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Nerf/Tone down security somewhat
#16
I had an idea a while back about making the alert button more important by making NTSO late joins, and armory auths related to it (no authing til the button is pushed). This would be of course after ghost critters spamming the button is removed.

Also on RP I see full sec plenty. Like when people join sec, they join it with a lot of their friends. I’ve seen full sec a bunch (like donut 3, HoS, NTSO + Det) on 35-45 pop. There there three antags iirc. Nothing happened that round.

I do like the idea of all jobs having scaling, but I think security getting scaling first is very important for the health of RP. I don’t believe it should be 1:1 with the amount of antags, but I do believe keeping the minimum sec as 3/4 officers, 2 assistants, + HoS open on any population is important, and then can tick up from there as needed.

Sometimes the full 1 NTSO, 1 HoS, 5/6 Sec, 3 Ass’, 1 Det is needed on highpop, but sec should never be more than 25% of the filled roles of the server.
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#17
Let me add my stuff to it and what we can change.

1st off: Sec has been communicating more since people are more expirenced and willing to play security in a fun way.
I remember end last year where HoS's.. I repeat HOS'S wanted to give up being HOS but felt like they had to stay or play the next shift as HoS again or else Antags might go rampant or sec will start making lots of mistakes.... Seems this problem is now solved as Sec always seem to be more together and chill.
(As cal mentioned in his post: On the other side of this coin, the amount of vitriol I've experienced in this game for being a regular HoS player is tiring me a bit, It's why I've currently laid off playing it. The amount of people and borgs calling me scummy or whatever for trying to call the shuttle "only" 35 minutes in when an antagonist is rampaging, Security is dead, and the station is in shambles and then continuing to do so on Discord is something that would surely wear down any player.)

2nd off: ...While I haven't seen it much happen, the detective... can STILL be an antagonist.
Too bad most Detective antags aren't clever, but I will say it once.. a DETECTIVE ANTAGONIST IS THE MOST DANGEROUS ANTAGONIST IN THE GAME!
As an expirenced detective and knowing what my kit, weapons and armor can do... especially with extra abillities and power.
I can give Security a nightmare!
All those communicative systems? Easedropped and sabotaged. I can put down spy stickers and track em to keep tabs on things so I am tracking everyone and listening in. My gun can be stun and lethal and unlike batons and tazers and energy guns, no EMP blocks it. So I can emp the shit out of things.
I got thermal goggles.. something sec has to get via ARMORY. So blowing out the lights makes me the hunter.
AND I got Det_NET Vr goggles. Who SILENTLY.. I REPEAT SILENTLY! Allows me to change security records without security getting 1 notification of me doing that.
Thus I can have their own beepskies turn against them. Ooh and I can also access security vendors for more supplies...
Whatever approach you take as an antag detective, you have all the starting tools you need to take the advantage over security. So you get that + whatever antag you are. Also your office has blinder wich can cut off anyone listening outside or viewing in. So remember that.

3rd: Security is still prone on making mistakes when there is an influx of new sec players. Slower responses and such.

4th: Health implant beeps also go off for the chaplain... wich is odd no?

Now what can antags do to kneecap security?
A: Kill the detective asap. As they do NOT have a cloning record/health implant from the start and take the longest to get their gear in order.
Killing them gives you stuff that SECURITY CANNOT TRACK like the detective's gun and the Det_net glasses wich can be used by ANYONE to ACCES RECORDS from ANY LOCATION. It would of course cause the det to get targeted lots more and be more paranoid.. wich fits the detective.. but it's my advice to CLASSIC PLAYERS.

B: Use the damn radio scramblers as traitors. Causes issues enough.

C: Cause smaller issues across the station while your main plan is hidden away. The more security has to respond to threats the more likely they will check areas where conflicts happen. If you are a scientist antag, cause issues in botany and bar. If you are an engineer, causse issues in science and such. Force sec to keep their eyes somewhere they ain't suppose to.

