[MERGED PR] Remove the hygiene motive from RP

[Chasu]

Ah, shit, here we go again...

I'd love to see it killed as it is right now, but maybe lowering the decay rate significantly could make the feature more bearable, eliminating the need for a full-on removal.

[Cropsey]

I like stink lines but I think you shouldn't get them by virtue of not showering. I'm in the "rolling in stinky things should make you stinky" camp. Passive decay is irritating. Over a two hour shift you're not going to sweat that much or smell... unless you roll in dirt.*

*I play a character who eats garbage so my opinion is biased towards the stink lines. Always.

[Egregorious]

Still think we should just remove passive decay entirely over a complete removal.

I am in agreement with this take. I like that the motive makes bathrooms a mechanically useful place to visit; I like that the motive is a visually apparent tool to RP with; I dislike having to keep such a consistent eye on my hygiene so often; and I dislike that I feel discouraged to comment on people's stink lines because so many end up getting them passively.

Remove the passive decay, let it be a thing that lowers due to contact with blood, miasma etc. It'd be funnier if more people stunk because the clown went around spraying compost, rather than merely not washing their hands for 20 minutes.

[Cherman0]

If you remove passive decay then I dont know that there remains a reason for the motive to exist. "Stinky" things could just give you the stinklines bioeffect seperately from the motives system.
And I don't really feel that hygiene creates any foot traffic. Maybe for jobs that pretty much never leave a 5x5 area like geneticists and botanists, but generally I see three ways people deal with hygiene
1: Never deal with it. Just have stinklines forever, since everybody ignores them anyways.
2: Only deal with it if you're bored and aren't doing anything anyways. This basically applies to like, roboticists and the chaplain.
3: Deal with it as convenient. You click a sink every 10 minutes as you happen to walk past them. This diverts you for maybe 5 seconds a round.
None of these really get people moving about. Medical, security, and sometimes engineering and science have showers in their departments, and most departments have sinks.

[Egregorious]

The motive system allows the mechanic to remain non-binary. Instead of just 'touch thing -> be stinky', it can be 'touch thing -> wash hands', 'fall over in thing -> need to shower' and 'fall unconscious in thing -> be stinky', or any sort of balance otherwise.

I'd argue that a big reason many people ignore hygiene right now is that it's such a ubiquitous chore that you can do nothing to avoid. The current expectation is that even if you deal with it now, you're just going to have to deal with it again later. If it was a result of a situation instead of something you just have to deal with consistently it would be more interesting to manage, because it converts the expectation into 'dealing with it now means you may not need to deal with it again in the future'.

Hunger and thirst share the same issue, but their benefit is the motivation for player-interaction. Whereas hygiene fails in regards to player interaction, it could instead be a motive to avoid dirty situations, making janitors more useful and possibly giving goofy antags a reason to get people mucky. Currently it doesn't motivate people to avoid dirty situations because they're just going to get dirty passively anyway.

[JOELED]

I genuinely don't feel like removing the passive decay is a suitable compromise for either 'side' of this discussion.  It seems like around half the people who want it to stay in just find the stinklines funny (which can easily be put into any one of the many feature suggestions that have been given) while the other half feel strongly that the fact it is an unavoidable ticking clock that forces you to leave your department halfway through the round IS the appeal.  Making it an avoidable mechanic that only affects people who already out playing the game and encountering fluid puddles does nothing to fix that.  My own problems with hygiene as it exists right now are far more to do with the mechanics that cause ACTIVE hygiene decay i.e fluid puddles.  I stopped playing janitor on RP this year because I realized how goofy it was that using the mop with c absolutely tanks your hygiene  ---  I think it's silly that any job I play that comes into contact with fluid puddles more (janitor, security, meddoc) has a frankly insane amount of hygiene loss compared to, like, when I play engineer wherein the only hygiene loss all shift is the passive drain.  I personally would honestly prefer hygiene to be only the passive drain if it has to stay in, but that's insane in itself lol.  May as well just replace it with the 'social' mechanic and make it just be going out and talking to someone at that point

[Egregorious]

It seems like around half the people who want it to stay in just find the stinklines funny (which can easily be put into any one of the many feature suggestions that have been given) while the other half feel strongly that the fact it is an unavoidable ticking clock that forces you to leave your department halfway through the round IS the appeal.

