Independent Action Suggestions

[Mack]

My request is that there needs to be firm guidelines for independent actions taken by MIs in the field, particularly when faced with an administrator set in the guise of an enemy. I understand that an administrator's attention is divided; that an admin is burdened at every point trying to manage the event, deal with player requests, and roleplay. When I had protested what had occurred the justification I received was that the event manager has discretion to not deal with /rolls and in the alternative that not following orders "is not allowed" and that "you don't want your character to die, do you?" I do not blame the admins for this response or believe they meant to be dismissive, instead there were larger things going on at the time. However, this rationale does not promote MIs, line troopers especially, to take risks, distinguish themselves, or allow for anything but pre-determined outcomes. I also understand that in some situations authoritative action is necessary and that what might have been explained at the beginning of a mission will be tedious and obnoxious to explain to players who just connected.

 

So what I suggest, alternatively, are:

• Default rule that /rolls are allowed when in any and all PvP situations unless otherwise stated at the beginning of a mission - in line with the rules on this thread: http://forums.starshiptroopersrp.net/index.php?/topic/63-how-permacharacter-kills-work-on-sstrp/. Maybe there could be some sort of indicator that /rolls are not allowed during a certain mission. Notice at the beginning of the mission is the main issue.
• If there are certain rolls that are accepted such as areas in which an admin has planned for troopers to have a choice, similarly indicate that /rolls will be accepted for that period.
• Rolls being incorporated into a /me so that it is easier to distinguish what the specific roll is for, this may be useful when there are a lot of things going on.
• Less passive aggressiveness from admins when someone does a /roll or tries to be different, its pretty negative to begin with and simply urges people to conform. It is certainly annoying for someone to use /report repeatedly when their issue isn't addressed but then again when there is no indication it is being considered or responded to - are we simply to let it go or try again, we have no idea without a response. There is no getting around how it might be irritating, particularly when there are things occurring all at once.

 

This all factors into a wider sense of whether MIs are being managed or led, whether the mission is pre-set from the beginning or there are ways for a trooper to affect the outcome - if not it is simply shooting at NPCs which is OK too. The PK thread appears to indicate some autonomy is encouraged, the reality is that it appears to be the opposite. Where the admins stand on these suggestions will help indicate what is really expected of players.

 

 

[El Excellente]

 

Hi, since I'm on loa I just skimmed through your post and saw a few things I could give you some quick insight to

 

 

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However, this rationale does not promote MIs, line troopers especially, to take risks, distinguish themselves, or allow for anything but pre-determined outcomes. I also understand that in some situations authoritative action is necessary and that what might have been explained at the beginning of a mission will be tedious and obnoxious to explain to players who just connected.

 

That's the point. If you reach the point where your Trooper distinguishes themself and does something out of the ordinary, he is susceptible to harsher CK rules. He cannot be a ordinary Trooper out of the blob who gets NLRd when he tries to lasso a tanker bug.

 

Quote

Default rule that /rolls are allowed when in any and all PvP situations unless otherwise stated at the beginning of a mission - in line with the rules on this thread: http://forums.starshiptroopersrp.net/index.php?/topic/63-how-permacharacter-kills-work-on-sstrp/. Maybe there could be some sort of indicator that /rolls are not allowed during a certain mission. Notice at the beginning of the mission is the main issue.

 

Mind you that very thread was created for the sake of sparring - only later we started using it for fighting seperatists or using the roll command for other stuff entirely. Noting something at the very beginning of the mission is always an issue; either they don't listen, they forget or they weren't even there.

 

 

Quote

Rolls being incorporated into a /me so that it is easier to distinguish what the specific roll is for, this may be useful when there are a lot of things going on.

 

I think that's a good idea and you're totally free to do that.

 

12 hours ago, Mack said:

• Less passive aggressiveness from admins when someone does a /roll or tries to be different, its pretty negative to begin with and simply urges people to conform. It is certainly annoying for someone to use /report repeatedly when their issue isn't addressed but then again when there is no indication it is being considered or responded to - are we simply to let it go or try again, we have no idea without a response. There is no getting around how it might be irritating, particularly when there are things occurring all at once.

 

If you're unsure whether your report is being handled, report it again. Usually we take notice of reports but often are unsure ourselves how the mission leader would like to handle certain things. That's why there's always a small delay unless there's multiple admins running a mission (while yes, there often are many admins helping, we often only know a few parameters which we're told to handle because we joined late or reasons).

