Ok, so, I like the concept of conversion antags.
I want more of them to be eventually added.
But so far with how things roll with Revolutionaries, it seems the antagonist type has some flaws in how it plays out in the game leading to a lot of “deathmatch” games.
I wanted to make this thread to a) make a thread and b) start the discussion on how people think conversion antags should be handled moving forward to hopefully give it a more fun flavour.
Added space-station-14
I think a lot of people really love conversion antags. Revs is by far my favorite round type, and it is that way for a lot of Lizard players I know, even though we accept that the round type isn’t perfect.
The thing is, I really don’t think there will be any more conversion antags. They are seen as problematic by mods because of interpretations of what constitutes metafriending (Robust revs do not rev random people or everyone at the first opportunity. They rev people they know will not instantly grief the round first, and obviously they will rev players they trust or who are known to be very good players first. Because antag status is seen by some moderators as a “gift”, they consider this metafriending). That I think is the main thing holding back the development of other conversion mechanic antags and why you won’t see conversion mechanics in kits where they exist in SS13, like Blood Brothers or the single use syndie flash thingy. So I mean, I don’t think conversion antags will be handled, going forward, unless there becomes a very clear definition of metafriending that makes it clear that playing roles with your friends is not metafriending (This could apply to things like sec-tiding, when a bunch of players decide that they’ll queue up for sec, or for another department, too, because they want a chance to play with their friends.).
The murderboning issue is separate and more specific to the revs gamemode. I mean, I personally think the mode is at its best when it goes into an all-out war between sec and the revs where both sides are roughly equal. That’s the most dramatic and interesting outcome even if it is the most murderbon-ey. Its less interesting when one side just gets such an overwhelming advantage that its just a curbstomping. That’s really true of any antags though.
But a lot of people don’t like dying, they don’t like being “forced” into being an antag (This is a problem with some borgs too. I’ve emagged borgs before only for them to instantly ignore and then tattle on me), and a lot of those people will go out of their way to ruin the round at start just to get to another mode. That’s a culture issue with being unable to adapt your gameplay to whatever the round demands of you (You’ll see it with zombies too, there are plenty of times where heads will just SSD the instant they become zombies because they don’t want their side to “lose” the game). Its a RP issue just like “friendly antags” are, and I think new players need to understand that “winning” isn’t the object of the game, and that sometimes, they will die and won’t get revived and should either use the avenues the game gives like ghost roles to get back into the game, observe, or log off.
The “metafriending” part of conversion antags isn’t just a problem with ‘gifting’ antag to the robust. Most players only play a single character across many rounds, and will very quickly earn a reputation on the server they frequent. This effects how everyone treats that character, and it is something I’ve noticed when switching from Cindy to an unknown character. This “metaknowledge” of who people are isn’t going to stop being a problem unless people have to roll a new character every shift, which majority of players will hate. I don’t think this is an issue, and in many ways strengthens the game.
I’d wager that Revs are a lot of people’s favourite mode because they can antag with their friends, in the same way that people are allowed to try to roll the same department to play together. Turns out, playing with your friends is fun, and if SS14 is going to implement rules against that, I don’t see it going very far.
Other problems with conversion antags are a player culture issue, not a design fault, although Revs does need some polishing.
First of all, really nice to see two people come in and say “yeah revs are my favorite” right off the bat. I feel like almost all discussion I see around revs from prominent community members is “i hate revs”.
The issues with revs right now are that it leads to confusing interactions for new players (why did this guy kill me?) and straight up RDM on LRP servers. I had a game where I spawned in from cryo and the first person I saw wordlessly beat me to death with a toolbox. That’s not fun. That needs to change. I’d love a world where revs were rewarded for converting, say, 75% of the station instead of just murdering all of them. Because at the end of the day, being removed from the round, while a necessary evil, is just not fun. We want to discourage it as much as we can mechanically. Revs as a gamemode encourages any revolutionary to just remove someone from the round. That’s anti-fun.
Zombies don’t have this problem because if you get killed by a zombie you’re not out of the round. You get to keep playing. And because zombies, by their nature, create open ghost roles.
If we’re talking Revs specifically, the biggest problem is the win condition for both sides of the engagement; Team Command and Team Rev. The intention is that both factions are supposed to be fighting for total influence and control over the station, but that’s just not how it plays out. Currently both sides fight for survival, and the easiest and safest way to achieve this is to murder any who might betray you, which leads into the murderbone issue. Both Command and Revs become too trigg
I hate my phone. Ill repost:
The problem with Revs right now is that thematically Command and Revs are fighting for the influence of the station, but that is just not how it plays out. Currently both sides fight for survival, and the easiest way to do that is to murder anyone who might betray you. Both Team Command and Team Head Rev become far too trigger happy during the all out war, because hesistation will get you killed.
Adding more incentives for non-lethal takedowns and captures would ease this problem, and the first step towards this would be making mindshields reversible. This way command and head revs are encouraged to capture and convert the enemy to their side, and the gamemode becomes all about the constant switching of alliegences.
Lastly, the snowbally nature of station takeovers needs to be addressed. If done correctly, Head Revs can convert enough people to swiftly overwhelm Command before they can suspect the revolution. However, if a single head rev or converted rev makes a mistake and allows Command to suspect a revolution too early, it snowballs the other way. Command has a lot of ways to roadblock conversions and can very easily suffocate a revolution before it begins, largely because mindshields are irreversible.
Agreed that a balance needs to be struck as to me, it seems like revs basically always win unless the head revs make a major mke a major mistake early on. Otherwise, they exclusively stick to the stagnant meta of converting science/cargo, then making sure 75% of the station is antags before there’s so much as as the slightest hint of insurrection.