What should be nerfed:
Nothing really.. sec is fine as it is. People need to use their tools more wisely as security has gotten wiser. But maybe insted of nerfing something flat out, make it more interactable. For EXAMPLE...
EMP's effect PDA's now, forcing them to be disabled for 30 seconds and disabling implants for 30 seconds too? Thus alert won't work.
Radio Scrambles also block incoming and outgoing PDA messages and warnings, forcing a FULL ON BLIND SPOT in communications? Thus any type of tracking tool like the tracking devices for gear are also unable to locate the object cause the scrambler blocks that too. Thus giving it an "antag roaming spot"?
All of this might be nerf's but it also makes sense for interactability.

But I think you just need more interactions to make sec deal with antags rather then "NERF SEC"
No matter what you think.. only 3 sec members have lethals from the start. 1 being a possible antag as the det.
Where as the HoS and NTSO are whitelist only. The sec assistants don't have any ranged capabilities... so don't let em flash ya.
And sec officers being your only stun threat till they open the ARMORY.

That's all for my addition!
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#18
Sec on RP is fine. RP security is a complete non-issue imo.
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#19
(04-05-2022, 11:48 AM)Cal Wrote: Sec on RP is fine. RP security is a complete non-issue imo.

^, this is mainly about classic
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#20
Scaling job slots would be nice and solve a lot of issues like having 12 people in sci but 1 doctor and 0 engineers.
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#21
Cal was replying to someone who had posted earlier for a primary rp security take on the issue. I would give thoughts on it but I gotta be honest I might play security once or twice a month. And as an antag I mostly stay off the radar entirely.
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#22
I think that even though sec balance matters far less on roleplay, I still think it matters. Even if sec offs winning the battle doesnt mean the antag loses the war, I still think its just nice if antags can win the battle. Having sec offs being able to lose without consciously trying to can give a nice element to the overall arc of the round (though being able to shut down rampages and the like as a sec off on roleplay can be good, so I can see the benefit of the scales being tipped towards sec on roleplay to an extent.).

Re: NTSO

The most important thing when deciding how to balance specifically around the current scenario of competent sec teams with incompetent antags is that we want to nerf sec teams that are competent to the point of overkill, with minimal nerfs to newer large security teams, and individual sec players. I think what devs want ntso to be, and what I think what is best for the role, is as the right hand man for hos. There are genuinely times when security is so new and large its too much for a hos to handle. However when security is already competent and doesn't need further management or teaching, they can end up just being yet another competent sec off, which in many cases can be needless overkill.

I feel as if latejoining several minutes in hurts your ability to teach and manage, as you're missing a lot of the context of the round and the team. Not only that, but teaching often needs several minutes of calmness in order to teach effectively, arriving in the middle of the chaos can easily ruin that. Also I feel as if the alert thing would add a negative meta element to the ntso player. Seeing that there is an ntso slot available will be a sign to hos players that the station is in a state of emergency. Not only does this tell the hos player to engage in a more aggressive and get things over with quickly attitude, the hos player knows that even if the hos player doesn't pick to choose ntso there's some emergency going on. While I can trust hos players to not meta game this aspect of ntso consciously (if instructed not too, which seems difficult to do), there's still a subconscious impact to how they interact with the round going on.

I think the best compromise would be to make sec job slots scale, and have ntso be unavailable on lower pops. When theres a max of 3 security officers and a secass, the majority of the time there's really not much of a need for a second hos. You'll still have ntso be able to offer critical help on managing newer higher population security teams, however you'll no longer have a 3:1 ratio of crew to security players with 2 hosii.
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#23
Thinking about it, I don't even see why sec needs cloning disks in the first place? You can grab literally anyone to scan you in the cloner, or just law 2 the AI for it, but security(and only security) gets disks that let them scan themselves without any help. It's just more "security should be completely self sufficient and never need any help from any other job ever" bullshit. 

