[PR] Make NTSO only available if a HoS has joined the round

[github_bot]

PULL REQUEST DETAILS




About the PR
This PR makes it so the NTSO job is only available for latejoining if a HoS has already joined the round.


Why's this needed?
NTSO was originally added as a helper to HoS in times when HoS was overwhelmed. Having NTSO without HoS kinda defeats that purpose.


Changelog

Code:

(u)pali
(+)NTSO job is now only available after HoS has been picked.

PULL REQUEST DETAILS

[Slazenger]

Whoops, repeating here as the thread was opened.

I seconded comments from Dimwhat and Carb regarding restricting RP capabilities and taking away a more relaxed-but-still-helper role for HoS, especially about having an alternative to HoS when you want to be able to just have a bit calmer of a shift without the oppressive responsibility. NTSO is my "the shift is half over" late-join.

I guess my biggest question is how does having it as it is now hurt RP scenarios and round balance?

[Drago156]

Yea I'm not personally in favor of this. HoS and NTSO do play quite differently and have different levels of stress and expectations attached to them. Late joining as HoS isn't always the best experience over simply joining in as NTSO. I'd like to also present a major issue this would create with a specific game mode: Revs. As it stands, you can't latejoin as any Head of Staff position on a rev round, which would effectively completely disable NTSO if a HoS wasn't present at the start of a rev round.

[GORE]

Repeating what I said on GitHub - but how about another take?

- - -

How about making the NTSO only available to join once the bridge emergency alert button has been activated?

Indicating to CentComm that something is amiss on their NT station.

[pali6]

...having an alternative to HoS when you want to be able to just have a bit calmer of a shift without the oppressive responsibility. NTSO is my "the shift is half over" late-join.

Why not play a sec off then? Or detective?

I guess my biggest question is how does having it as it is now hurt RP scenarios and round balance?

Not really but it'd be nice to have a HoS rather than an NTSO usually. From my ahelp experience NTSOs tend to just empty their lethals into non-antagonists or valid hunt without actual responsibility.

[Mordent]

Pretend I said the exact same thing as Pali but said it first.

NTSO was a mistake, in my opinion. You want all of the importance and clout of an HoS with none of the responsibility and the "expectation" of using lethals rather than arresting folks. There should be a HoS on station to keep you in line if you want to go that way.

[Sord213]

The original intent, as I understand it, for adding NTSO was to add an extra "trusted" security member to stand beside the HoS for new players to look up to during the recent population expansions. It worked well for that. Nowadays the reason people sign up for it involve wanting a "I'm my own command, I do what I want" role with 0 responsibilities other than "kill all antags".

I've seen, more than once, NTSOs even clash with HoS players regarding what to do with antags. HoS wants to let the changeling who got caught on his first sting with 0 dna be exiled to the trench, NTSO wants to kill and borg. For some reason NTSO brings an attitude of what I said above, being "I'm my own command, I do what I want" which isn't conductive to a fun experience for everyone.
Edit: Forgot a point. It also leads to people applying for NTSO over HoS which is ABSOLUTELY not the point of NTSO. You're applying to HoS to help train security officers to not be awful. Not to be some cool blue supercop with no responsibilites.

Reinforcing that the NTSO is a "special security officer + for HoS players when HoS is taken and secoff slots are full" is a good thing.



A scenario for you HoS whitelisted folks; NTSO doesn't exist. You get on, say, 10 minutes into a shift and want to play security. You look and see HoS is taken and there's two secoff slots available. Do you join secoff? Why or why not?

[Adhara In Space]

ive latejoined as hos before and it wasnt that bad you guys are babies. just ask whats been happening over the radio and yell at your officers. if they fight back just ahelp it and let the admins deal with it

(this is my player oopinon)

[KikiMofo]

Honestly I always thought NTSO was going to just be a joke job and not something that actually sticks around. As much fun as it is to start with the big blue armor and a gun I don't really see the point in it. It doesnt really seem much more powerful than just a regular security officer. Its just usually used by HoS people that want to be special sec but HoS role is already being used. I see nothing wrong with this PR.

[DimWhat]

To reiterate what I said on the forums. I am mostly for this PR although a small part of me is slightly dissapointed that specific roleplaying situations are slightly more difficult to make happen. I do not think that is a problem though as the roleplaying opportunity is not going away forever or anything. So all in all this PR should go through in my opinion. Having HoS players actually play HoS is a good idea.

[Leeanei]

If NTSO didn't exist, I'd pick secoff, yeah. If NTSO existed and secoff slots were open, I'd join NTSO because there's more sec slots open than if I'd joined as sec. HoS+NTSO+Sec=7 slots, HoS+sec = 6 slots and significantly more pressure on the HoS because on RP its uncommon for HoSes to have an IC reason to treat a HoS-off as a lieutenant.

Though, a lot of the NTSO issues being sounded out here sound more like rules/ahelpable stuff. And most of it isn't even in my experience on RP!

[Slazenger]

...having an alternative to HoS when you want to be able to just have a bit calmer of a shift without the oppressive responsibility. NTSO is my "the shift is half over" late-join.

Why not play a sec off then? Or detective?

I guess my biggest question is how does having it as it is now hurt RP scenarios and round balance?

Not really but it'd be nice to have a HoS rather than an NTSO usually. From my ahelp experience NTSOs tend to just empty their lethals into non-antagonists or valid hunt without actual responsibility.

It's worth mentioning that my experience is 100% on RP. Regarding the first part, when latejoining a shift and SecOffs are doing BadThings™, an NTSO can help mentor and guide a newer SecOff towards correcting their behavior and help correct issues; me joining as a Detective isn't going to be able to do that.

