What motivates players to cooperate?

[aft2001]

I'd like to start a bit of discourse here to discuss the following topic:

What motivates people to cooperate in-game?

Cooperate, in this case, includes both typical cooperation (working with others to achieve a common goal), but also benevolent behavior in general.

For example, why do some people go out of their way to fix a hull breach? Is it just them getting fed up with being cold and slow and having to wear internals, and nobody else is fixing it? Do they just want to help others by neutralizing a hazard? Or do they just wanna do what their job description says?

What mechanics of the game, or possibly even other factors like player psychology, impact how altruistic players will behave? And, what mechanics promote hostility, suspicion, or an unwillingness to help towards other players?

I honestly hope that results of discussion that will be completely forgotten or never even occur happens here can be used to tweak the game a bit to better promote cooperative play. After all, we're all on this station together!

[Flaborized]

For example, why do some people go out of their way to fix a hull breach? Is it just them getting fed up with being cold and slow and having to wear internals, and nobody else is fixing it? Do they just want to help others by neutralizing a hazard? Or do they just wanna do what their job description says?

I think it's a mix of all three. Another aspect of this is that it's pretty satisfying to fix things. Healing someone from -300% or fixing a massive breach and seeing people use an area again or building a new cloner and watching people use it just feels good. It's nice to feel useful in-game and feel like you had a positive impact on someone else's round.

I think a lot of players do it because their job is "supposed to" as well. Healing people as a doctor or cleaning stuff as a janitor is interesting/fun or at least leads to interesting/fun stories and situations. Nothing says you have to do your job, of course, but you're leaned into it the supplies you get.

I think a particularly good example of design encouraging cooperation is genetics of all things. Activating someone's potential genes benefits both the geneticist (loads of materials and chromosomes, possibly finding rare or exotic genes ie: high complexity) and the person who's getting their genes activated (cool superpowers). Very little is locked out of genetics without having an extra person, but it's way way more effective and faster to cooperate with the crew because of the benefits you get. This incentives working together and rewards both parties with stuff they want, be it doing genetics way faster or getting cool strong superpowers. 

Another fantastic example is security. It's a sort of different idea: Instead of someone in the crew doing something good to help the station as a whole, security works together with themselves to achieve a common goal. You'll notice that in rounds with active security, the security frequency on comms consistently sees a lot of use. This is unlike pretty much any other department! There's a lot of factors in why you see this behavior in security and not other departments in my opinion. A simple one is that officers and the HoS can't be traitors. It's easy to put your trust in another officer as security because of this. 

Communication (and therefore cooperation) are just vital to security doing well in a given round, which is another part of why you see it a lot. It's very useful to transmit information over sec comms when in other jobs most problems aren't over-arching enough to justify it. "So-and-so is a traitor, we need to arrest them" or "That welder tank that was used to blow up X has so-and-so's fingerprints on them" makes sense to broadcast because that info could be useful to anybody in sec as anybody in sec might come across "so-and-so". There's not really an equivalent in medical comms or research comms. The HoS is also seen as "in charge" of security, and when they order a security officer to arrest a dude or release a dude ect. people are quite likely to listen, while other heads of staff don't have the same authority usually. This is, of course, because the job is whitelisted and thus there's a high chance the HoS knows what they're talking about.

All of this stuff mostly applies to Main/2, I don't have any experience on RP so I dunno how much this rambling resonates with happenings on that server.

[aft2001]

It appears that the biggest factor in what people will do is fun - will they enjoy doing it, or will it result in something that they would enjoy.

Based on your response, Flaborized, it would seem that there are at least 2 different ways in which cooperation, collaboration, and other synonyms can be encouraged.

Firstly, mutual benefit. Designing a game mechanic to rely on cooperation would require some form of mutual benefit to those cooperating. Flaborized already made a good example of what a well-designed cooperative game mechanic could look like with Genetics.

However, what does a less-than-optimal cooperative relationship look like? Lets look at Cargo for that. Specifically, the relationship between the Quartermaster and the Miner. The Miner has very little use for the QM, besides some access and the occasional supply request for convenience (e.g medkits), as the Miner can fabricate all that they need. However, the QM heavily relies on the Miner for the Miner's spare ore and materials, to turn a profit for the station and to buy supplies. To the Miner, the QM is irrelevant for the most part, and bringing ore to the QM is tedious at times. This means that the Miner can ignore the QM with minimal repercussion, as the Miner would not benefit much from cooperating with the QM - this results in the QM not being able to make nearly as much profit, impacting their round negatively.

The propositions to remedy this are mostly theoretical, but if a coder is willing to implement it, go right ahead.
The solution to this lack of incentive to cooperate can be fixed by giving the Miner a reason to actually rely on the QM - perhaps not a required interaction, but definitely helpful. Perhaps blueprints for the advanced mining gear which can be bought from traders, or upgrades/materials that can be made from the QM's many fabricators. If the QM doesn't want to cooperate, then they lose out on the Miner who has the ability to bring in massive quantities of profit.

---

Intradepartmental cooperation could also prove to be interesting. Security, as Flaborized explained, revolves around the goal of 'stop the bad guys and keep the peace' (roughly), but that goal isn't realistically achievable with just one person. As such, in order to be 'good at sec', officers are encouraged to cooperate and communicate to effectively handle antags. 