 

[Mack]

To your first point, the issue is that it in my situation, and I have noticed it elsewhere, was that there was not even the potential to do something out of the ordinary. It would be one thing if I tried, failed, and was PKed - here I didn't get the chance to do anything at all.

 

To your second about the PK thread, that goes even more to the concept of notice and being clearer as it's not apparent that the purpose of that thread was for sparring - I took it as a catch all for any player-player interaction. Your take on that thread isn't immediately apparent when reading that thread. Hence the need for greater clarity.

[Centrix]

Mind telling us what you did? I feel as though I could get a better understanding knowing the whole situation.

[Mack]

This is less of a complaint about the situation and more of general suggestions for how it could be handled in the future. Posting specifics would distract from my suggestions as those involved would want to explain and justify their side, taking away from what I'm trying to get at here. It would be generally negative to bring it up, however, I'll abridge it so you get an idea.

 

The first was when an administrator was an enemy with a bomb vest, he was shot by a Marauder but his corpse was beeping with the bombs. Everyone got out of the way, I rolled to try and move it out of the way and rolled in the nineties. I did my /me's, reported it, no response. I reported a couple more times and no response. I moved on.

 

The second was when I rushed towards a barricade which was being watched by several administrators set up as enemies. I rolled an 83 and a 99. The administrators told me some of the quotes above - that its up the event runners discretion, etc and then shot me. I PMed each of them in turn asking for an explanation or justification and the quotes in my original post are what I received.

[Heresiarch Grimm]

24 minutes ago, Mack said:

This is less of a complaint about the situation and more of general suggestions for how it could be handled in the future. Posting specifics would distract from my suggestions as those involved would want to explain and justify their side, taking away from what I'm trying to get at here. It would be generally negative to bring it up, however, I'll abridge it so you get an idea.

 

The first was when an administrator was an enemy with a bomb vest, he was shot by a Marauder but his corpse was beeping with the bombs. Everyone got out of the way, I rolled to try and move it out of the way and rolled in the nineties. I did my /me's, reported it, no response. I reported a couple more times and no response. I moved on.

 

The second was when I rushed towards a barricade which was being watched by several administrators set up as enemies. I rolled an 83 and a 99. The administrators told me some of the quotes above - that its up the event runners discretion, etc and then shot me. I PMed each of them in turn asking for an explanation or justification and the quotes in my original post are what I received.

 

See, I got to witness this. I was the one who mowed down the Sep (Played by @Deckers). During the entire event across this map and the one before it, no-one had to /roll to walk away from the explosive, nor was the explosive anything more than a gbomb prop or such that explodes. You either get away from it or you don't.

 

I don't see why you decided to pick up the dead man, run towards a barricade and then run away from the exploding man when you could just walk away in the first place. If anything, by going ahead and trying to do something heroic (Hauling the dead-man with the bomb vest towards the barricade he vaulted), that's something which can result in severe injury or a PK (As described within the PK thread).

 

As for the second one, it's a convoluted issue that has a few explanations:

 

