Retequizzle - Rouge2t7 Staff Complaint comments made on discord about game admining

Subject: retequizzle and possibly general staff decisions.

Policies or Expectations Violated: Be professional, polite and welcoming. and possibly Admin events should be done in moderation without heavily altering the flow of the round.

Do you want this complaint to be made public after it is processed: Yes

Detailed Summary: I was just reading on the discord and Ret decided to proudly announce and explain that not only did they enjoy and take part in purposefully targeting players for using mechanics that are in the game Discord, Discord, Discord. But also told us that he will do it and if he wants. Ret also explained that multiple admins were aware of what he was doing and agreed Discord. I understand this could be just general nonsense coming from an admin or maybe I’m very much not fully understanding the admin sides/discussions/general attitude towards it, but I take issue with the idea that admins can just abuse players or the round if they personally dislike a mechanic that is included in the game and then label it as “unintended”, because multiple people may learn how to do said thing.

(A lot of my own comments are direct replies to Ret but if you need me to link my messages also I can do that)
Another problem I am taking with it however is that it is heavily subjective, as the topic was about atmos, frezon and cargo. Discord this is the comment that Ret explains they had an issue with the idea of something being “unintended and used” - nothing about the process of frezon was really unintended in terms of how I understand mechanic abuse vs just a unbalanced mechanic. The numbers were just too inflated and I and a lot of people can agree with that. However they explained that they Discord would send meteors at atmos if they found that somebody had an optimised frezon setup. Expressing they had no regret Discord, and that they would do it again Discord. They further explained they “have to intervene” because a player may be good at making frezon quickly Discord.

I personally think this is kinda unacceptable behaviour? It feels like they are admitting to blatant admin abuse and are extremely bold to be proud of it. If there’s something “unintended” or just overpowered in the game, I don’t see why the admins get to then abuse the players, their time or effect their round because they personally disagree with it. I equally think it’s extremely ridiculous to punish players for being good at some thing and I would much prefer the mechanic be adjusted(which it now is) vs the notion that admins can just ruin the time you just spent setting up something. From personal experience as an atmos main, I didn’t make frezon to “cheese cargo” - I’d make stuff and optimise it because that’s part of the fun of atmos. This often times includes people going into dev environments and playing with stuff, that you can later flex in the game. Atmos being one of the more complicated mechanics, not the most intuitive but also an insanely interesting mechanic is really what makes me like it and what makes it the kind of mechanic that you want/need to look into to learn.

Furthermore, everyone else would be told “wyci” in terms of fixing or adjusting issues in the game, but we’ve just been told in the discord that if the admins personally have an issue with a mechanic, they will purposely make the round unfair and unfun for you because they don’t believe it should be like that. I was called a dick and being told I was making assumptions because I took issue with the conversation Discord. It’s equally assumpsuous to assume every person setting up frezon is also doing it to “cheese cargo”, and not just flex their gained knowledge or skills. The only thing you can do with frezon after that is sell it or space it Discord …truthfully letting it sit in atmos is just a bad idea and nobody wants to space their hard work. I do believe what I had originally said. I think it’s unfair to punish people for getting good at a provided mechanic and people(admins in this case) getting angry and ruining their fun is unfair.

I would like to know if this is true and if so, I’d like to understand why. I was encouraged to ask/complain on the forums about this issue but it’s an odd situation. Discord. I was told again by jez that making frezon is apparently an exploit because it was able to “print money” Discord. This is the first time I’ve heard it ever called an exploit opposed to just an OP mechanic.I had already left the convo to write this post. Jez mention me an hour after continuing the convo, followed by patronising comments honestly. Discord Discord
Discord
Discord
Discord

I do want to explain myself on that point too as I am not trying to make a bad faith argument, I just generally disagree with this from the staff - from how I at least understand exploits. An exploit would be considered a bug or glitch. Nothing about frezon itself seemed like a bug or a glitch, but it was very overpowered and sold for way too much, making cargos gameplay non-existent. I fully agree that Frezon was sold for too much. But it seems and feels like it was absolutely intended for atmos to make gases to sell to cargo, a lot of the recent conversations in the server have been about changing the game to make departments associate with each other more, it just was too strong. And that just feels like the side-effect of it being a game in progress, the conversations have just left me confused. Discord. I just honestly do not agree with the attitude and actions presented by the staff about it.

Complaint panel assigned.

Added privacy-public

A delay happened in assignment.

No nvm I just forgot to post the results.

The last action in the complaint panel was this proposed judgement. As it has gone uncontested it will be deemed final

I have reached out to Ret regarding the situation. Below is the conversation, unfiltered:

I cross-checked what Ret said with the logs in Grafana. Ret, indeed, was scarce on the game during the time span I was checking (Beginning of September until the end of October).

Upon checking the event log channel, Ret has a history of logging their “meteor habits” against departments, and they do seem to favor cargo over atmos.

Cross-referencing their logins with ss14.admin during the same time, Ret did not appear to have taken the actions described in the complaint.

After review of this information, the facts collected are as follows:

  1. Ret stated that they would sometimes send meteors at atmos for overoptimizing Frezon production
    • This is confirmed to be true, however Ret stated this was merely a shitpost in general chat
  2. At the time of the shitpost, Frezon selling was not an exploit
    • This is also confirmed to be true. As discovered during our initial search, this was patched. Ret also acknowledged this during our conversation.
  3. Ret’s comments in general chat, especially given the context and the fact that there was no actual action taken, fall within one of two sides:
    • To be taken in good faith as a shitpost, there must be sufficient supporting messages that there is no malicious or definite intent.
    • To be taken in good faith as a real confession, there must be sufficient supporting messages and/or evidence that there were real events happening around the time, or that events had happened or will happen again, and without attempts to remove serious tones
  4. Given the context observed and provided within this complaint, as well as the evidence gathered throughout investigation, we can clearly see that this was a shitpost and not a real confession of admin abuse. Therefore:

Ret did not violate policy 2.5.

In regards to policy 1.2, even during the “confession shitpost” when Ret was being challenged regarding their actions, they even commented that they welcomed people to disagree, encouraged disagreement on the forums (including offering the link), and even themselves commented that the maintainers looked into the issue.

These comments indicate that Ret was fully aware of the shitpost not resonating with players, and encouraged them to take their issues to the place it would be noticed the most, and even broke out from their shitpost to address these comments specifically.

I would say that this leans more towards staying within 1.2.

It is my suggestion that this complaint be rejected on the grounds of the following:

  1. Ret was not in violation of policies 1.2 nor 2.5
  2. There is no evidence of malicious intent in the messages sent by Ret
  3. Ret was aware of the mechanical changes impacting the situation being discussed
  4. It was a shitpost

This topic was automatically closed 3 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.