Anyway yeah I still think that security shouldn't start with death alert implants, just so stealth-focused traitors aren't forced to spend a quarter of their credits on a signal jammer(and making signal jammers cheaper would just be a bandaid fix when the problem is them being so important in the first place), stealth-focused vampires don't have to get 1400 blood before even thinking of fighting security, and stealth-focused changelings can kill secoffs at all.
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#24
Its a lot easier to tell new players to put disk on a table then to tell them to head to medbay and get clone scanned. Not to mention, due to there position security officers are both more important to have in a round, and are especially vulnerable to being gibbed. Most of the time when I find myself using the disks its to bring a newer officer back into the game who wandered into space or to bring some security officers back into the game after they were chilling in security then a ttv came flying in through the mail chute.
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#25
(04-05-2022, 03:52 PM)Ikea Wrote: Its a lot easier to tell new players to put disk on a table then to tell them to head to medbay and get clone scanned. Not to mention, due to there position security officers are both more important to have in a round, and are especially vulnerable to being gibbed. Most of the time when I find myself using the disks its to bring a newer officer back into the game who wandered into space or to bring some security officers back into the game after they were chilling in security then a ttv came flying in through the mail chute.

I am of the opinion that someone who doesn't know how to get clonescanned shouldn't be playing secoff
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#26
Knowing is different from willing.
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#27
(04-05-2022, 03:04 PM)Ikea Wrote: I think that even though sec balance matters far less on roleplay, I still think it matters.

Security has to deal with self antags on RP far more often than they deal with actual antagonists. Besides that, RP players are generally courteous enough to give antagonists multiple, and according to recent complaints too many chances. I genuinely do NOT see any problems with the amount of Security officers (on rp).

(04-05-2022, 03:05 PM)Lady Birb Wrote: stealth-focused vampires don't have to get 1400 blood before even thinking of fighting security, and stealth-focused changelings can kill secoffs at all.

So people should be able to steamroll Security on spawning immediately? What are you getting at by saying this? Vampires are also far less of a stealth based antagonist than Changelings.


(04-05-2022, 04:23 PM)Lady Birb Wrote: I am of the opinion that someone who doesn't know how to get clonescanned shouldn't be playing secoff

And that's a fine opinion, but it's not against the rules to lack game knowledge before playing a role. How else are they supposed to learn the game? It does not bother me whatsoever to have an officer that is brand new. I'm glad to teach them how to play the game if they so please. That's what I am there for if I'm a HoS, and mentors are for.
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#28
The sec disks exist because they are the only way to be cloned with Security Training intact. Security Training does not clone from your corpse or living body. Just the disk.
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#29
(04-05-2022, 05:04 PM)Leeanei Wrote: The sec disks exist because they are the only way to be cloned with Security Training intact. Security Training does not clone from your corpse or living body. Just the disk.

sounds like a bandaid solution to a code issue

(04-05-2022, 05:03 PM)Cal Wrote:
(04-05-2022, 03:05 PM)Lady Birb Wrote: stealth-focused vampires don't have to get 1400 blood before even thinking of fighting security, and stealth-focused changelings can kill secoffs at all.

So people should be able to steamroll Security on spawning immediately? What are you getting at by saying this? Vampires are also far less of a stealth based antagonist than Changelings.

I mean that you should be able to engage an officer without the entire department finding out and rushing to your location to swarm you, and "less stealth based" doesn't mean you can't play them stealthily.

(04-05-2022, 05:03 PM)Cal Wrote:
(04-05-2022, 04:23 PM)Lady Birb Wrote: I am of the opinion that someone who doesn't know how to get clonescanned shouldn't be playing secoff

And that's a fine opinion, but it's not against the rules to lack game knowledge before playing a role. How else are they supposed to learn the game? It does not bother me whatsoever to have an officer that is brand new. I'm glad to teach them how to play the game if they so please. That's what I am there for if I'm a HoS, and mentors are for.

Wasn't the entire reason we added the round lock so we don't have brand new players in security? If someone hasn't figured out how the cloner works by the time they even unlock secoff, then that's entirely their own fault.
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#30
(04-05-2022, 05:03 PM)Cal Wrote:
(04-05-2022, 03:04 PM)Ikea Wrote: I think that even though sec balance matters far less on roleplay, I still think it matters.

