ASS DAY feedback, evolution, ideas. [Gimme Your Thinks]

[UrsulaMejor]

It just feels like a large amount of you are just repeating the assday classic idea and glossing over the fact of what happens when someone late joins. Its a gang-vampire round you all are knee-deep in gimmick so the chance you'll see a prayer from them is slim to none, They join and arent greeted with assday rules, instead they are told its a gang vampire round, having just joined they are neither. 

I feel like, in a gang vs vampire game mode, this is something that could be easily handled in the game mode logic; have late joiners join as a randomly assigned faction

Is that when 20 people hop on thinking its assday, and are told no even though its assday you have to play by these very specific rules still, you are going to be met with people leaving, and people that just dont care , its assday, they are gonna ass.

We are already seeing people leaving, and it's a lot more than 20. I also don't think 20 people are gonna leave the vampires vs gang round just because they didn't get to be a hardmode traitor like they normally would

[OMJ]

i dont think anyones suggesting removing ass day seriously. it sounds like some people are getting defensive on its behalf because it seems like that, and then people are replying to them and its getting messy. i think whats being suggested is to like... expand ass day so its not just the same honk honk griff robust masters every round for 24 hours, but has more unique stuff going on (like crappy maps, silly patches, admin events, dungeons, etc.)

i do think that the "just leave if u dont like being robusted lol" or the "just learn to click on people" attitude is kinda ass though. that might just be me though, since i dont really like some things other people seem to be fond of (like noob traps in the gameplay, which is part of the reason i wanted to be a mentor !!). the reason i dont agree with or like that attitude is that, like, it kinda goes against the goonstation that i know? like, ever since ive been a part of goon its been a welcoming and relatively hospitable environment that hasn't been rude or awful to me for not knowing things, or not being mechanically good or "robust". this whole "if you dont like getting ganked by the ass day ultra-robusters then dont play" is very dismissive and fails to address the actual issues that cause it by making a sort of fake issue, almost, by making it seem unreasonable to want change if youre dissatisfied with something.

its also a sort of, well, idk. i dont want to say toxic because it isnt like, wholly toxic, but it is something you sort in other communities, like in the soulsborne games. those communities are famous for being very hostile to new players, or players who are struggling because its a rite of passage in the context of those games' cultures. so instead of offering genuine advice or helping new players, theyre left to fend for themselves and throw their heads against a wall over and over again until they pass the obstacle. and you can debate whether or not thats good for the community or the developer's vision of the games some other time, i just wanted to give an example of someplace where the "git gud" mentality is common. i dont think that mentality is healthy/befits the game or this community, even if it is only commonplace once a month.

tl;dr "git gud" attitude bad adhara good suppoort my patches today

i think you're right, i also think that ass day is less about getting good and more so letting the new players take the gloves off for the first time. new players enjoy chaos and mass violence. Some measures to protect them would be chill- I'm in favor of banning ghost drones.

We could always like, lead from the front and make a concerted effort to beat the shit out of people who want to mass grief and let it known that if you're going to try to do that, the community will make it super super difficult. I think I sound super tone deaf here though.

I don't really see ass day as a "who's best at clicking" type deal. I think it's a necessary measure to curb grief and overall dickery in the community by letting people take their frustrations out in game. I might be bugging here though.

Ass day could definitely deal with a ramped increase of random server generated PVE scenarios, like randomly spawning a Gilgamesh-esque final boss every other round in the chapel 8 minutes in, or asteroid showers, or something of that effect to give the rounds some sense of narrative- importantly, this reduces griefing efforts because they /have/ to help out or else lose their life in the process.

---

importantly- the conversation of "is ass day long term good for new player retention" should be had, because I'm confident that we don't lose long term players from it. We definitely gain a decent amount from the one day all gloves are off and people wanna check out a new server and figure fuck it, Goonstation for the night.

The people who leave en masse will always come back. The people who join exclusively because it's ass day (iirc it's also publicized on the subreddit) will stay ~20% of the time? Maybe?

Ass day always results in long term net gains, fmpov.

[Tewf]

@ urs

I don't think anyone is saying 20 people are going to leave when they see its vamp-gang . My point, and I thought it was fairly clear, was that in this situation out of 20 people you will see a majority either leave and wait for another round, or just not care that its gang-vamp and start doing their own thing, resulting in admins spending time with Ahelps and silly rule violations instead of investing time into gimmicks and the assday experience.