1. You ran towards, by yourself, a position already being watched by hostile soldiers. Given the situation of everyone having guns pointed at anyone and everyone everywhere, it's not too far-fetched to assume that there would also be guns pointed at the barricade. One thing that's missing from your account is that the barricades were on the ground floor and waist high, whilst the armed people were on the floor above, overlooking the barricade and able to shoot down behind it. If someone charged towards said barricade, one of the Separatists could easily start shooting you as you reach the barricade and kill you, regardless of whatever the roll is (Your cover is effectively useless, they'd either hit you as you arrive or as you hide behind what was a table on it's side).
2. In the grand scheme of things, you do not roll unless the situation would not be disrupted by it. That is to say, if there is a Hostage situation involving the entire player-base and your rolls aren't directly involved with shooting the guy with the hostage, breaking into the window behind them to catch them by surprise or some other action that directly affects the main situation, you don't roll. Similarly, if you are walking with the unit through a town and a guy jumps out infront of you, the go-to reaction is to just light them up because whilst you yourself might want to Roll, the other 1-10 people next to you might not. If you were to begin using a roll system to resolve that, you'd be holding up the event for the people involved.
3. The roll system, as mentioned before, was originally conceived for Sparring before developing into this strange "Case-by-case" basis system that it is today. Because of this, it is best suited to situations where it's basically just you and one or to others. This is in part due to the point raised in 2. (Not slowing or otherwise holding up the event for everyone else) but also because the Surprise Soldier / Admin Man with a Gun might not have the time or the chance to do an intricate /roll /me fight with someone because they're occupied with running the event itself, keeping track of players and their requests (Updating the spawn point, issuing weapons to those who need them when they die, TP-ing people, dealing with actions such as looking at intel or just general questions). This means that if the Admin doesn't have time to devote to your /rolls, then they do not have time to devote to your rolls. To demand actions and results because you /roll'd when it wasn't required of you is much the same as wounding yourself with something serious when you weren't given that wound by an Admin or /event. You end up slowing everything down just so you can be dealt with, feeding into 2.
4. Due to the amount of work involved with running an event, you cannot simply just /roll something and then say "Oh by the way, you are involved in this" without any prior warning that you intend to use /me and /roll to deal with a situation / do something. Not only is it, by one point of view, selfish (You're effectively saying that whoever the other person is must now be involved with what you're doing regardless of what they were doing before) but it also can come across as unfair for much the same reason. It's much preferable if something happens that you'd rather was RP'd to say in a /report "Can we RP that? Like with Rolls or something?". You won't always get a Yes or a Sure, but it's easier for everyone involved because A) The Event Runner can allocate someone or some time to try and accommodate you if they can do so, and B) If they don't or can't, then you carry on with whatever the result of the situation was.

Using /Roll is more of an art than anything else. You need to figure out when it is and isn't a good idea to /roll your actions because in some situations yes, it can work. But in others it doesn't, it causes problems and it bogs everything down which ultimately makes things more frustrating for practically everyone, involved or not. Generally speaking, keep /roll to situations that are 1-on-1 or notify someone that you're going to do X. Most people just copy-paste their /me into a /report to keep the Admins updated on what's happening.

[Archer]

i don't really have a good answer for your suggestion as of now because the whole isssue is fairly big enough for me to tackle right now.

i've got some clarification for you though, generally the event runner makes his helpers s2m at medium to long distance and s2k up close, unless they're roleplaying, i.e. not doing 'dumb' things. let me elaborate.

 

in your first example, you moved a corpse with the bombs ticking on it away. you got no responce, which mainly happens when admins are busy managing 6 /reports at once and also spawning things for the rest to be entertained. however, if you'd get a responce, i imagine the fact you took a risk would be pointed out. the question is, was moving the bomb necessary to save someone? one thing is when it's lying on the middle of a road threatening nobody that got out of the blast zone, and another when it's in a room full of POWs, or important data you're required to obtain. in the second case, the wound, if you'd recieve one, would likely be more lax as it was somewhat of a forced choice: risk and win or play it safe and fail the mission. i hope i'm making it clear so far.

 

now, this was to better illustrate your second example and the reaction to it. as i've said, most admins allow s2k for helpers at short range. taking that into account, and the fact you singlehandedly (from what i understand) rushed a barricade with multiple enemies watching your approach, likely warranted the responce you've gotten. admins allow players to have their minute of fame, as it helps the character building, but there're things allowing which would be completely illogical, such as your character advancing into not one, but multiple lines of fire with no protection or help from his comrades. chances of surviving that are slim, and i imagine taking this barricade was not vital, for example, the platoon was pinned and you were the lucky guy who was not spotted yet, thus allowing you to make this daring move. in this case, i believe, the admins'd agree to play it out fully.

 

last thing to note, that rolls are often disregarded in certain circumstances, such as rolls being made for shots at pointblank range. rolling against arachnids, such as rolling to get out of a warrior's jaw grip, will be ignored too - in some circumstances it won't, for example, ducking down to avoid the hopper's decapitating pass.

 

to sum it up - risk's allowed and encouraged, but with risk comes responsibility. it's a dangerous thing, and it's your choice whether to risk your char for something or not. remember that sometimes you or the entire playerbase will be forced to risk, see the bomb and mission critical data example above; another example is a tanker cornering your group in a room with no way out, so naturally, you risk to run past it, stay and die, or try to disable it somehow, perhaps distract it. 

[Deckers]

I think I did you more of a favor by ignoring your report for moving the beeping vest guy.

