Why was the Loafer Blueprint removed from Manta?

[Comrade f191]

Since it was added in 2019, Manta has had a blueprint for building a loafer.
Not have I seen any complaints about this, nor any requests for its removal.
However, last week, Flourish pushed a commit to master removing the Blueprint; As this was a commit, and not PR, no reason was given, nor chance for any player imput on the change prior to its merge whatsoever.

Why was the Loafer Blueprint removed?

[UrsulaMejor]

Consistently lowered round quality. Complaints. Various ahelps and abuse over the past year.

Static vs deployable loafers are a balance factor. Deployable ended up being unbalanced and not very fun for a variety of reasons; easier to hide, easier to produce obscene amounts of lag, easier to create a public setup so peeps can "accidentally" let out the death bread, etc.

Player input comes in many forms. This time it came in the form of the myriad ahelps on the matter we've had to deal with

I didn't remove it and I don't purport to represent the entire team on the matter, but I've thought about doing it and that's why.

[moonlol]

Consistently lowered round quality. Complaints. Various ahelps and abuse over the past year.

Static vs deployable loafers are a balance factor. Deployable ended up being unbalanced and not very fun for a variety of reasons; easier to hide, easier to produce obscene amounts of lag, easier to create a public setup so peeps can "accidentally" let out the death bread, etc.

Player input comes in many forms. This time it came in the form of the myriad ahelps on the matter we've had to deal with

I didn't remove it and I don't purport to represent the entire team on the matter, but I've thought about doing it and that's why.

i dont see why it couldn't have been "balanced" in another way such as increased material costs.
regardless, If the matter of balance is between static and dynamic loafers shouldn't a static loafer be added to manta?

also i dont think a ton of ahelps is a very constructive form of player input when it comes to a major (atleast in my opinion) part of a map, given that its not very transparent, as the private nature of it.

I think changes especially as these should be more transparent as it can change the experience of people. Even if the change was going to be merged anyway I feel like it would atleast help that players can be atleast given an opportunity to discuss, instead of watching changes they don't like being merged behind a glass screen of sorts, unable to say anything not even being given a chance.

if a pr with the reasons was made then this thread and an argument on discord needn't have existed

[Carbadox]

I dislike the loafer in its entirety but a PR to re-add the loafer to a static location wouldn't take much effort, as far as I know. I think things are better off without it but if anyone wants to re-add it and make a formal discussion around it then the doors are open

[UrsulaMejor]

 I feel like it would atleast help that players can be atleast given an opportunity to discuss, instead of watching changes they don't like being merged behind a glass screen of sorts, unable to say anything not even being given a chance.

obviously you have the chance to discuss it, as we are currently discussing it.

if a pr with the reasons was made then this thread and an argument on discord needn't have existed

this thread is a good thing. it is the proper way this sort of thing should happen. Arguments on discord never need to exist.

Developers have always had, and likely will always have, the authority to do what's right for the overall health of the game with or without player's input ahead of time. If you believe a developer has made an error, I invite you to make a thread with reasoning laid out rather than starting arguments on the discord

[moonlol]

 I feel like it would atleast help that players can be atleast given an opportunity to discuss, instead of watching changes they don't like being merged behind a glass screen of sorts, unable to say anything not even being given a chance.

obviously you have the chance to discuss it, as we are currently discussing it.

if a pr with the reasons was made then this thread and an argument on discord needn't have existed

this thread is a good thing. it is the proper way this sort of thing should happen. Arguments on discord never need to exist.

Developers have always had, and likely will always have, the authority to do what's right for the overall health of the game with or without player's input ahead of time. If you believe a developer has made an error, I invite you to make a thread with reasoning laid out rather than starting arguments on the discord

Did i ever say arguments on discord need to exist? And you should full well know that an argument(albeit a short lived one) wasnt my intention. 

..., I invite you to make a thread with reasoning laid out...

is this not this thread?

I feel like it would atleast help that players can be atleast given an opportunity to discuss, instead of watching changes they don't like being merged behind a glass screen of sorts, unable to say anything not even being given a chance.

obviously you have the chance to discuss it, as we are currently discussing it.

The fact that such a discussion place has to be forced to exist is not great to begin with, as it wouldve been better if it had been created by the developer in question.

My problem is more to do with this whole major changes (or smaller changes with 0 changelog) being pushed without regard for player input. Some notable recent examples are patho being completely axed from oshan, and stable mutagen's depletion rate being drastically upped to such a degree that its nigh unsuable (minor but no changelog). All coincidentally by the same author.

[UrsulaMejor]

何ですか？

[Mordent]

The fact that such a discussion place has to be forced to exist is not great to begin with, as it wouldve been better if it had been created by the developer in question.

My problem is more to do with this whole major changes (or smaller changes with 0 changelog) being pushed without regard for player input. Some notable recent examples are patho being completely axed from oshan, and stable mutagen's depletion rate being drastically upped to such a degree that its nigh unsuable (minor but no changelog). All coincidentally by the same author.

This is nothing to do with the the thread. If you have concerns with the fact that Developers are trusted to make positive changes to the game without waiting for community input, please create a different thread to discuss it.

[Flourish]

Why was the Loafer Blueprint removed?

Emily summed it up well. There've been lots of adminhelps and issues with the loafer blueprint, and other admins have also brought up removing it. One day I remembered that I should probably remove it, and so I did. You're free to make a PR adding a static loafer.