And on the note of nerd power gaming, who are these people you are talking about and why can you not just remove the problem items they seem to be questing for?? I happen to be quite a large nerd, Can quick make TTV's Know all the deadliest chems, know robusttec, AK, Phasers, Syndie scanner and scanning drones in debris, Hell I could even get the stones of power and make nerds gib themselves or puke their organs up until they die. But I dont do any of these things on assday. I use it to test new mixes I dont get antag often enough to test on normal days. I use it to fight the admin boss spawns and the killer tomato hoards.

So it would seem the rules dont have any effect on nerds powergaming, changing the rules wont change that at all. What you will get is people who are playing this gang-vampire round, going and power gaming, It doesnt matter the game mode or the rules. If a nerd is going to powergame they will do it. Thats why gang needed reworked so badly in the first place.. people were just using it as a free antag round.

One thing it seems we all are in hard agreement on at least is : Remove the damn ghost drone factory and enable respawn

[warcrimes]

Just wanna clarify something that seems to have been lost in the string of self-referential hypotheticals here.

The aim is to guide gameplay though code, not some arbitrary set of rules that players are expected to remember by heart.

"People will be confused by the lack of ass day rules" - doesnt hold up, because the rules will be the same as the other 27-30 days in the month. You'll still get a popup if you're an antag, and everyone knows what that means.

The single thing everyone here is saying is that ASS DAY is important for people to let loose.
Some people are stongly implying, or outright stating, that the current system is the only way to do this.
Considder the fact that on Ass Day, every non-antag crewmember is indistinguishable from a hardmode traitor. You're literally a crewman with no gear, no abilities, but carte blanche to do crimes. That's precisely the example set forth for "ass day classic", the difference being that Classic™ doesnt require extraneous rulesets. It's already in the game.

Suggestions to simply steer the boat though social action are well-intentionned, but require babysitting. Unless you're volunteering to pull an all-nighter, it's immaterial.


TL;DR - Please keep ideas flowing, and FOCUS on things that are codeable. Rules are not code.
Let's keep this conversation positive, and leave the "go somewhere else" rhetoric behind please.

[Ed Venture]

Even better; give ghosts some abilities. Ha ha I killed that guy-fuck his corpse rose as a skeleton, he's lucky he got that ability.

I absolutely love this idea Sage.

[Tewf]

A question I have, Are admins going to be held to these same standards? Meaning if the round type IS NOT assday classic and is instead, for lack of a better example, gang-vampires and an admin hops on and decides hmm I want to do plasma cannon barrage and killer tomato hoarde is there going to be an expectation to hold back or are they free to fuck up the round however they feel like??

On a similar note how often are we going to see vote manipulation? The server votes nukies vs NTSO and an admin decides, nah they dont want that. Are they going to be allowed to just change the vote like they do for maps votes every assday? Or will what we vote for matter?

[OMJ]

yeah the only way to change ass day via code is adding PVE events that require some form of cooperation lest u lose ur life immediately

[Zamujasa]

ass day ideas:

- rules are back to normal, mostly? most of the problem seems to be ass day just turns into "how can i maximize grief as fast as possible" w/r/t ghost drones, bombs etc
- rounds have "mutators". at the start of every round + every x minutes after (15, 20, 30?) you get a popup with 2-5 random options. after voting ends the option(s) with the most votes is activated. there could also just be "random" available, which would pick from all options. maybe even more than one.

mutator ideas:
- everyone gets all access ids
- everyone farts space lube
- "literal disarms" turns on
- goofy gimmick items spawn
- some station pets turn into not so nice critters
- everyone gets some random (good) genetic power
- a boss mob shows up in the chapel. weapons cache nearby
- someone becomes saxton hale macho man. everyone has to beat him up
- an ice cream dispenser that dispenses a random ice cream after x seconds (for 100 credits) appears
- chem dispensers only dispense blood and piss
- vending machines increase product quantities by 10x and begin firing their shit at people
- the "you broke it you fix it" package appears with a bunch of deluxe rcds and more materials than god
- pinata mode. everyone has a 100% dump chance and has a few items stuffed into their body
- everybody has a five minute timer over their heads. only a successful high-five with another person will restore it to 5 minutes.
- karma becomes real
- all the lights turn various new funky shades
- everyone randomly swaps bodies with someone else (and gets a full heal)
- a big fuckin canbomb spawns somewhere and must be disarmed (or else everyone goes kablooey)
- punching people makes money pop out based on their wage

dumb shit like this

[warcrimes]

I mean if they really dont want to fight against "robust" people on Ass Day then they dont have to play on Ass Day. Its just one day out of the entire month.

