days sometimes cycle back in. This is how teams work. It's normal.

As far as the wizards go, they didn't represent any more structure for the development team. They didn't make any those sorts of decisions, and the devs operate mostly the same now as they did back then; the only difference is now players can see it.

Also, most of the team is still the same team as before. Just scrolling through the list of active admins, over half of them have been here since before 2018 at least. Many of them are names I recognize from when I first started back in 2011.


Third, admins can't merge changes. Only developers can. (They're the pink names on discord)

Finally, goon has never had a plan. Not once. not ever. You get used to it; you really do. Trust me.