Modern goonstation rounds are kind of directonless

[hipBEE]

most rounds these days feel kind of pointless with no one caring about their job or giving a shit about traitors.  ss13 works best when people actually care about stopping the traitors and generally doing their job.  everyone is just kind of doing their own goofy thing and it feels like the station at large dosen't give a shit if some dumpass traitor is running around wrecking the place

when everyone is a clown no one is

[Sundance]

Sounds like burnout my dude. You're here as long as me.

My remedy was dipping my toes in the RP pond, as I felt it sort of cured that aspect of "no one caring about their job" when indeed players appear much more invested in their job. It's a good time too to hop in as there's a rather large, dare I say it, dedicated player base hovering at around 40-50.

I find the wackiness is still present, but while toned down it's met with a larger reaction, as one must RP it rather than press F on the keyboard to exert your presence.

Besides, I struggle in any situation where the numbers exceed 65 or so, my 5mb broadband just shits its pants.

[Mouse]

I feel like, in most circumstances, "caring about their job" and "giving a shit about traitors" are going to be working against each other. Whose job is it to give a shit about traitors? That'd be security and the captain. You could pretty easily justify chaplains and medical doctors going traitor hunting as a logical extension of their job duties (namely, helping people), but in most cases going after traitors means not doing your job.

I mean, look at how much shit genetics (rightly) gets for doing their jobs in the face of nuclear operatives or blobs on their literal doorstep.

[Chayot]

As SEC patrolling/visiting departments, I see most crew ARE doing their job.
They are so busy they may not notice a threat to the station. Even if they do, SEC/Command will often handle it.
Their response to Antags is nothing short of appropriate. Some flee, some fight. They often lose. What more do you want?

Even Admins acknowledged it and pushed several changes forward to attempt to combat what some perceive as "apathy."
(In reality, again, they're simply doing their job or are unable to defeat space-horrors with a fire extinguisher.)
I would recommend trying RP, they're a bit more serious. They may suit your taste better.

[Drago156]

I kind of have to agree that rounds recently have more often then not become incredibly boring. I've seriously steered away from playing HoS because I didn't enjoy spending 4 of every 5 rounds just walking about the station looking for something to do. But I find the issue isn't so much people do their jobs as much as we just don't get enough antags for some modes that last longer than 10 minutes or the antags just simply don't antag, which kind of irks me so much that people would have antags on then do nothing with it.

RP is a nice place but with the recent tide the population in both servers get well over 40 people, which is honestly daunting for RP at least to me or I just don't have 2 or so hours at a time to dedicate to RP and I don't like going into cryo mid-round.

But then I have to say there is the occasional round where the crew does nothing at all about murderboning antags, and getting killed as the only person to try to stop them at like 15-20 minutes in then watching them empty the station is one of the most boring and annoying things I can think of in this game.

[Chayot]

Interesting observation Drago, I do feel there used to be more Antags on station even prior to the high pop.

I feel Antags may have been reduced so crew spends less time worrying about fighting and more time worrying about what kind of plants they're gonna splice in botany, what kind of art they can make in central market.
I can understand if this was the reasoning behind it.

As SEC, ours job is Antags and criminals. That is not the case for the rest of the crew.
This very thread's creator is expressing negative feelings about their interaction with Antags.
I wonder if someone like him feels less Antags would be better, or more?

Personally, I'd love more Antags! Then again, that's what *I* find fun.
Maybe Cargo doesn't appreciate a space-horror slipping in through the belts and slurping out their insides.

[The Gorog]

Mixed opinions/experiences on this topic. I feel like most people are doing their job, up until they get disturbed by antags or when they are antags themselves and leave their workplace to do their antag thing.

The apathy thing I will have to agree with and admit that I have also started to often not give a shit and rather continue my job, due to the experience that Drago mentioned.
Dying early into a round and having to wait for 40 minutes until you can play again sucks, aswell as me personally finding combat to be one of the most clunky and infuriating things in SS13.
Because of this I never play security and play roles where my fun in the rounds doesnt depend on the antags, but the job mechanics.

About the amount of antags and how antagonistic they act, I would say is a problem that comes from the amount of new players we see.
I feel like there are (atleast currently) more people that would rather try and get acquainted with the games mechanics than be shredded by an onslaught of antags, just to then watch the rest of the round without being able to participate.
Antags not doing much, well that might also be connected to the amount of new players. Are antag roles still on by default? Also antags arent forced to do anything by the rules.

I see you have been around for quite the long time, so you probably exhausted every deparment we have.
Do you usually just focus on roles or a playstyle that focusses on the acting/existing of antags being the sole cause for you enjoyment of a round?
What do you do when no antags are left to be found? Just call the shuttle, even when the round hasnt went on for over an hour?

[Boxta]

My advice is to play staffie, when i cycled through all the departments, i started playing staffie and then never stopped, Theres always something for a staffie to do wether its saving the station by stealing the nuke (done that), or just stealing minor things (done that), or teaching other players (done that), theres generally always something to do as a staffie

[Couturier]

RP is a bit better when it comes to actually caring these days. I was recently murdered in front of a crowd by an antagonist in plain sight with roughly five or six crew watching it happen and then letting the antagonist walk away on main. The one issue that I have with RP is that I often do not have enough time to play an extended round on any given day.

