Hey General forums,
I want to start out by saying that I love SS14. I have 250 hours of play time with WizDen, almost all of it on the Lizard server. Any storys about the past are just examples, I’m not looking to litigate the past. I want to improve the future.
I am writing this as a plea for help from the SS14 administrators, moderators, and players. On WizDen’s Lizard server, there is a huge influx of negative players. You can call these negative players raiders, or tiders, or self-antag, or just people with bad attitudes. When I say “tiders” in this post, I am refering to all of the above traits.
I believe that the SS14 administration team doesn’t fully realize how bad Lizard has gotten, and what the ramifications of these tiders are. Over the last month since my first post regarding tiders, I have seen Lizard get worse and worse. I have to ahelp nearly every shift. Sometimes twice a shift.
Here are some examples of what I mean when I say “how bad Lizard has gotten.”
- As CE, I nearly always have arguments with high play time players about whether to set up Tesla or Singlu, or to even set up waste recycling at all. I have Ahelped these players, and their attitude is still terrible. How can a engi tell the CE to f#$k off, while an admin is online, and not be instantly punished? When is it ever ok for someone to cuss out command staff?
– If it is ok to cuss out command staff, why would high play time players play command? To get cussed out all the time with no recourse?
– This example specifically violates the server rule “Listen to your team leader”. What punishment is typically given out for this rule violation? Whatever it was in this case, it wasn’t enough to get the player to stop doing it, because they proceeded to have a bad attitude in the next round.
-As captain during warops. I forbade the HoP from giving AA. He gave AA to some players anyway, as evidenced by a secoff able to open the bridge doors by themselves. A passenger was on the bridge, I ordered the passenger to get off the bridge. They refused. I disabled them, took their toolbox (because it could be used as a weapon and was in their hand), they stayed on the bridge and complained. I leave and come back in a few minutes, they are still on the bridge, with a new tool box, and 2 secoffs staring at him, not doing shit. I disable the passenger, take his new toolbox, and order the secoffs to arrest. They don’t. I give up and leave to work on my other tasks.
– Passenger’s role says they must listen to absolutely anyone. Mostly, THEY DO NOT! This passenger was guilty of secure trespass, refused to leave on their own when ordered, and the secoffs refused to enforce secure trespass.
–This took up atleast 3 to 5 minutes of the captain’s time during Warops. Is that not self-antag?
–What OOC punishment, if any, should this passenger have gotten? Or the secoffs? Is it enough to correct their behavior? This is in violation of IC spacelaw and OOC server rules.
-Same captain warops round, the clown decides to try to steal my saber right off of my belt. I crit him with my saber. I then have to drop whatever I was doing and drag him to Medbay because I had to defend myself and my equipment.
–Isn’t that self-antag? I feel like I as captain was at risk of getting a warning because I had to attack a crew member that was acting in a bad way if I didn’t immediately take them to medbay. So there goes 3 to 5 more minutes of my time during Warops.
-Lets start talking about the Security department. I have too, too many stories to share on the insanity that happens to security. From getting lectured and yelled at by almost every person we arrest, to them destroying their cell and forcing me to increase their time, to them trying to escape the brig any and every chance they get. Security isn’t fun. If you look at almost any round, Security starts off low staffed. Sometimes I’ve seen no secoffs, just the HoS, Warden, and Detective. I had a player get arrested for a minor offence. They then broke their cell, I gave them more time. They did it again, more time. They broke out of brigmed when healing, so I perma’ed them and gave them a shockpack. They attempted to break out of perma again. I tracking implant them. As soon as I put in the tracking implant, they suicided. Round end comes, they weren’t an antag. Just an asshole.
–Something needs to be done to help Security on this. I don’t think there are any exact rules to protect Security against this type of player. I know that the admins consider it self-antag if the player goes too far, but that misses the majority of minor abuses that drive sec players away from sec.
–When I’m playing security, I feel like my each and every move is going to be looked at with a magnifying glass. Which, is partly rightfully so, but on the other hand, I’m afraid to over sentence or miss-sentence. Especially when we get the bad players in the brig and they are destroying shit. Every shift, I look at the round end screen to see how many of the people in the brig were legit antags. I would say 3/4 were self-antags. So Security wastes time and energy on tiders while the real antags mess up the station. AND THEN, the player base hates sec because they see that sec doesn’t do anything. Well, Sec can’t do shit when some self-antag asshat is breaking out of their cell or robusting sec every 5 minutes.
-During evac, I feel like I have to constantly crit crew that secure trespass onto the evac bridge. I tell them to get out multiple times, they don’t or straight up refuse and tell me off. I then have to attack them and drag their bodies off the bridge. Evac is only like 3 or so minutes, and normally Lizard’s evacs are a chorus of bombs, eswords, and whatever the hell else going on. So calling security doesn’t work. (The security comms are also out during evac) Every time I evac, I feel like I have to wait 5 or 10 minutes before I close out the game incase I get an ahelp message because I crit’ed some crew and didn’t drag them to evac medical. Every time I open SS14 and connect to Lizard, I wonder “Is this the day I got banned for some random shit?” That isn’t a good feeling for seasoned command staff to have.
In conclusion, I feel like Lizard has been getting worse and worse. I know the admin team is short handed, I know there is a wave of new admins that just started a few days ago. But I don’t think the admin teams fully realizes how bad Lizard is, and what it is doing to the player base.
I feel that Lizard isn’t fun, because I have to fight the tiders/self-antags more than the real antags. Atleast fighting the real antags, the rules are clearer. Self-antags, I feel like I can get banned for just trying to stop them.
That leaves me with two options. Plea for help from the admins and player community, or go to Salamander where there is significantly less tiding. If I go to Salamander, I feel like I am part of the Lizard problem because I am an experienced, non-tider player. With my departure from Lizard, that gives the tiders more power to ruin the gameplay experience for others. If I stay in Lizard and it doesn’t improve, then I’ll eventually get banned for trying to hold back the tider wave and not doing it 100% perfectly within the rules 100% of the time across the next 250 hours of playtime.
Help me. Help us. Help Lizard.