I don't really get the impression that those are the only two sides. For one thing even without hygiene there's still two ticking clocks that do exactly that, passive hygiene loss is redundant in providing motive to leave your station.

Jobs often tend to have dirtiness hazards anyway; medical has blood, botany has compost, chemistry has all sorts of chems, sec has the hallways etc. Jobs without dirt risks are not necessarily the rule, and the disparity is essentially a balance issue which can be solved without removing the mechanic as a whole. It's not something that by design can only affect those leaving their job area.

My point is that those risks are, or can be designed to be, avoidable through player choice; which is a fundamental change to how the mechanic can be percieved. However if the choice comes down to keeping hygiene exactly as is or getting rid of it completely, I would vote to kick it to the curb - but I think that's losing a lot of potential.

[Kotlol]

Since we are back at this let me reitterate why hygiene motive sucks.

1: Hygiene doesnt punish you in mechanics.
YOU JUST SMELL! With hunger you lose max hp and thrist stamina is worst.

2: Fixing it doesn't benefit you.
Eating can give health buffs, regen buffs and stamina buffs. So can drinking!
Cleaning yourself? NOPE!

3: You have to take off your clothes in a bathroom to shower.
OH NO I AM EXPOSED! And someone ran in and now the situation is awkward....

4: You can't instantly drop to 0 hunger and 0 thrist.
Well unless something "specific happens" it will go down gradualy and faster the more you do.
Where as hygiene can drop to 0 if you slip and fall into a puddle. Or someone spray you with oil. There are so much ways for you to get that hygiene to drop to 0 it is just frustrating.

5: Flavor text and stink lines are just uber annoying.
Nothing awful I can ignore it, but I do notice it's just annoying.


And that's why I am fine with removing it. Since it has no value... atleast in the olden days you could get sick of it being low.

[Meggal Bozale]

All for it. Glad to see this made it to this stage personally

[Fuppy]

I've already said my piece on the other posts, just gonna drop my support in here yet again and say I'd be more than happy to see hygiene go.

It feels overdue at this point, its not a fun mechanic and it almost always pulls me away from RP rather than making it more engaging.

[FireKestrel]

Hygiene is the only motive that actually works...
From my experience hunger and thirst completely fail at encouraging people to visit the bar, but hygiene actually does drive people to avoid messes and use the showers. Sure, that doesn't encourage you to interact with other players, but stink lines having no mechanical impact means it doesn't interrupt RP or important events either.
Killing it is a mistake, IMO. I can remember far more times antags have taken advantage of crewmembers wandering off alone to shower than antags messing with food or drinks.

[444explorer]

Hygiene is the only motive that actually works...
From my experience hunger and thirst completely fail at encouraging people to visit the bar, but hygiene actually does drive people to avoid messes and use the showers. Sure, that doesn't encourage you to interact with other players, but stink lines having no mechanical impact means it doesn't interrupt RP or important events either.
Killing it is a mistake, IMO. I can remember far more times antags have taken advantage of crewmembers wandering off alone to shower than antags messing with food or drinks.

For my experience it's the total opposite. The only times I've seen antags take advantage of it is just by skipping escalation and totally ignoring RP.

[Kamikaze Mongoose]

A mechanic so useless that nothing will change when it's gone. Actually, that's not true, player enjoyment will go up. Bless this PR +1

[SpaceCircles]

I agree. If not completely removed I'd love an update or a change to make it less common.

[Cal]

I would love a total overhaul of hygeine that adds a bunch of ways to manage it to make rp more interesting but that's a giant order and most seem to hate it as it is now so i'm cool with just dropping it personally