[ShiftKnife]

I don't think it makes sense to roll for something that is pretty much actually impossible, for example: picking up what is essentially a proximity mine and throwing it away (it would blow up in your face, at that point you are rolling for it to be a dud not for any feat your character is performing), fighting an arachnid warrior hand to hand in anything but a marauder suit (you'd still probably lose even in the marauder suit), or trying to chew your way through a brick wall. For that reason I would support the sentiment that rolls should be dealt with on a case-to-case basis.

 

The problem with trying to roleplay a shootout with 30 or more people participating is that the chat, and our feeble human brains cannot compute 30 separate /me's and still act out the situation in a realistic fashion. It just doesn't work. I value roleplay for what it is, and wherever feasible I partake in it - however, with 30 people participating, it is much more realistic and enjoyable in my opinion to simply have an S2K fight to decide who wins or loses and then dole out injuries and whatever else in event text as necessary. This way, you have a chance to make your character engage in heroics and come out on top - but also we don't stand in 1 spot for 30 minutes to an hour waiting for 30+ players to "/me shoots gun at sep" and compute the ending of the scenario that way.

[Mack]

I detailed numerous caveats and concessions in the initial post towards the burdens on administrators when running an event. When I was prompted by Centrix to describe what happened, I prefaced it by saying that giving the details of the specific event would take away from the general suggestions I'm trying to articulate. Everything Grimm has said I have made room for, my tone was conciliatory and I omitted any mention of who did what. Rather than seeing this as a way to make things clearer for people who want to take risks in the future, you're seeing it as a personal attack on you. That is not the case.

 

To briefly respond:

• You say that particular portion of the event was one where /rolls were irrelevant. This is clear to you. Maybe it is not so clear to others.
• You've detailed that in large scale or "main situation" events, that rolls are not allowed. This is not said anywhere else. From an administrator standpoint this probably makes a lot of sense, but it goes back to what I'm saying about what level of individuality and risk-taking you want on the server. There is no point during an event that a roll would not hold up other people in some way.
• Again not apparent, make a thread for rolls explaining the parameters of it. The PK thread is not enough. That rolls are made for "sparring" only isn't apparent.
• You're characterizing /rolls as selfish and unfair. Clearly we have two different perceptions which is why rolls would benefit from clearer guidelines.

Lastly, you analogized my /me to something impossible and you said the better course would be essentially 'to go with the flow.' That is the very sentiment I am fighting against. First, the /me was not impossible and second, you're eliminating wholesale a category of actions that could make things more interesting. My issue is not that the actions were foolhardy or risky, but that it wasn't addressed at all. If it's stupid in character, PK me, but at least give me the chance however slim it might be.

[Xalphox]

I purged Pilotfish's quarterly antiestablishmentarian rant because, hey, I don't appreciate being dictated to on my own server, or him encouraging my staff to disobey me (three guesses as to what would happen to any staff member who heeded that call).

 

From my own observations some of the staff team were unnecessarily rude and abrupt here - and this isn't the first time this has been an issue. I will address or I will ask the XAs to address this at the staff meeting on Sunday and, if necessary, make responses to these kinds of thread exclusively XA only.

I'll ask an XA to address the substance of this complaint as I'm not in a position to and this is in effect a staff complaint - @Ackua @Orwell @Tonic, can one of you pick this up?

[Mack]

Thanks for the response. I just want to make clear that I have no issues with individual administrators, its simply a matter of clarity on the /roll rules. That is, when it is applicable and when they are not; the boundaries and and areas of applicability of /rolls.

[Tonic]

I'm quite content with how the thread had been developing; however, I do believe that tact could have been used in certain responses.

 

I've got my 10:22PM coffee ready just to help me break everything down...

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On 7/30/2017 at 9:49 PM, Mack said:

My request is that there needs to be firm guidelines for independent actions taken by MIs in the field, particularly when faced with an administrator set in the guise of an enemy. I understand that an administrator's attention is divided; that an admin is burdened at every point trying to manage the event, deal with player requests, and roleplay. When I had protested what had occurred the justification I received was that the event manager has discretion to not deal with /rolls and in the alternative that not following orders "is not allowed" and that "you don't want your character to die, do you?" I do not blame the admins for this response or believe they meant to be dismissive, instead there were larger things going on at the time. However, this rationale does not promote MIs, line troopers especially, to take risks, distinguish themselves, or allow for anything but pre-determined outcomes. I also understand that in some situations authoritative action is necessary and that what might have been explained at the beginning of a mission will be tedious and obnoxious to explain to players who just connected.