I really do think that revs should be limited in their rate of conversion by not using generic flashes, but rather using one that needs soething like a recharge rate, similar to an emag, rather than the current rapid converting that can happen once you get your hands on a scientist. The fact that, right now, you cannot visually tell if someone has been converted from a flash does not help matters in the slightest.
I wish revs had some sort of incentive to start their revolution BEFORE the entire station is antagonists. As by that point, cargo has fallen (The QM is by far and large the easiest head of staff to ambush, simply gank them on the ATS), which strips Security of their only nonviolent way to deal with revs, leading to the way most rev rounds go: Security and Command being forced to indiscriminately gun down every non mindshield, whilst Command players tend to just get jumped and round removed with very little chance to fight back since most of their department is usually antagonists.
It’d be nice if revs were, say, rewarded in some way for each head they capture or kill. Right now they’re netted a 5 use flash, but that’s comparatively pitiful to the infinite 2 use flashes you can get from simply converting one scientist.
So, I guess to try to generalise what you’re saying, conversion antags should have a gameplan that either forces, enables or incentivises being found our/taking action before hitting critical mass at which point the round stops being interesting?
And that conversion shouldn’t be as cheap and easy as just producing flashes?
So I mean, generally, someone is going to give it away before you hit the point of critical mass. Maybe its different on MRP servers, but on LRP, if you convert the wrong person, they are going to do a suicide run against the HoS with a bat regardless of whatever your plans are for getting most of the station. In that sense, it can be a very binary mode (Either the revs hit the critical mass point and sec/command can’t do much, or some shitter gives them away instantly). Rounds where everyone just quietly do their jobs until the time is right are few and far between.
Also, with three heads, there is always a pretty good chance that one of them is going to be new and will try something like flashing HoS. Getting three competent heads is incredibly rare. Giving them something “unique” would make these situations much worse, because a lot of the time it would be “Ah, they had the rev flasher in their hand round start and were looking at it trying to figure out how to use it, time to mindshield everyone”.
Another problem with making conversion harder is that it makes murderbone more common. When flashes are plentiful, the way to deal with a validhunter in revs is to just capture them and take them for conversion. If its super hard for revs to convert, all of a sudden the most pragmatic thing to do is to just kill and gib them.
I do feel like encouraging and facilitating less violent strategies might be helpful, at least for revs specifically.
As it stands, there’s not much discouraging revs from killing everyone who can’t be converted - and even some people who can - which kind of sucks since people who got mindshielded early on are punished for complying with security, even when they’re actively surrendering and just trying to keep themselves alive instead of fighting against the revolution.
Plus, while fighting off revs can be fun, often command just gets round-removed without much opportunity to RP about it, which hurts especially bad on MRP. (I’ve been part of the problem here, admittedly… 
)
I think some way to discourage revs from killing people who aren’t trying to fight them would be helpful, as well as a feasible way to handle command without permanently killing them, so there’s at least a chance they’ll be captured and not instantly killed. I don’t think peacefully handling command should be forced, but it would be nice for it to be a reasonably accessible option so they can keep RPing even after losing.
I’ve heard some discussion about the idea of making non-roundstart mindshields removable. I don’t think it’d entirely fix the issue with revs killing non-combatants, but it might be worth considering.
For fixing those specific problems, two things. One, revs should probably have a way to remove mindshields from people, to give them an alternative to murdering them. It should be costly and very difficult to do (Likely involving surgery), but it should be an option, even to be able to rev members of command or sec to give them an opportunity to roleplay that.
Also, maybe objectives for the entire revolution should be something that are staggered. Like, at the beginning of the round, your objective is something like, get 15 people into the revolution, and only then after that, do you unlock a different progressive objective. This way, people don’t just speed run removing a member of command as fast as possible (Which isn’t usually the optimal way to play revs to begin with given that a dead command member gives sec the greenlight to mindshield people).
The defining feature of these rounds are a group of violent Revolutionaries versus Command and Security, which always ends in a blood bath. I don’t think it is possible to 100% move away from the murder aspect without fundamentally changing the game-mode.
However, I honestly think the biggest issue with the game mode itself is the fact that once the war begins majority of people stop doing their jobs and just try to get in on the violent action. Janitors stop cleaning, Engineers stop repairing, and Doctors stop healing, so the station falls into shambles extremely quickly. A dysfunctional station prevents people from getting revived AND makes things much more difficult for those still alive, dramatically slowing down the pace of the round.
The goal of the Revolution is to capture the station - a working station mind you, so people should still be incentivized to fulfill their role on the station even after conversion.
Adding an “everyone loses” condition, where CentCom detects too much station damage from the infighting and decides to defuse the station by sending Death Squad to kill all the witnesses and bury all the evidence. Since Revs and Command ideally want to “win”, this massively incentivizes non-lethal options and picking lethal fights much more strategically. Paired with reversible mind shields and a unique flashing item to slow down blitz conversions and the game mode might be as “fixed” as it can be without ruining the things that makes it so unique.
I absolutely love the Rev gamemode and there are 4 things I would love to see…
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At the 40 min mark an announcement plays from Centcom along the lines of “Revolutionaries have been detected on the station” then all Revs, and Head Revs are revealed to everyone. All Head Revs then get a health buff determined on how many revs there are. This would help with the murderbone since Sec now knows who to kill, and who to not kill.
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Mindshields should be craftable in the medfab so that cargo isn’t the only win condition for crew, and encourages sec to detain, and take people in alive to deconvert instead of being forced to deathsquad.
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Head Revs should have their own channel so that they can communicate. This will also help prevent brand new revs accidently ruining the entire round, and getting caught right away because they don’t know what they are doing.
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Once all heads are either dead, or have left the station the round should end like when the nuke goes off. the other victory should be the revs escape to Centcom with no command on board the evac shuttle so that they dont have to play hide and seek.
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