Goonhub
07-18-2025, 10:47 PM
After mildly thinking more on it, I do think the chances of someone specifically trying to lower pop as antag is unlikely (albeit it still not wholly impossible imo), but some of the other issues kinda do still stand.
As Snoid said, this won't matter to people who don't really play antag anyways, since antag tokens aren't something they'll use even if they have one. For people who don't really care outside of just having the singular token, it also doesn't really matter since you just get the one and you're done. Same deal for people who already have one or especially multiple, unless they use them up it won't matter to them all too much.
Still an issue is the opposite of hoarding, which is that it might cause people to instantly use them on another lowpop round to maximize their odds of getting a new one faster, increasing antag count on some lowpop rounds (mostly because of how few antags there are). In a similar vein would be people being really eager to call a shuttle at the most minor inconvenience on lowpop (especially less than one), since you'd cycle through the rounds quicker for more antag token chances (could be solved by making your personal chance for rolling a token only happen once an hour? since tying it to round time might have the inverse effect).
Final issue would be that it might bring a kinda 'forced' atmosphere to lowpop rounds, where some of the people there don't reeeeally want to play, but are instead just there anyways in the hopes of getting an antag token (Although I imagine this would be far less common than either of the other two issues)
However!!! (three exclamation points so you know this is where the second half begins), The first two issues are in retrospect solved by the chance just. Being abysmally low lol. Worst case scenario the system *should* have the intended effect, at least for a while before any of the previously stated issues start popping up (maybe solved by getting admins to occasionally set special modes pre-round to get people to pop the antag tokens on those every once in a while?) but yeah. By that point I'd imagine that it'd snowball enough for the pop disparity to not be as actually abysmal as it currently can get, since even 5 people who consistently use their tokens would practically double classic pop :sob: (please play classic please please)
Of course a lot of these issues can also be solved by admins just taking players doing icky things out back (banning them (or just setting their antag tokens to negative 1 morbillion so they will never get one)). Does run into the eternal issue that will be admins begging people to A-Help rule breaks, even if it's only potentially rule breaking-ish behaviour they see because even the people saying they have probably haven't (something I've heard admins(plural) complain about). But that's a separate issue that is even harder to solve than this already difficult one.
Another (potentially alternate or potentially as an addendum) thing that could be added is a 'graveyard shift' spacebux bonus at round end, that works in a semi-similar way but is just a more consistent reward (would only really matter for spooktober but still!!! I want to be able to afford pixel pass every round.,..(I am very biased))
Honestly even if it does have it's issues, a 1 or 2 week testmerge could still help resolve the pop issues, hell, you could even ONLY ever testmerge it in times of dire pop disparity as a sort of temporary event telling people "PLEASE fix one server having triple the pop of the other two combined". Honestly may be the best approach since you avoid the first issue and can stop it when the admins get too busy with other things in their life to comb through the details of everyone who might be trying to farm antag tokens overnight.
As Snoid said, this won't matter to people who don't really play antag anyways, since antag tokens aren't something they'll use even if they have one. For people who don't really care outside of just having the singular token, it also doesn't really matter since you just get the one and you're done. Same deal for people who already have one or especially multiple, unless they use them up it won't matter to them all too much.
Still an issue is the opposite of hoarding, which is that it might cause people to instantly use them on another lowpop round to maximize their odds of getting a new one faster, increasing antag count on some lowpop rounds (mostly because of how few antags there are). In a similar vein would be people being really eager to call a shuttle at the most minor inconvenience on lowpop (especially less than one), since you'd cycle through the rounds quicker for more antag token chances (could be solved by making your personal chance for rolling a token only happen once an hour? since tying it to round time might have the inverse effect).
Final issue would be that it might bring a kinda 'forced' atmosphere to lowpop rounds, where some of the people there don't reeeeally want to play, but are instead just there anyways in the hopes of getting an antag token (Although I imagine this would be far less common than either of the other two issues)
However!!! (three exclamation points so you know this is where the second half begins), The first two issues are in retrospect solved by the chance just. Being abysmally low lol. Worst case scenario the system *should* have the intended effect, at least for a while before any of the previously stated issues start popping up (maybe solved by getting admins to occasionally set special modes pre-round to get people to pop the antag tokens on those every once in a while?) but yeah. By that point I'd imagine that it'd snowball enough for the pop disparity to not be as actually abysmal as it currently can get, since even 5 people who consistently use their tokens would practically double classic pop :sob: (please play classic please please)
Of course a lot of these issues can also be solved by admins just taking players doing icky things out back (banning them (or just setting their antag tokens to negative 1 morbillion so they will never get one)). Does run into the eternal issue that will be admins begging people to A-Help rule breaks, even if it's only potentially rule breaking-ish behaviour they see because even the people saying they have probably haven't (something I've heard admins(plural) complain about). But that's a separate issue that is even harder to solve than this already difficult one.
Another (potentially alternate or potentially as an addendum) thing that could be added is a 'graveyard shift' spacebux bonus at round end, that works in a semi-similar way but is just a more consistent reward (would only really matter for spooktober but still!!! I want to be able to afford pixel pass every round.,..(I am very biased))
Honestly even if it does have it's issues, a 1 or 2 week testmerge could still help resolve the pop issues, hell, you could even ONLY ever testmerge it in times of dire pop disparity as a sort of temporary event telling people "PLEASE fix one server having triple the pop of the other two combined". Honestly may be the best approach since you avoid the first issue and can stop it when the admins get too busy with other things in their life to comb through the details of everyone who might be trying to farm antag tokens overnight.