 

So what I suggest, alternatively, are:

• Default rule that /rolls are allowed when in any and all PvP situations unless otherwise stated at the beginning of a mission - in line with the rules on this thread: http://forums.starshiptroopersrp.net/index.php?/topic/63-how-permacharacter-kills-work-on-sstrp/. Maybe there could be some sort of indicator that /rolls are not allowed during a certain mission. Notice at the beginning of the mission is the main issue.
• If there are certain rolls that are accepted such as areas in which an admin has planned for troopers to have a choice, similarly indicate that /rolls will be accepted for that period.
• Rolls being incorporated into a /me so that it is easier to distinguish what the specific roll is for, this may be useful when there are a lot of things going on.
• Less passive aggressiveness from admins when someone does a /roll or tries to be different, its pretty negative to begin with and simply urges people to conform. It is certainly annoying for someone to use /report repeatedly when their issue isn't addressed but then again when there is no indication it is being considered or responded to - are we simply to let it go or try again, we have no idea without a response. There is no getting around how it might be irritating, particularly when there are things occurring all at once.

 

This all factors into a wider sense of whether MIs are being managed or led, whether the mission is pre-set from the beginning or there are ways for a trooper to affect the outcome - if not it is simply shooting at NPCs which is OK too. The PK thread appears to indicate some autonomy is encouraged, the reality is that it appears to be the opposite. Where the admins stand on these suggestions will help indicate what is really expected of players.

This is an open community that prides itself on an individual player's ability to contribute to the story of others through the exposure of the characters that they create for the enjoyment of other players.

 

It is entirely correct that the event runner (and any player) is free to disregard anyone else's /roll(s).  Even an XA cannot force a player to /roll; however, this implies that the player in question is purposefully exhausting all peaceful options in resolving a confrontation with another player.  Eventually, an administrator is going to stop wasting their own time and forcefully remove the troublemaker from the scene.

 

1) You are correct in that administrators who are currently running missions are more likely to be distracted with either pre-existing, or higher priority tasks.  A sizable amount of admins have difficulty with balancing the numerous tasks assigned that each event (no matter the size) requires.  MOBCOMM plz.

2)  We will not allow /roll rules to become a blanket rule for the entire community to follow.  /Rolls are detrimental to quality roleplay within Garry's Mod, as there is no thorough foundation for enabling players to customize their character to such a degree; too many players would max out all three of the stats in the current character creation menu, if it were allowed.  Garry's Mod isn't DnD.  I love DnD, but this isn't DnD.

2a)  The best way to handle /roll's is to handle them on a case-by-case basis, by each and every player involved.  Players are encouraged to play for story, or play to lose.  It's understood that a Master Sergeant has more Close Quarter Combat skills than a Private-- a /roll-off should not be required in every single engagement between these two; however, if both sides want to or can only agree to a /roll-off, then that is how it will have to end.

 

I've played in a community that required a player to /roll for slicing a sleeping character's throat.  It made no sense then and makes no sense now.

 

3)  Administrators who would not mind accepting /rolls are numerous, but require a signal from the players before they're willing to not S2K (e.g., a player who legitimately ninja'd an event character and started off the engagement with a /me followed by an immediate /roll to get the event character's attention).  The easiest way to know if /rolls are acceptable is to ask via Global OOC or via /report.

3a)  The difference between what you had experienced on the server and what I have just provided an example of is based off of if it was logically possible for a /roll-off to exist in the first place.  A character who is on the receiving end of a "/me has successfully leveled their gun at the back of the character's head after a series of events" does not get the option of having a /roll.  They've already lost their fight and are now contributing to the storyline.

 

4)  I like the idea of combining /me's and /rolls for the sake of saving screen real estate. I'll pester @kipper about this when he finds himself free.

5)  An admin that unfairly restricts a player from contributing to a story is one thing.  However, it is a common issue for a player to, in an attempt to create a unique experience for others, end up causing problems for the remainder of the playerbase (I like to call this involuntary mission-slaughter).

 

We've had past problems with characters purposefully taking wounds for the sake of creating passive role play for others (bless their hearts).  What ended up happening was it turned two hour long missions into three or four hour long missions, destroyed any form of legitimate storytelling on the event side of things, and caused "unnecessary" strain on our Combat Medics as they received undeserved rude glances for taking any longer than two minutes to stitch a wound that was not "earned" via /event text.

