Goonhub
01-01-2021, 10:29 PM
I feel like there's a lot of apathy around objectives, and while that's not necessarily a bad thing, it would be nice to have some objectives which people actually feel like completing. Also, this is all my opinion, so yell at me if you disagree about something.
Objectives as they currently are
Some objectives- assassinate, steal, some of the gimmicks- can be great fun, and can guide a round well. Others... not so much. Take bodyguard as an example. I don't think I've ever seen someone attempt to complete a bodyguard objective. Doing so would require you to either follow someone around all round (or just weld them in a locker, I guess), which would be missing out on all the other traitorous things you could be doing. Hijack objectives feel useless- people who aren't robust enough/don't enjoy ultraviolence will glance over them, and people who enjoy rampaging will try to hijack the shuttle regardless of whether or not they have the objective. Some of the multigrab options are silly- I can see stealing 5 insuls or 8 ID cards being fun, but how are you going to steal 4 Eguns without mechanic shenanigans? At that point it feels less like theft and more like printing things to fill a job quota.
Objectives also don't translate across round types very well. Spies get regular (albiet in different sets) traitor objectives, when maybe their objectives could be themed around subterfuge more. Sleepers get a smaller set of regular traitor objectives, when those are often difficult to complete on limited time, with limited resources. Critter antags get regular objectives for some godforsaken reason (why is the killer robot trying to amass 40,000 credits????).
What objectives should be
I dunno. Here's a couple ideas, though:
Does anyone actually care about objectives? I'm perfectly happy if the only response to this is 'nobody cares', since at least that's some kind of progress. Lemme know how you like to treat them, since I figure that's useful in determining how much effort should be put towards them.
Objectives as they currently are
Some objectives- assassinate, steal, some of the gimmicks- can be great fun, and can guide a round well. Others... not so much. Take bodyguard as an example. I don't think I've ever seen someone attempt to complete a bodyguard objective. Doing so would require you to either follow someone around all round (or just weld them in a locker, I guess), which would be missing out on all the other traitorous things you could be doing. Hijack objectives feel useless- people who aren't robust enough/don't enjoy ultraviolence will glance over them, and people who enjoy rampaging will try to hijack the shuttle regardless of whether or not they have the objective. Some of the multigrab options are silly- I can see stealing 5 insuls or 8 ID cards being fun, but how are you going to steal 4 Eguns without mechanic shenanigans? At that point it feels less like theft and more like printing things to fill a job quota.
Objectives also don't translate across round types very well. Spies get regular (albiet in different sets) traitor objectives, when maybe their objectives could be themed around subterfuge more. Sleepers get a smaller set of regular traitor objectives, when those are often difficult to complete on limited time, with limited resources. Critter antags get regular objectives for some godforsaken reason (why is the killer robot trying to amass 40,000 credits????).
What objectives should be
I dunno. Here's a couple ideas, though:
- Different objectives for different traitor flavors: Already addressed this, but to elaborate: Give sleepers one directive to follow, which fits the sleeper theme and makes it easier for them to complete objectives with their hardmode status. Give antag critters either no objectives ('kill everyone!' etc etc) or something fun and themed (robots get assassinate, fire elementals want to scorch a certain department, spiders want to feed on x amount of people, wrestlerdoodles want to kill someone in the boxing ring, etc). Spies do... okay with regular traitor objectives, but I think there is space to improve their objectives to be more spy-ish.
- More variety: Objectives feel sorta formulaic currently, with the majority of objective sets being some combination of kill/steal and some kind of escape. Why isn't the 'kill all cyborgs and the AI' objective used? What about the 'destroy all objects of type xyz'? What about the 'job genocide' one? Taking on a whole department sounds grand. I assume these were removed for a reason, but there's not a lot of variety to replace them.
Does anyone actually care about objectives? I'm perfectly happy if the only response to this is 'nobody cares', since at least that's some kind of progress. Lemme know how you like to treat them, since I figure that's useful in determining how much effort should be put towards them.