This exact logic also applies to getting walled into rooms by ghost drones.

Ass Day drones are the epitome of Ass Day, and exactly what should be expected when you simply remove grief rules. Micromanaging individual types of grief is not feasible on any sort of scale- but more importantly it wouldn't matter. Whether by drone or by spaceman, the effect is the same: The current event encourages low-effort grief through its lack of structure. 

This is the main focal point of the thread, and I will reiterate it because I feel i was unclear. 
This brainstorm is for a hypothetical where "ass day rules" don't exist (the !!! ASS DAY !!! popup, among other things). Starting from nothing but the day of the month - what are your ideas, based on concrete features, that would recreate the magic and awe the day used to hold. 

A question I have, Are admins going to be held to these same standards? Meaning if the round type IS NOT assday classic and is instead, for lack of a better example, gang-vampires and an admin hops on and decides hmm I want to do plasma cannon barrage and killer tomato hoarde is there going to be an expectation to hold back or are they free to fuck up the round however they feel like??

On a similar note how often are we going to see vote manipulation? The server votes nukies vs NTSO and an admin decides, nah they dont want that. Are they going to be allowed to just change the vote like they do for maps votes every assday? Or will what we vote for matter?

Admins have always been, and will likely always be, free to influence the round according to their judgment. 365 days a year. If it's not noticed, that's probably good. 
As for the rest of your questions, that's the point of this thread. We are gathering suggestions for gameplay mechanics that we-the-codders can work on, and there will be a future poll presenting the options. One of the options will be "change nothing". So to be absolutely perfectly honest, the posts in this thread getting up in arms, and those pushing against a (as-of-yet inexistant) change are kinda way off-topic for the time being. 

It's a week too early to say " Don't ", because neither you nor I knows what the offer is. 

yeah the only way to change ass day via code is adding PVE events that require some form of cooperation lest u lose ur life immediately

As explained in the OP, assume the 13th is a day like any other day. Assume nobody walks in with any expectations, and then build your ideal game features from the ground up. Starting from the status-quo Ass Day and stapling things on top of it is unclear and confusing. 

Ground up please. 

Otherwise, the suggestions so far are excellent, we're actively working on distilling them, testing new ways of manipulating features, and gearing up for a nice thread where everyone can vote on the direction they want to go.

[Tewf]

I really like those ideas @Zam. Those all seems like they can add a lot of potential to a round. I still firmly believe assday should be assday though, the rules should not in any was be reduced to normal round rules, because at that point why even have an assday ? What purge type situation has "most laws from normal days anyways" ??? Might as well just make it a weekly event where admins can turn on mutators and try out new game modes because assday at least per the wiki is "A monthly Goonstation holiday that occurs only on the main Goonstation server every 13th of the month, often compared to The Purge film series" and what is being described here is nowhere near that..

Now thats not to say I agree with the git gud mentality either, the playing field should be entirely equal or as close as it can be regardless if this is your first round, last, or anywhere in between. A lot of the ideas here could easily be added and tried out without messing with the rules. If there is some worry about certain nerds going too hard and no one else having a chance make it so those mutators give an equal chance? If the person in question has killed a ton have it count it up and roll a die for some shitty mutator, IE. Obesity, Random drug injection, Body swapping with a random NPC mob. If the person in question has a low kill count give them a random good mutator, IE, Good genes, A random weapon under their feet, full heal, ect.

In the end all I want is assday rules to be untouched, ghost drone factory to be smited to dust, Respawn to be on, even if its the ass arena, and any of the cool maps/mutators/game modes suggested here. I have 0 issues with the new ideas and unique thoughts, but "change the rules to be the same as literally every other day 365 a year" is neither unique or new, and from the multitude of people voicing themselves would be unwelcome.

