Spy_Theft gamemode feedbacks thread

[Superlagg]

Also, the only real difference between a spythief and every other jackass crewperson is that the spythief gets paid for taking things and being a jackass.

I like the idea of letting sec (or some other actually-there job) that there's a spy creepin' around here.

Course, the actual end-goal of spythief is to kill the other antags, which would ideally make them out to be kleptomaniacal vigilantes. Too bad this never, ever happens.

[babayetu83]

doing your bounties isnt really worth it since you get trash items and i ended up rampaging instead out of sheer boredom

[Frank_Stein]

Would making rewards less random help? Like, maybe there could be a progression system where you get better items the more bounties you turn in. Or maybe each bounty has a random reward tied to it that you can see, letting you prioritize which one you want to fill or stalk based on what the reward will be?

[Superlagg]

Would making rewards less random help? Like, maybe there could be a progression system where you get better items the more bounties you turn in. Or maybe each bounty has a random reward tied to it that you can see, letting you prioritize which one you want to fill or stalk based on what the reward will be?

That's an ace number one good idea. Bonus points if the best rewards come from items that are either super limited or difficult to find or liberate.

Maybe even have a few hardcore quests reward you with telecrystals.

[mbc]

there could be a progression system where you get better items the more bounties you turn in

This already exists and it ramps up pretty steeply at the end. iirc, the last two items are guaranteed to be worth 6tc - 7tc each.

[Mageziya]

Maybe instead of basing it just on telecrystal worth, maybe also remove some less situationally useful items from the rewards list. I don't know what the list of items is at the moment, but a lot of traitor items are only really useful if you plan around using them, and intentionally set up a synergy. Just randomly getting a lot of items can make them of little use.

[pizzatiger]

This is a silly idea but why not have an auction system? Bounties are worth points based on their difficulty + bonuses for completing the most bounties that wave or the HIGH-VALUE targets.

After a bounty wave finishes before the next wave starts a mini E-bay of traitor goods pop up for 30 seconds letting the spies bid on the 4-10  things (depending on the number of spies, 2 items per spy would be a good balancing point to start with) with the highest bid winning the item when the 30 seconds pass. Hell you could even strip the completing 5 bounties reveals your competitor's system by making 1 of the items that you can bid on every round being an Information docket on a random competitor that you have not gotten a docket on yet making you pick between items and guaranteeing your not outed for a turn + information on your enemies

If you really want to make this even more, fun, you could allow spies to create a Username for their space Ebay account so you can feel UTTER RAGE when beeprincess8234 outbids you for the 10th time



Edit- If you don't spend your points you lose all but 25% of your points, you bid for bank upgrades on eBay though to increase the number of points you keep by 5-10% with you being able to go up to 150% for interest from the bank


Edit 2-When you bid on something, your bid is locked in for the round and the points can't be spent on something else. To punish random bidding second place will lose 25% of his bid and third place will lose only 10% of their bid. Anyone under that will gain their entire bid back next bidding phase. The Winner of the bid can't refuse it and must pay their full bid

Final Edit-Spies should be able to pur stuff up for auction which is avaible to bid on next bidding phase. If this item can hold itens then it will tell everyone how many items are inside it and one item that is inside it. This item is determined by random chance if no money is spent or if a small fee is spent they can pick which item is shown to their fellow  spies. A larger fee may be paid to either hide the number of items inside it, the name of the revealed item or to reveal even more items. All profits  made by the saLe of said item is given to the person who put it  up for auction



To make bidding fair, all bids are anomous till the bid ends, in which case the first secondd and third highest bidder names are revealed. If you bought your own item that you put up for auction then you will recieve the item and must pay you're bid in full even though it's your item

[Mageziya]

Also, random thought, but maybe game-ify the mode even more, by giving the normal crew a counter spy objective. 5-10 minutes in the round, make a big announcement that it is a spy-theft round, to let everyone know. Then, somehow, incentivize the crew taking action. Like, say, put a bounty on spy PDA's that people can somehow turn in to NT for a reward of some sorts.

[NateTheSquid]

pizzatiger was talking about stuff in irc earlier and i agree with the whole bidding auction thing, sounds good. i made a suggestion but i forgot it!!! pizza feel free to add it or ill edit if i remember

[warcrimes]

[heaps of stuff]

I'd be concerned with someone just metagaming the bidding process to go out and massacre / out the 3-4-5 people who all simultaneously stopped whatever they were doing for 60 seconds with little explanation. It's just a worse version of the "hey this guy didnt move for two minutes at roundstart guess he's a first-time antag". 
Would it make you a shitty person to abuse this? absolutely. 
Does someone exist who is shitty enough to do so? unfortunately.