Main server rounds are just long enough / short enough for my comfort.

[Tribaja]

My advice is to play staffie, when i cycled through all the departments, i started playing staffie and then never stopped, Theres always something for a staffie to do wether its saving the station by stealing the nuke (done that), or just stealing minor things (done that), or teaching other players (done that), theres generally always something to do as a staffie

This is why I mainly play as a staff assistant, the round is always different and the world is your oyster. With other jobs you basically know what you'll be doing all round, with staff assistant it's different every time as whatever you run into will be the defining feature of that round.

All of the points brought up can be easily explained with the new tide. It was the same before after tides, it shall be the same once more. It'll eventually settle down into the same old nerds doing their things, but now we have a lot of people who 1) don't know what they should be doing and 2) don't know what they want to be doing. As the new people find their favorite jobs and niches we'll settle into the same old holding pattern that SS13 has been in for time immemorial, but let us enjoy this break from the monotony of the old nerds battling against each other in who can depopulate the station fastest and the old nerds who get tired of their work to fight against them.

The more experienced players get, the more confident they get in their skills with regards to combat. I don't have a single grain of doubt in my soul that once this tide gets milled through the meatgrinder that is SS13 that we shall return to the halcyon days of valid hunting etc.

One thing that old players can do to encourage new players is to set an example when dealing with antags. No matter your role, charge into combat with the glee of a berserker tripping out on reindeer piss. Do it long enough and new players will pick up that it's the cool thing to do. New players are obviously as afraid of dying early as any us old nerds, but I think it's up to us to show that there is no fear of death, only the glory of combat! Bonus points if you do it with random appearance and name so that it seems to the untrained eye that more people are doing it rather than just one.

[KikiMofo]

Yeah I agree with Sundance. Probably burned out. I got burned out and stopped playing for like a year now. Probably come back soon though as soon as I finish some games in my backlog. Take a month off or something and then come back to see if you changed how you feel.

[OMJ]

most rounds these days feel kind of pointless with no one caring about their job or giving a shit about traitors.  ss13 works best when people actually care about stopping the traitors and generally doing their job.  everyone is just kind of doing their own goofy thing and it feels like the station at large dosen't give a shit if some dumpass traitor is running around wrecking the place

when everyone is a clown no one is

Felt this way verbatim when I was playing

[Roomba]

Genuine question: Is there actually a solution to this 'problem'? What exactly is this thread meant to accomplish besides generalized griping about modern Goon culture? If the intent is to somehow shame everyone reading into going 'hmm, a group of cynical, burnt-out older players disapprove of how I'm playing, I had better shape up', then even if it worked, it wouldn't do a damn thing to change the current Goon culture because there's hundreds of new players who don't even know these forums exist. If this is all somehow building up to a point about how the current administration is too heavy-handed, then let me assure you that after watching a couple of 100+ player rounds, the root of the issue is not 'too much administration'.

[vampirate]

So here's the thing... super not fun to be antag hunted by skilled players as an antag knowing the moment you step out of line some validhunter is gonna kill you. I said a while back that shit'd kill the fun. Seems like that might be killing the fun :p. I was being a real bummer about it, but the point stood. Why try to run a fun elaborate plan or be a fun antag if people see it as a reason to flex their epeen? How long did folk suspect antags to be there to buff that epeen for em? Antags went quiet and just do pranking they couldn't normally get away with even when I was playing more reg. Can't blame them, antag started becoming a 10 to 15 minute round.

Hell I tried to suggest ways to curtail it. Not sure if they ever fixed "acid instantly kills wizards hat", but the complacency to power gamers breeds people being less enthused about antagonist roles. You gotta be able to have some fun or try something without thinking "oh the most skilled players are gonna kill me in around thirty seconds the moment I step out of line".

That's just my opinion.

---

That effect only becomes more heavily pronounced too with new players intimidated by the big systems of this game as well.

[zjdtmkhzt]

I find myself kind of agreeing with vampirate's sentiment here, validhunting really is a plague. Just yesterday, for instance, I had a round where a wizard just warped in, greeted us and then blew our asses of. So we knocked 'em down and beat 'em up a bit and I thought, "Alright, we taught them a lesson.".

But immediately after the other person said "Time to make acid glasses for next time!" and the AI asked me if it could get a law to murderize the wizard.

It's this disproportionate retribution that really leads people to powergame-rampage as antag instead of going for gimmicks, which I really think is the most boring option available. :/
Of course, I have no idea how one would fix this issue.

Maybe give antagonists that are murdered a larger chance to respawn as a minor antagonist or wraith or something? That would lead to people being less afraid of dying in their antag rounds, because they still get something out of them, and I feel like lots of people would also like to see wraith rounds more often.
A wraith appearing later into the round rather than from the start would also make it so that the wraith making people uncloneable is less of an issue.

As for the original topic of the thread, yea, lots of people want to do their own silly experiments, but I feel like I also see plenty of people that wanna do fun stuff together, especially on the rp servers. Both have a place in the game, I think.