 

With that said, do let myself or any of the other XA's know if you believe that you're being purposefully treated unfairly by a member of our staff.  While we do not punish players for joking around or prodding others, we draw the line at harassment and our staff are of no exception to this.

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On 7/31/2017 at 11:10 AM, Mack said:

To your first point, the issue is that it in my situation, and I have noticed it elsewhere, was that there was not even the potential to do something out of the ordinary. It would be one thing if I tried, failed, and was PKed - here I didn't get the chance to do anything at all.

 

To your second about the PK thread, that goes even more to the concept of notice and being clearer as it's not apparent that the purpose of that thread was for sparring - I took it as a catch all for any player-player interaction. Your take on that thread isn't immediately apparent when reading that thread. Hence the need for greater clarity.

The unfortunate truth is that it is difficult to design a good mission.  It's easy to run a mission, though.  There are guides available to the administration team on the forums (and via sarcastic admin commentary over teamspeak) on how to run a proper mission from start to finish.  In order to have the most potential to make something of your character, you either have to be a part of a Specialization (Medical/Engineering), or have earned your way to either Private First Class or Lance Corporal (as you'll begin to have the opportunity to be assigned special tasks where the MI leadership dictates on a case by case basis).

 

The majority of fun from SSTRP comes from being in either of the two categories mentioned above, for newer players.  The more experienced players have already had their taste of the two and are perfectly fine with supporting others' rise and fall.

 

As for the second note... Right.  I'll take a look at the CQC/Roll Modifier thread and make appropriate adjustments to make it more clear that it is a voluntary and unique methodology used to settle disputes that cannot be settled via Play2Lose or standard narrative (e.g.: Marine Sergeant defeating the Private via logical IC CQC skillsets).

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On 7/31/2017 at 0:00 PM, Mack said:

This is less of a complaint about the situation and more of general suggestions for how it could be handled in the future. Posting specifics would distract from my suggestions as those involved would want to explain and justify their side, taking away from what I'm trying to get at here. It would be generally negative to bring it up, however, I'll abridge it so you get an idea.

 

The first was when an administrator was an enemy with a bomb vest, he was shot by a Marauder but his corpse was beeping with the bombs. Everyone got out of the way, I rolled to try and move it out of the way and rolled in the nineties. I did my /me's, reported it, no response. I reported a couple more times and no response. I moved on.

 

The second was when I rushed towards a barricade which was being watched by several administrators set up as enemies. I rolled an 83 and a 99. The administrators told me some of the quotes above - that its up the event runners discretion, etc and then shot me. I PMed each of them in turn asking for an explanation or justification and the quotes in my original post are what I received.

That bomb vest incident, regardless of if it was necessary or not, could have been given proper attention.  That's right.  You could have had a moment there.  What most likely happened is that the admin knew that your character would have died and purposefully withheld commenting (as it probably wouldn't have checked off enough boxes on the PK-process).  What also likely happened is that the admin wasn't paying attention at the time, as once they die, they usually have to do something to replace their character's now-vacant space.  Usually this means spawning a ragdoll, typing an /event, or, in this case, setting up a Gbomb from the Q menu and ensuring that it's placed and activated rightly to not unnecessarily damage other players.

 

I agree with the admins' actions on the barricade part.  As described by some of the team, the scenario that you had described was too illogical to allow for a /roll-off.  Again...

 A character who is on the receiving end of a "/me has successfully leveled their gun at the back of the character's head after a series of events" does not get the option of having a /roll.  They've already lost their fight and are now contributing to the storyline.

If you had managed to legitimately ninja your way around the administrators, gotten behind them, and performed a /me&/roll combo, for them to only turn around and gun you down-- they'd be having a discussion with an XA right now.

 

The funny truth is that most /roll-off encounters are discovered after players destroy an admin-played event character through a hail of hot lead, which ends up with the admin in question spamming Global OOC chat with "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING YOU LITTLE CUNTS DON'T SHOOT THE RHINO WITH A NAME THIS IS A ROLE PLAY SERVER AAAHHHH". 

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On 7/31/2017 at 4:21 PM, Mack said:

I detailed numerous caveats and concessions in the initial post towards the burdens on administrators when running an event. When I was prompted by Centrix to describe what happened, I prefaced it by saying that giving the details of the specific event would take away from the general suggestions I'm trying to articulate. Everything Grimm has said I have made room for, my tone was conciliatory and I omitted any mention of who did what. Rather than seeing this as a way to make things clearer for people who want to take risks in the future, you're seeing it as a personal attack on you. That is not the case.

