a purpose for antag objectives

[Rhydic]

objectives for traitors are kind of just ignored anymore, and most other antagonists don't get very specific objectives. i wonder how bad of an idea it would be for each non-autocompleted objective for traitors to give some kind of award or chance for one like a 1 or .5% stacking chance for an antag token for each objective completed or some cosmetic gimmick item or something

im not sure how well this really applies to any other antagonists since wizards usually just complete their assassination objectives by merit of murdering everyone else and changelings/vampires dont have any beyond the generic stuff. additionally these objectives are naturally going to be completed by merit of not being dead, whereas a lot of traitor objectives are usually too specific to naturally occur outside of specific targeting

[Ed Venture]

Rewards for doing objectives sounds nice but no idea how they would be balanced or what they could be. This is assuming the reward is enough to get a player to even do the objective anyways. As we all know you can't force a player to do something they dont want to if they are not breaking any rules.

[cyberTripping]

I feel like the ghost chips suggestion does this pretty well. nothing necessary but a fun little push nonetheless

[NateTheSquid]

gross. in my opinion objectives lead only to murderboners with an 'excuse'

"i had the escape alone objectve!" so you bought a c saber and killed everyone on board 3 minutes into the round and then were too stupid to call the shuttle for the next 40 minutes.

"sorry man, you were my objective" so you wasted your entire round by rushing me with a macrobomb and your fists 1 minute in

fuck objectives imo

[Frank_Stein]

Rebrand objectives as challenges

An extra thing you can do that's a bit harder or requires some creative thinking.

Stuff like "Kill these people without performing any hostile actions"

[Roomba]

The problem with most trackable objectives is that 90% of them are best accomplished by murdering everyone as quickly and efficiently as possible, and the remaining 10% are best accomplished by murdering everyone then completing whatever else needs to be done completely unopposed.

[NateTheSquid]

The problem with most trackable objectives is that 90% of them are best accomplished by murdering everyone as quickly and efficiently as possible, and the remaining 10% are best accomplished by murdering everyone then completing whatever else needs to be done completely unopposed.

[Camnui]

We need objectives like "ensure X escapes the station alive" or "remove y's arms but leave them alive" or "devour z's heart" ect.

[Mageziya]

I think how it works is that most newer players start out doing objectives, then as they slowly exhaust and get bored of the objectives, go on to do their own thing. The problem there basically is that objectives aren't infinite.

Re-branding them to challenges wouldn't be a bad idea, though it removes the in-universe aspect of traitors being syndicate agents planted to perform specific tasks. That said, that syndicate loyalty thing isn't too strongly demonstrated in the game.

Game-ifying it and making objectives relate to the game as a whole, and less to how this game is almost a simulator, could be interesting.

[Vitatroll]

Antag objectives are more or less hints for new players to understand the type of things they're expected to do. At least that's how I view them.

Without being restricted (server-rule enforced, bleh) or rewards (eat the clown and get laughing gas farts), objectives are just flavor. Thing is, I'm not sure they should be anything more than that.

I do like the idea of rebranding them as challenges, though. It's silly, but that single word changes a lot.

[Nnystyxx]

What if murder was a means to an end rather than the end itself in more challenges?
Like "Keep this guy from getting on the shuttle by any means", you could kill him, or shoot him into a secluded area, lock him in a room, bribe him, trap him in telescience, or just broker some kind of deal

"Destroy this area" could be modified into "sufficiently cripple the function of this area", which you could do by systematically annihilating lights, emagging things, ripping up the floors or just making it an inhospitable mess without having to bomb everything

Basically my idea is to incentivize creativity by making it so murderbone shitdestroy is not the main method, or at least not directly implied.

[CameronWoof]

There are several problems with antagonist roles that produce the "kill everyone, destroy everything" mentality, and it has little to do with objectives. Incentivizing objectives is not enough; there needs to be an active disincentive to mass murder. 

1. Security is not a threat.
     Sufficiently powerful (read: most all) antagonists have no trouble at all killing the one or two mall cops active on the station in a given round. Because of this...

2. Stealth is not a requirement.
     When no-one can oppose you, there's no reason to be stealthy or silent. You can be as loud as you want and do whatever you want with no repercussions, unless there's a super robust player in the crew. The inevitable rampage causes...

3. Apathy among players.
     I'm a Botanist, I just want to play the game, but the station will devolve into a deathmatch no matter what I do every round. It's exhausting. I'd rather just stay in my department and hope I get killed last than wave a chainsaw/toolbox at the space armor traitor for ten minutes and get removed from the round for the next hour. 

It doesn't matter how attractive objectives are to complete because they're not mutually exclusive with mass murder. Players will just do both, and depending on what the reward is, one will just make the other easier.

[atomic1fire]

I think antags could use some more dynamic content.

For instance less "goals" and more "things that have a direct consequence on the station itself"

For instance allowing the traitor to piggy back off the QM and order an group of mercenaries ranging from feral monkeys to some generic evil bad dudes. (which opens up some funny options, like clown mercenaries)

Allow the wizard to optionally release some big bad NPC by doing a really complicated objective driven spell.

Nukies can actually change the round end, so why not allow some of the other antagonists to do things like trigger random events or round ends in their own way. For instance hijack the miner's magnet to trigger an asteroid field, or challenge the AI's authority with a slightly more evil AI, so the station and borgs are impacted by dueling AIs. Basically like a traitor version of ultron.

Edit: Maybe not dueling AIs, but I kinda feel like completing objectives should feel more impactful, not just something the traitor does but something the rest of the crew sees. For instance the hijack the shuttle objective is something everybody notices, people notice revs, people notice nukies, they even notice a shambler when it's rampaging. My point is that perhaps it's time to have some objectives trigger actual noticeable events that the rest of the crew can see.

For instance TG's cult rounds can result in a evil cthulu god or clock monster unleashed upon the station with all it's minions unleashed. You SEE cult, even if you aren't directly involved.

Antag objectives that actually change the station's environment, rather then simply destroying it or rendering it empty of a few valuables could be interesting.

[awfulworldkid]

What about an objective like 'Have this person alive and on the station z-level when the round ends'? It would force them to not kill their target, but they still have to keep them off the shuttle.

[Mageziya]

What about an objective like 'Have this person alive and on the station z-level when the round ends'? It would force them to not kill their target, but they still have to keep them off the shuttle.

Problem: suicide. (And people going braindead)

Solution: An optional item that the traitor can buy, like an implant, that prevents suicide. Similar, in a sense, to the ID tracker for the assassinate objective.

Problem: Most reasonable solutions to lock someone somewhere whilst also preventing suicide are worse than death, and would probably incur braindead-ness.

Extra problem: the anti-suicide implant would need to be cheap. This means that someone could buy roughly 12 of them and then proceed to engage maximum shitlerly.