[New525]

There should be some spy theif unqiue traitor weapons

[pizzatiger]

[heaps of stuff]

I'd be concerned with someone just metagaming the bidding process to go out and massacre / out the 3-4-5 people who all simultaneously stopped whatever they were doing for 60 seconds with little explanation. It's just a worse version of the "hey this guy didnt move for two minutes at roundstart guess he's a first-time antag". 
Would it make you a shitty person to abuse this? absolutely. 
Does someone exist who is shitty enough to do so? unfortunately.

To be fair, if you stop moving as a spy during the bidding phase and another spy noticed this and kills you, you REALLY can't complain, They used their spy like intuition to figure out who the other spies were. A good spy would hide in a locker or in maintenance to do their bidding. Just like you wouldn't suck someone in public or  emag every door you see, you shouldn't be in the open to bid for stuff, especially since if you win the items will warp to you

[warcrimes]

[heaps of stuff]

I'd be concerned with someone just metagaming the bidding process to go out and massacre / out the 3-4-5 people who all simultaneously stopped whatever they were doing for 60 seconds with little explanation. It's just a worse version of the "hey this guy didnt move for two minutes at roundstart guess he's a first-time antag". 
Would it make you a shitty person to abuse this? absolutely. 
Does someone exist who is shitty enough to do so? unfortunately.

To be fair, if you stop moving as a spy during the bidding phase and another spy noticed this and kills you, you REALLY can't complain, They used their spy like intuition to figure out who the other spies were. A good spy would hide in a locker or in maintenance to do their bidding. Just like you wouldn't suck someone in public or  emag every door you see, you shouldn't be in the open to bid for stuff, especially since if you win the items will warp to you

A good point, but it'll depend on how the bidding is implemented. If it's like a PDA message you can open a few seconds later, great, if it comes as a pop-up, less great. 

You're right though.

[Sundance]

Another thread has raised the topic of security's involvement in spies. Well in that case it wasn't really security but it highlighted something rather noteworthy about a spy round, and I experienced it first hand myself.

What do you if you get your hands on a spy PDA, where it is currently listing your targets? Now security are fully aware of who's who. How are we expected to react? Crack down on them? What if they're just bumbling away not really doing anything antagonistic? Many players follow the rule of thumb of not bothering to be purely antagonistic in the case of murder where they often feel like their targets will meet their demise at their own stupidity, in which case they are often correct.

In my current opinion is to have a long leash / heavy surveillance on spy behavior. While it's pretty much confirmed that X person is a spy, X person may not even have any spy tools, and it would be a case of catching them in the act, which conveniently sec can do by reading the drop off points.

However, it seems unfair that sec now are in on the action, as spy mode is actually quite hard, not only do you have to gather items in exchange for goodies instead of giving it to you right off the bat, other spies are out to kill you too.

Really spies should a secret message that if someone that isn't a spy holds their PDA comprising of:

"Your position has been compromised. Intelligence suggests that PDA "NAME" has been put in the hands of a Nanotrasen employee "NAME", "POSITION". We would recommend you to go incognito and act accordingly"

This way spies know if they're position is fucked and have opportunity to rectify it. They can do so by surveying drop off points, going incognito.

They also are now aware the first nonspy to touch the other spies PDA (but not necessarily the current person holding it!) meaning that if they see "Bob Hardhat, Security" they are aware that it's security that they're dealing with, not some SA. They'll also be aware if a spy is incarcerated. So there's a few options, but a priority for a spy(s) would be to murder the spy that's been captured, but also murder/capture the person who has the info leaking PDA.

I think the twist would be fairly easy to code, like I said it would just send a subtle message to spies stating the above, with the first nonspy who touched the PDA as reported and outing the captured spy if it wasn't already previously known. The twist would also be super cool and require everyone, both the spies, the captured spy and security to act smart.

[Frank_Stein]

Idea: Let spies send non-audible messages to the other spy PDAs through their own PDA.

I think it could create a dynamic where they have an opportunity to antagonize each other with taunts, but also somewhat work together indirectly.

Like two rival spies hosted in a neutral territory during a cold war.