The fact that such a discussion place has to be forced to exist is not great to begin with, as it wouldve been better if it had been created by the developer in question.

My problem is more to do with this whole major changes (or smaller changes with 0 changelog) being pushed without regard for player input. Some notable recent examples are patho being completely axed from oshan, and stable mutagen's depletion rate being drastically upped to such a degree that its nigh unsuable (minor but no changelog). All coincidentally by the same author. Now as much as i dont want to hold this against the author in question, theres obviously a pattern emerging.

I can have different opinions on what changes benefits from player input, and I can also forget or overlook things.

If you have an issue with a change or something that I did, you have the ability to directly talk to me. Did you ping or DM me a single time about the Manta loafer or Oshan and ask, "hey, Flourish, I see you changed that, how come"? Or did you just opt to make passive aggressive remarks about me and my changes on Discord and the forums? Do you think this is a good way to communicate with people? I don't. If you have an issue, address it directly.

[Sord213]

Gonna preface this with the following (which is my opinion and not that of the admin team):
The topic of loafers has come up a few times in admin chat over the past few weeks. Each time I bring up the same thoughts. I like the concept of loaves. They're fun. They're gimmicky. They're goofy. Very goonstation. Concept is as far as my liking of it goes. In practice it's constantly abused by non antags and constantly ends in destruction.

You have someone "experimenting" with the loafer, maybe it's their first time with it, maybe not, and then someone "accidentally" opens the loop and releases tons of high tier loaves on the station. What happens next? Some random fresh spawn is walking down the halls mere seconds after they join and gets beaned by a strangelet and dies instantly. Walls get busted out and the station is depressurized. Someone grabs a high tier loaf, not knowing what it does, and chucks it at someone. Oops, dead. People adminhelp it.

Who do we blame in the above scenario? The person who threw the loaf? Sure, give him a "hey that kills people" warning. What about the person who made the loaves? Absolutely. I have a standard talk I give to people when they first start experimenting on loaves and it inevitably ends in destruction. It involves telling them "Hey. If you make them, you're responsible for them." That usually gets the point across.

If a person spends time making bombs, and someone else uses those bombs to destroy the station and kill crew wouldn't the person who made the bombs be responsible? Yes, everyone knows this is the case and it's been the case for as long as I can remember. Loaves stand in the same place to me.



You can try to claim that adminhelps aren't a good source of player input but you're dead wrong on that. How do we know when a player is causing problems? Adminhelps. How do we know if it is a repeat thing? Adminhelps and admin notes. I can't tell you the amount of times I've had to yell at someone who was making loaves and they got released. It's not fun for anyone.

I personally would prefer to see the loafer be straight removed from the game or the max tier of loaf lowered drastically. No more thrown instakill loaves. Loafer will stand in the place it was intended to, that of a gimmick prisoner feeding system.

patho being completely axed from oshan

o no. not the completely defunct and unused patho! l o l

[Drago156]

I think it should be mentioned that Manta is not the sole map to utilize loafer blueprinting... at least Donut 3 does the same thing.

The loafer locations on a lot of maps are also not in particularly discreet or hidden away locations, such as those on Oshan and Cog 1. Both of these loafer locations when set up make enough of a ruckus that any passerby will know what's going on if they're familiar with loaving.

Now for Manta, I believe that it had a freeform loafer because there's very little space else where to make and put on on the map, considering the entirety of maintenance probably is less than the main hallways in tile space. Donut 3 could very much however house a loafer spot, it's got quite a lot of space to work with in maint.

Finally, making loaves in an unsafe or unsecure way is not acceptable by any means. If you're a non-antag going through the process of loaving, it best be done safely and in a way that makes it very difficult to release the loaves upon the station.

[Kak0phony]

I'm not really a big fan of loafs, they give you food poisoning =///

[Pestilancer]

I do feel like there is some merit to having the loafer be on manta as the CE for example can use it for generating greater amounts of power with the singularity (as loaves increases singularity output.) If it was re added to manta I'd say huck it in the CE's office to try to encourage that use of it more but outside of that I don't think having the easy to access loafer and experimentation with it outweighs the fact that it is directly negative towards the round and causes a lot more trouble than it's worth.

[UrsulaMejor]

I do feel like there is some merit to having the loafer be on manta as the CE for example can use it for generating greater amounts of power with the singularity (as loaves increases singularity output.) If it was re added to manta I'd say huck it in the CE's office to try to encourage that use of it more but outside of that I don't think having the easy to access loafer and experimentation with it outweighs the fact that it is directly negative towards the round and causes a lot more trouble than it's worth.

loaves don't increase the singularity output any more than scraps of paper do.

mobs, like monkeys and chickens, however, give the singularity quite a bump...

[Pestilancer]

I do feel like there is some merit to having the loafer be on manta as the CE for example can use it for generating greater amounts of power with the singularity (as loaves increases singularity output.) If it was re added to manta I'd say huck it in the CE's office to try to encourage that use of it more but outside of that I don't think having the easy to access loafer and experimentation with it outweighs the fact that it is directly negative towards the round and causes a lot more trouble than it's worth.

loaves don't increase the singularity output any more than scraps of paper do.

mobs, like monkeys and chickens, however, give the singularity quite a bump...

On the wiki page for engineer it did specify that loaves give a significant bump, but it didn't mention that on any other page so it could've very easily been misinformation