 

To briefly respond:

• You say that particular portion of the event was one where /rolls were irrelevant. This is clear to you. Maybe it is not so clear to others.
• You've detailed that in large scale or "main situation" events, that rolls are not allowed. This is not said anywhere else. From an administrator standpoint this probably makes a lot of sense, but it goes back to what I'm saying about what level of individuality and risk-taking you want on the server. There is no point during an event that a roll would not hold up other people in some way.
• Again not apparent, make a thread for rolls explaining the parameters of it. The PK thread is not enough. That rolls are made for "sparring" only isn't apparent.
• You're characterizing /rolls as selfish and unfair. Clearly we have two different perceptions which is why rolls would benefit from clearer guidelines.

Lastly, you analogized my /me to something impossible and you said the better course would be essentially 'to go with the flow.' That is the very sentiment I am fighting against. First, the /me was not impossible and second, you're eliminating wholesale a category of actions that could make things more interesting. My issue is not that the actions were foolhardy or risky, but that it wasn't addressed at all. If it's stupid in character, PK me, but at least give me the chance however slim it might be.

Please do let me know if you have any further issues with understanding when /roll would be acceptable or not.  When in doubt, /me it out.  Except for when you're facing NPC's.  Those bastards don't /me for me, so I don't bother /me'ing for them.

[Mack]

It sounds like good solution would be to have soft, but explicit guidelines on /rolls. Particularly when they are not applicable, how admins have discretion in certain situations and so on. What ought to be clear is that when a player can act independently and in those situations is encouraged to do so. You seem to have clear ideas on the proper circumstances for /rolls, it would be great if they were codified in a seperate thread.

 

This also speaks to a wider issue of player involvement. Absent rolls, to a lesser extent I see this independent action problem in situations with low-ranking troopers in squads. There might be something meaningful or interesting going on during an event but as Pilotfish had mentioned earlier the only meaningful players are Corporals and above, hence the race to the top. While it is expected that line troopers are to follow orders, this is nonetheless a roleplay server and strict adherence to real-life counterparts would yield  tedious results. A great example of this is last nights fantastic event - we were trying to find a keycode for a datapad but only about 3-4 players were significant in that part of the event. Seeing how there was 20+ players, responding to all those reports would be a nightmare. It's simply the nature of the problem as you so aptly described above and is essentially unavoidable in large scale events. There will also be people who are inevitably more involved and speak up more than others but I get the feeling there is an undercurrent of repressed action and things left unsaid due to how things are structured currently.

 

The only 'easy' solution I see would be to have events at off hours when they player count is smaller. That way the server can have the big bug-shooting events everyone associates with starship troopers and also get more personally involved at other times.

 

A separate question: How do the admins plan on keeping the roster bottom-heavy? That is, if PKs are scarce and people slowly but inexorably rank up, there may come to be at least a lack of Recruits, Privates and Pfcs.

 

[Archer]

roster question is MI related and should therefore be forwarded to @F r a n c o, i believe

 

[jimalfkie]

I'll come in on the roster question, as I'd like to think I know a little about this subject.

 

I'll first address the fallacy:

 

"People slowly but inexorably rank up"

 

The main reason why the roster never becomes top heavy is that rank is by no means a metric of time spent, especially the higher up the ranks you go. The simple abilities to lead and multitask are not qualities that every player will have when they come to the server. Some people are not capable of learning these skills either from our tuition, which while disappointing, means NCOship is not a path meant for them.

 

Additionally, the higher up the ranks you go, the more you will be required to be involved with the faction at an OOC level. Ask any sergeant. They've been asked to drop what they're doing because they're needed and get on the server numerous times. Simply, you'll have commitments that you're expected to meet.

 

These two points combine, so that only those who are both able to lead AND willing to commit extend periods of time will rise through the ranks.

 

Now to ensure that its not a pure chaos engine, the command staff spend countless hours discussing those who are promotion worthy. This ensures that the NCO pool reflects our player base size accurately.

 

As to:

9 hours ago, Mack said:

PKs are scarce

PK's are the least common way to lose a high ranking NCO. This is because we vet our NCOs up to this point, to avoid such foolhardy deaths. Its more common that real life robs us of the player's time, so they can't be active enough to justify holding the rank.