Security has to deal with self antags on RP far more often than they deal with actual antagonists. Besides that, RP players are generally courteous enough to give antagonists multiple, and according to recent complaints too many chances. I genuinely do NOT see any problems with the amount of Security officers (on rp).

Self antags are a lot more complicated to deal with on roleplay then on classic (also this isnt directed to you cal I know you know this but for all the rp peeps reading this please ahelp antag behavior, even if you're not certain they're self antagging it takes two seconds for admins to check). I think you're also referring to security officers having to deal more with in character non griefing disputes on roleplay as well. These take more effort and more time to deal with on roleplay, however what they very rarely tend to need is lots of manpower. For the griefing kind, they are generally a one or two man deal, that take ten minutes at most to resolve. Not to mention, 3 security members or 11, at the end of the day, the final person dealing with them and the person that matters here is the admin that deals with them. Shoving security officers everywhere to deal with what is fundamentally an administrative issue seems like the wrong approach. For in character disputes, most of the time it just takes one or two people to go and talk it out for five minutes, occasionally it takes longer however most of the time its something stupid and can be dealt with quick. While both of these can add to the responsibilities to roleplay security officers, the scale of these responsibilities even paired with dealing with antags does not justify a 1 to 3 ratio of sec offs to crew when considering lowpop roleplay can easily be dealt with by 2-3 sec offs (We used to have goon roleplay servers with dedicated instead of sporadic low pop, and these servers were completely able to function fine with low security amounts, this isnt theory crafting, this is just how generally it is.)

The thing that makes me care about it is while the antag is at least still alive and on the station, it leads to roleplay being shifted in whatever way the security team desires, be it them being jailed, them having there way, or some mix of the two. If a security officer sees someone in danger, it is expected and good of them to save and help them. The issue arises when there's 11 of this person spread out across the whole station, each able and attentive enough to help out anywhere at any time. Large amounts of security inherently puts antags at a severe disadvantage for the battle, because it means that there are more security officers for them to deal with. Getting caught in maint by 3 security officers welding batons isn't often the end of the round for roleplay though. What this does do however, is forces the roleplay into the direction of whatever the security team want, which is most of the time dealing with being arrested and processed, being in jail, then let out to repeat the process all over again. 

I think roleplay being able to be forced in this direction is completely fine and good, the issue arises when due to a massive imbalance of force, how roleplay gets directed is no longer a tug of war. Inflated security counts leads to a scenario where security officers are perfectly able to shift the roleplay the direction they want through the sheer scale of force at disposal, while antags cant dedicate themselves to forcing the roleplay in the direction they want, at least not without some serious rampaging which isn't exactly roleplay friendly. Roleplay shouldn't just be a conversation in speech, it should be a conversation in mechanics as well, and allowing one side to freely shout while the other side is only allowed to whisper without having permission to speak louder by the shouter first doesn't seem fair. This of course goes in the opposite direction with antags being too powerful compared to security officers, however due to security officers having larger numbers then antags, and the only way of defeating these large numbers being careless rampaging leads to this not being really a problem in the scenario we are discussing.

While you can say that these officers should just be nicer to antags, I feel as if this is disingenuous and reduces a mechanical issue to a social one is harmful to security officers and the game as a whole. Id expect security officers to intervene in murders they see, try to save dying security officers, arrest crimers and so forth. These are all things good security officers do. I dont think we should demonize security officers who do these things just because other people picked security too which means that the station is now more monitored then north korea, nor do I think we should discourage security officers for playing a job they enjoy just because the pop is low. Not to mention, I don't think demonizing it would even lead to much of a decrease due to this just being the nature of this being what people primarily play security officer to do. Instead of doing an individualistic approach where the issue is the individual officers for doing what officers are expected to do, I feel as the most clear cut, and appropriate response is to fix the core issue at hand and change the mechanics to fix this issue instead of hoping and blaming officers for it not working itself out.
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