Remember everyone, please be respectful!
As per what weâve written in the proposal for playtime reminders: this is strongly likely to be counterproductive. We are firmly against this.
Namely: restrictions like this would just encourage folks to join a different server where those restrictions arenât in place to begin with. And servers where those restrictions arenât in place are in turn servers that are strongly likely to lack the playtime reminders entirely.
Essentially, this would be punishing to the point where itâd naturally push players toward unhealthy alternatives.
Additionally, due to the playtime tracker that the PR utilizes being entirely clientside, enforcing this isnât particularly viable, since itâs trivial for a player to just reset their recorded playtime to 0 hours with a single console command. This would also be unhealthier, as it gives particularly dedicated players a direct motivation to reset the number thatâs meant to exclusively serve as a mirror.
This is far too heavy handed and absolutely not how this should be handled. Players can pour several hours into SS14 in a single day and still be taking care of themselves and everything else. Almost every single time we hand out a âtouch grassâ ban, its an addendum to their ban reason. And now with what Bhijn said, I also think this would be counterproductive.
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With as much respect as possible, we seem to have been careening toward a path of âplease touch grassâ with our players and I simply do not understand why.
Addiction isnât a problem exclusive to SS14, itâs everywhere. It isnât something others have solved. It isnât something weâre about to solve here, either. But what doesnât help is being pushy and pedantic about how someone chooses to spend their free time.
This PR strips away player agency. This is a bad thing. We are not here to be playersâ psychiatrists or to be their help. Weâre here to provide a game and a community. It is on the playersâ shoulders to manage their time.
We do not know and should not suppose to know our playersâ life circumstances. Some players may only have one or two hours to reasonably play. Others are in early retirement and wish to spend their free time here as the draw to a game like this is the community and the players around. Many are somewhere in between. Drawing a line in the sand anywhere on this spectrum is bad form. We cannot and should not try to enforce a playerâs playtimes.
This all said, the âtouch grassâ initiative has thus far been largely in the vein of mildly intrusive but hands-off reminders, or dropping the requirements of play in significant ways (which I have opinions on but will not express here). This is the first where Iâm seeing it will actively remove player agency and I think thatâs a terrible thing. We should never be removing player agency.
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Addiction isnât a problem exclusive to SS14, itâs everywhere.
I think SS14 is an especially addictive game. Not many other games get a grip on people like it does - (this is also talking from my own experience!). I personally think its important to talk about this and try to think of solutions. Even if ss14 isnât specifically addictive (I personally disagree and think it is), what is the issue with trying to help some people work on it even if it isnât exclusive?
On a side note, I think this PR is fine as long as this is a player enabled setting. Why not give players the agency to choose whatâs best for them?
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To expand on what Orks said (and what was said in staff channels), I would have absolutely no issue if the player could choose to enable it themselves at any amount of playtime.
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I am like 50% sure the PR is a shitpost poking fun at the recent timer, since it still allows you to join as Passenger, Mime and Musician.
Adding a time blocker checkbox in Accessibility options? Sure. Doesnât hurt. But should then be for all roles.
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I donât mind the PR either way but it needs cvar settings to account for different forks and server cultures.
The existing playtime reminder system is explicitly designed to be coarse, and more likely to false positive than not. This is done with the knowledge that the worst thing that can happen is an annoying message.
Goes without saying that this PR is way too heavy handed and prone to issues. People will just start circumventing it which is entirely against the point. I donât think this can even work as a checkbox in accessibility settings, honestly.
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I am in favor of closing the PR. While I can see the point in having it as an accessibility option, people who are actually addicted can and will just turn it off.
This is not going to work, people will just start using multiaccounts.
If anything, this could be a CVar, but still - it just wonât work.
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I agree with the above comments, this is too heavy handed and I am in favor of closing this PR.
Like PJB said, the existing playtime tracker is not very precise, might have false positives and resets around midnight, so it is not suitable for anything more than showing reminders. I would not make it an option setting either for that reason, and someone who would want this would be more advised to use Steamâs parental control feature or other third-party software as this can also block other games and is not on a per-server basis.
I am starting to worry about the direction these PRs are going. Weâve started with the playtime reminders which most players in fact did take as a challenge of âWho can have the most daily playtime!â. If you do a search in the Discord OOC channels for lobby chatter regarding playtime reminders, youâll see that a lot of people are just show boasting this off to others.
And now this PR with a attempt to lock down player agency. I am 110% with Sparlight on this one. We cannot judge what a player has going on in their personal life, and we also shouldnât either. Lets take the hypothetical of this PR is merged. People will absolutely hate it. It will be a very small subset of players ruining it for the rest of the player base.
Addiction is a problem. I am not denying that. But it is not our place to judge if someone is addicted or not.
Ok, the general opinion seems to be clearly in favor against this PR here.
I will close it and leave a comment.
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The PR has been closed, so thereâs not much more that needs to be said here, but I do wanna point out.
We are talking about one lighthanded PR by a staff member that got merged, and another by a random contributor that did not. It feels weird to paint these with such heavy tones as âthe direction these PRs are goingâ as if this is a regular thing weâve been doing for 5+ PRs and this is finally the straw that broke the camelâs back.
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