Perhaps something similar could happen with other departments, such as Medbay. At the moment, Medbay typically is just some doctors standing around, waiting to fix any broken people that walk/stumble/crawl/are-thrown in. Nothing wrong with this, of course. However, if teamwork wanted to be encouraged, then rewarding medbay players for cooperation should be a thing. As a possible method for achieving this, perhaps there can be various gear and equipment in Medbay which provides certain buffs, encouraging different playstyles. For example, the Paramedic suit could provide a noticeable speed boost, encouraging the wearer to run out and search for injured patients. Of course, how the heck do you even locate injured patients? By injecting people with health implants, of course, and rushing to wherever they are when dying later in the round. As an added bonus, having fold-up roller beds/stretchers would help even more, allowing you to quickly get to an injured patient, deploy a bed to rapidly move them (because hurt people are slow), and drag them back to Medbay. That's just one example of encouraging a specific playstyle by tweaking/implementing mechanics, which could have the effect of making unique playstyles which synergize with one another (the paramedic and the general doctoring playstyles, for example)

also WOW this was a long fucking post. Wow I am bored

[UrsulaMejor]

I cooperate because it's fun

[aft2001]

Yeah but, why the heck do people find it fun to cooperate? Just the social aspect that some players crave, or is it the knowledge that teamwork would make achieving an interesting goal far easier (e.g telescience)?

[polivilas]

Purely personal gain - it is way more likely someone will actively try to help you, provided that you helped them first.

[Frank_Stein]

For me, it's about more fun when everyone is having a good time. Helping people out creates good vibes for the server and I think encourages others to do the same. It's rewarding to drag someone from the brink of death and go on to see them back on the escape shuttle round end.

[Rob_Hasty]

Purely personal gain - it is way more likely someone will actively try to help you, provided that you helped them first.

Totally agree, you have to ally with someone for a better personal gain. You can't be the best in everything so better to find people who are good at the things you are bad. This was the first thing in business life: cooperate or fail. I was always some kind of an introvert but it really doesn't work out in business life. I even witnessed to 5 people who hate each other are working together to sell a real estate in Budva and succeed. Main point is to having the ability of cooperate.

[Superlagg]

I cooperate partly because its just how I like to do things, but also because I have an idea how it feels to be on the receiving end of not being cooperated with.

I usually don't factor personal gain that heavily into my decisions, since there isn't really /that much/ to be gained, and whatever /is/ gained lasts about an hour at most, when the shift ends and all material wealth returns to the aether from which it came.

Thus in a way, the only meaningful gain to be obtained from any interaction in this game would be memories of that which we have done. Times, both good and bad, last until they are forgotten, and more times typically happen through cooperation.

Not sure where Im going with this, but I like cooperating for the sake of cooperation.

[TheOnlyRyan]

Usually failure to cooperate and do your job on goon gets your ass removed and stapled to your head so cooperating is in everyone's best interest.

Being a Chaotic Good myself, if I'm going to do my job is completely up to if I'm feeling good or chaotic. Usually It's a bit of both, sure I'll send you that tool you want through the mail, but I'll punch a monkey and throw it in the chute as well.

Some people will be shit for no reason though, straight up decline giving out insulated gloves for no reason other than being a shitster. Those guys can get dunked on.

[polivilas]

Usually failure to cooperate and do your job on goon gets your ass removed and stapled to your head so cooperating is in everyone's best interest.

Being a Chaotic Good myself, if I'm going to do my job is completely up to if I'm feeling good or chaotic. Usually It's a bit of both, sure I'll send you that tool you want through the mail, but I'll punch a monkey and throw it in the chute as well.

Some people will be shit for no reason though, straight up decline giving out insulated gloves for no reason other than being a shitster. Those guys can get dunked on.

Insuls are a privilege, not a right.

[OMJ]

Usually failure to cooperate and do your job on goon gets your ass removed and stapled to your head so cooperating is in everyone's best interest.

Being a Chaotic Good myself, if I'm going to do my job is completely up to if I'm feeling good or chaotic. Usually It's a bit of both, sure I'll send you that tool you want through the mail, but I'll punch a monkey and throw it in the chute as well.

Some people will be shit for no reason though, straight up decline giving out insulated gloves for no reason other than being a shitster. Those guys can get dunked on.

Insuls are a privilege, not a right.

get robbed then son

[Sundance]

Cooperation is the cornerstone of ss13. We delve into chaos, sure, and there's a carnal satisfaction of doing so, akin to digging into a big steak. But there's also a very satisfying round to be had playing as a team, whether it be:

1. Security. This is quintessential. A high functioning security team will make a significant impact on a round, you'll see it on the station.
2. Medical. Although rarer, a medical team that works together can rival that of security. Protip: when spawning as a MD/robo/etc, ask your fellow workers what they plan on doing, whether that be breaking into chem to make perfluro or setting up a booth, etc. Knowing that they're doing X, frees up your time so you can concentrate on something tangential. Many docs just go solo with a bag full of drugs, but forget that there's more to medical research than just healing. 
3. Science. Chemistry, artifact research and telescience are all intertwined. It's obvious when science is working well, it's not just that chemistry is a callous ruin but artifact research will be screeching and telescience will be covered in trinkets. The only shame is that toxins don't benefit from this work. Although arguably, that may be a good thing.

There's a thing about robustness that's often debated. For some, it's having a good connection and knowing how to cheese combat. For others, knowledge of the game is enough. For me its a combination of those with the knowledge of how to socialize with your fellow crew. With social skills, you can work you way out of, or into situations to your advantage. 

This includes traitors. The best example of using cooperation nefariously is betrayal. Everyone has a story of them letting their guard down only for a knife to be plunged into it. Or vice versa. That's robustness right there.

[Gannets]

I cannot bring myself to purge this spam.

[shotgunbill]

I cannot bring myself to purge this spam.

it's completely accurate