 

A further note, to all those who gripe at the number of lance corporals, these are the most common military paygrades from 2013, with the study being conducted by the military times:

(http://forums.militarytimes.com/showthread.php/6857-Distribution-of-Enlisted-Ranks)

 

Army E-4 (30.76%)

Navy E-5 (23.13%)

Marines E-3 (27.62%)

Air Force E-5 (25.5%)

 

Lance corporals (marines) and specialist/corporals (army) are the most common ranks in the modern US military, which while not perfect, is a good base to model from. 

 

If you want me to explain why this is, or why it's acceptable for SST to ever reach these distributions (N.B. we don't, grades E1 and E2 individually far outweigh our numbers for E3 - E7 combined), then I can.

 

As a final note, it's not an admins job to PK people to ensure the roster remains bottom heavy. PKs should only be handed to those worthy of permadeath, not under some ludicrous idea of "letting others rise up".

[Mack]

The rank-up issue was one endemic to previous SST communities and I have no doubt will plague this one in some fashion or another.

 

Your explanation only deals with one half of it - that those who are worthy, that is willing to put in the time and effort get NCO positions, will rise up. What I am addressing, perhaps too implicitly, is that a primary motivator to get on and join the server is not only to shoot Bugs, but also to get promoted. Your explanation, while admirable, essentially tags the ceiling at Pfc for casual, yet interested players (and all others with less of an interest). If ranking up takes too long,  is too arduous and too much of a job for something that should otherwise be considered fun then you have lost a prime motivator for people to get on and participate. Yes ranking up includes responsibility and having to manage things, but you seem to place too hard of a point on the barriers of promotion. As time wears on I think you will see this reflected in a diminishing playerbase.

 

My proposal is simply the addition of one or two more ranks, maybe between Recruit and Private and between Private and Private First Class. Or even incorporating the Specialist ranks into the main rankings of the MI, if they aren't already. (At least they don't appear to be so to me.)

 

What is ironic is your justification for your lack of PKs, particularly given the exposition by other administrators about justifying their ignoring of certain /rolls. They had made a pre-roleplay judgment about the viability of an action: that if it is foolhardy, the /roll should be ignored. You make a similar claim but in the other direction - that NCOs in the field rarely make stupid mistakes. I would expect on a battlefield that even people doing everything right might get taken out by a chance occurrence or overwhelming odds. PKs makes things more meaningful since something you worked hard for can be lost. It helps remove a sense of entitlement to a position. Right now people would be resistant to PKs because they, like you, are under the impression is that such PKs are only valid if they make sense from their perspective. You might argue that truly "arbitrary" PKs would anger people or make them quit. I argue that, if selective enough, it can be the opposite. If PKs were to be the general rule, it would require a paradigm shift in a lot of other aspects of the server. As it stands now if you simply made PKs more common with all other things being equal, it would be a self-fulling prophecy and the server would likely depopulate.

 

A few, and I must emphasize only a few, high profile PKs where the person does not immediately get another character of equivalent rank and has to start from the bottom, would do a lot for giving more meaning to ranking up.

[radical roach]

1 hour ago, Mack said:

a primary motivator to get on and join the server is not only to shoot Bugs, but also to get promoted

i'd say the primary motivators should be to roleplay a character and to craft a story for yourself and others to play in and enjoy

 

more seriously though rank turnover here has never really been an issue I've seen. people leave or go on break and surrender their rank or screw up royally and get bumped or killed often enough that progression still feels natural (to me) tbh. i've never been in a position, in fleet or MI, where i've felt like my character was in a position where s/he was not where they needed to be and was entitled to a position. if your character is good for a spot, then i see that more often than not the character will get it, despite what the roster currently looks like

[Mack]

Obviously there are the ideals of being only focused on the story and roleplay but you also cannot deny the very real incentive of ranking up. As Pilotfish had said before, its a matter of being able to be more of a player in the story if you rank up, to be relied on, to make decisions, and so on. Therefore, as he so aptly put it, it is inevitably a "race to the top" in order to be a person of influence with other players.

 

It is rather easy to make a high-minded statement such as that, dismissing all those who seek promotions as being focused on the wrong thing or "wrong." It is good that you feel the way you do, it makes the server a better experience for everyone. However, it cannot be denied that promotions are sought after, for right or wrong reasons.