Regarding your second point, that needs to be addressed with the individuals. If people you trust with a whitelist can't follow the rules, don't punish the rest of the community/playerbase. Have discussions with the offenders as an admin-player discussion and remove whitelist from repeat offenders.

If NTSO didn't exist, I'd pick secoff, yeah. If NTSO existed and secoff slots were open, I'd join NTSO because there's more sec slots open than if I'd joined as sec. HoS+NTSO+Sec=7 slots, HoS+sec = 6 slots and significantly more pressure on the HoS because on RP its uncommon for HoSes to have an IC reason to treat a HoS-off as a lieutenant.

Though, a lot of the NTSO issues being sounded out here sound more like rules/ahelpable stuff. And most of it isn't even in my experience on RP!

Ley hit it on the head. It's a way to still allow other players to join in with more slots available. And we don't really have issues with whitelisted-HoS players validhunting on RP. Again, arbitrary restrictions on a role because of individuals' actions seems highly unnecessary.

NTSO got nerfed once as a kneejerk reaction because I shot a Captain who was using their egun stun on me while fleeing. The real solution to the problem I experienced (and still maintain was handled appropriately via use of force continuum) was addressed later with virva's creation of the Signifier, not by the initial arbitrary slashing of NTSO permissions. The way I play NTSO is as a backup to a HoS if there's one or as a halfway-through (or later) latejoin Sec role. Joining up to a station on fire and not being able to even get into EVA or AI doesn't fit with lore, common sense, or the trust that we supposedly have as HoS-whitelisted players.

We have developers publicly stating that "Security isn't needed - the game is balanced for there to not be Security". Meanwhile you have a lot of really good people working their asses off and taking on pretty intense ingame stress to help players have a enjoyable time without their experience/RP/learning interrupted by people just causing mayhem/disturbances and will go out of their way to purposefully mislead officers/ignore crime all in order to allow antags to have a good time.

The public anti-Sec sentiment from some folks is pretty discouraging. A bit off topic, but it's a related subject to some of the "balancing" efforts I see.

[Frank_Stein]

Repeating what I said on GitHub - but how about another take?

- - -

How about making the NTSO only available to join once the bridge emergency alert button has been activated?

Indicating to CentComm that something is amiss on their NT station.

I like the idea of the emergency alert and NTSO being related. There ought to be more reasons to hit that when the moment is right.

[Drago156]

I think some of these issues stem from how NTSO was first designed and originally added at the very start. Before it got made a serious role it was a job for culling greytide during the ssethtide. I'm not sure what the expectations were for adding a role with assault armor and only lethals, but of course it's going to be ugly when the only option is to shoot someone dead, this only got WORSE with the security equipment restriction change that locked all stun equipment behind tokens and vendors, though NTSO could still get a token from Cargo so not too big a deal sometimes, until NTSO lost that access.

I think honestly that the Signifier II has been the best step in the right direction for NTSO, offering a non-lethal method to take people down and also the removal of the ammo pouch in favor of a standard security pouch, providing cuffs. Both of these combined actually promote arresting people over killing them and to be a security officer instead of a vigilante. (Yes I know I'm excluding the baton, and that's purposeful because of how impractical it is during any sort of ranged encounter.) However, despite these changes the NTSO still retains lethal capabilities that standard sec and even the HoS doesn't have access to at all. This kind of thing is VERY VALUABLE because of standard security's lack of practical or effective lethals where lethals are the most necessary step in handling a threat.

I think it's important to make a clear distinction now that security is a vastly different experience between non-RP and RP, and arguably it's not quite fair to compare the two and say one is right over the other in most situations.

NTSO is a good role for late joining, and I don't think completely barring it if there's no HoS at all is the best solution here. I personally pick NTSO generally if the round is over 20-25 minutes in or if I feel like playing security but expect someone else to sign on as HoS, both of these depending on if I even plan to play security at all.

Perhaps limiting NTSO to only be selectable after 20 minutes has passed OR if the emergency alert button has been pushed before the 20 minutes has passed would be a better solution. It would still retain that HoS is an important role to fill, at least in the beginning portion of a round, but still maintains NTSO as a latejoin and supporting role that doesn't force one into playing HoS and attempting to gather information about what has happened so far while still demanding the attention to direct and teach the security team and dealing with the stress there of.

I think an important factor to consider is mentors getting access to both HoS and NTSO on fridays. I think the idea itself was good but so far the execution and usage has been poor. It came up in discord to remove mentor friday and I think this isn't a terrible idea. I know a few mentors that never play security but rarely play HoS and quite often play NTSO during fridays. I've also seen multiple questionable or not okay things displayed with these people when they do this and it feels like a undermining of the reason for having an HoS whitelist.

[Mopcat]

as someone who primarily plays sec i really can't agree with a lot of the admin opinions on this thread. at least on rp i rarely see much of a clash between hos and ntso nor do i see many ntsos abuse their power. if there is really a problem of ntsos flexing their power and abusing it, then... warn them? ahelp them? don't make an unpopular blanket change over something you guys should be tackling head-on as admins? reject hos apps who clearly just want to be Blue Cop With Guns rather than an actual authority? i seriously don't think we need to be making drastic changes that few people agree with when people can ahelp abusive ntsos and the admins can deal with them. remember, hos whitelist does not in any way equal above the rules and people who abuse it for the sake of having more authority to flex should obviously be removed from the whitelist or at least be given a stern warning

and ntso does have nonlethal options too, their entire role is no longer "can only use Kill Bullets and needs to order a taser from cargo"

yes, if ntso didn't exist i'd play secoff. however not everyone can play ntso, so picking ntso means more sec slots for non whitelist folks. i personally like having a role that's inbetween secoff and hos, where you still have more authority and responsibility but not as much as a hos would have.

that being said i wouldn't mind if ntso were restricted to only being available after a certain amount of time as most people treat it as a "shift is half over" role