-Post warcrimes comment Edit

Some brainstorming for new things:
1.) Portals , everywhere, Really opening up the exploration let new people go see something unique and fun that is usually really hard to do on a normal round, IE. Hellpit, Alchemy Circle, Owlery lab.
2.) Some sort of reputation or behavior system would be Ideal, like I mentioned above, behave and get rewarded, grief and get punished
3.) Game modes I would really like are mostly the NTSO VS Nukes and The blob takeover, always results is some pretty good teamwork
4.) Arrivals and Space diner being protected, no building, no weapon use, nothing. just talking and chilling.
5.) A prayer booth where we can submit our request kind of like the ouija board, with a set list to choose from that we can request.
6.) Some sort of gimmick enabler tied to discord so if the above prayer goes unheard due to no one being on it could get forwarded to a special discord channel were admins or white listed mentors could vote .yes or .no and let it happen or not?

[warcrimes]

[...] I still firmly believe assday should be assday though, the rules should not in any was be reduced to normal round rules, because at that point why even have an assday ? What purge type situation has "most laws from normal days anyways" ??? Might as well just make it a weekly event where admins can turn on mutators and try out new game modes because assday at least per the wiki is "A monthly Goonstation holiday that occurs only on the main Goonstation server every 13th of the month, often compared to The Purge film series" and what is being described here is nowhere near that..
[...]
In the end all I want is assday rules to be untouched, ghost drone factory to be smited to dust, Respawn to be on, even if its the ass arena, and any of the cool maps/mutators/game modes suggested here. I have 0 issues with the new ideas and unique thoughts, but "change the rules to be the same as literally every other day 365 a year" is neither unique or new, and from the multitude of people voicing themselves would be unwelcome. 

You'll be welcome to cast your vote for "do nothing" when the poll is up. 4 people repeating that they want the rules unchanged in a "what if hypothetically, the rules changed" thread does not make a multitude. 

This is still off-topic.
The wiki is descriptive, not prescriptive. 
Please make room for others to be heard.

E: because you actually added suggestions while i was writing this, thank you.
And I will say again in bright color:
THE ONLY SET-IN-STONE ASSUMPTION IN THIS THREAD IS THAT ASS DAY RULES DO NOT EXIST. THE FEATURES FOR THIS TOTALLY HYPOTHETICAL SCENARIO MUST EXIST IN A VACUUM, INDEPENDENT OF A MOVIE REFERENCE.

Posts reiterating the desire to keep the status quo will be pruned from here forward.

[Tewf]

I also find it silly we have no zombies vs humans mode ironed out. at least that I've ever seen. Just those dummy NPC zombies that knock you down spawned in hoards.

So what if we did? Split the crew 1/4th selected to be zombies kinda like a nuke ops start and spawn them in early, hit the map with the disaster filter, really mess up the tiles and lights, then spawn the other 3/4ths of the crew and let what happens happen.

Things that should be considered,

If power goes out zombies should be able to open doors if they have numbers, pretty much : impossible alone, easy with 3 people (zombies)

Kinda related to the above, Make it so they cant use items but have full arm use. Probably shouldnt have any blood or o2 issues and possibly the physically fit trait? Seems like zombies shouldnt get tired easily or at all.

Weapons- With it being zombies crew should come armed and ready, aware that the station is fucked and its up to them to fix it.

And thats pretty much it, Winner is either 90-99% zombie crew(Z victory), or no zombies left(Crew Victory).

[Ed Venture]

We used to have a zombie mode and while I loved it and wish for it to return it left things to be desired. For example, player zombies could use guns and weapons. It was like that till it got removed. From my understanding it was made by a coder who used his admin powers to be the worst power gamer in goon history and his code was shit so it was all purge. I think. It’s been ages since the topic was brought up. So I most likely got some of the history wrong. Tad off topic, I apologize just wanted to give Tewf some context.

[Urlance Woolsbane]

Apologies if this has already come up, but what's the feasibility of reviving servers 3 and 4 on Ass Day? One server could be reserved for wanton grief and lawlessness, another for PvP, and another for adventure, dungeons, and the like.

[warcrimes]

Adding one additional server for grif on Ass Day has been brought up behind the curtain, but It's unlikely splitting the #2 crowd like that would result in good population levels. It could be tested.