Shadekin Events! What do you like? What don't you like?

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Shadekin Events! What do you like? What don't you like?

Postby nerdass » Mon Jul 02, 2018 5:47 pm

And what do you think we can do better in the future?
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Re: Shadekin Events! What do you like? What don't you like?

Postby Wickedtemp » Mon Jul 02, 2018 6:00 pm

On events in general:

- Try to minimize power outages. While it may seem like a way to add a layer of spookiness for some people, it primarily leads to a layer of annoyedness for many.

- Antags should be killed by players, rather than other event characters or CC staff. It makes players feel like they're helpless, that they can't influence the event, that they have no impact other than essentially being an NPC in someone elses game. Thats boring as hell.

- Hit and run tactics are fine to an extent, but having an antag that uses this as its whole gimmick can get irritating. Especially on a map like Tether, where the two halves are divided by an elevator. Spending large amounts of time cloaked is also usually just annoying because it puts players in a state of helplessness again.

- If something's hostile, it should be killable.

I'll have a few more details when I'm at a computer rather than mobile.
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Re: Shadekin Events! What do you like? What don't you like?

Postby Heroman3003 » Mon Jul 02, 2018 6:47 pm

Okay. I will start this off by saying, I believe shadekin are cool. They're cool-looking, they have cool concept for a species and abilities, etc. Even idea of whole "mystery species you have to learn about through interaction" is nice and cool. But the problem lies in their usage and interactions with crew, and the way information about them is not being actually learned commonly.

Being event thing, Shadekin are bound to only interact with few crewmembers or just be swarmed by a horde that can't really be interacted with properly. So either in second case, nothing is really learned, or, in first case, whatever's learned stays among those people, as information is not usually shared. And some of that information is VERY important. Like for example, simplest light thing, while commonly known.. can still be unknown to newer players. And some kin get rather aggressive over people fixing those in public places. Knowledge about kin should be discovered, but not only by specific people, but by populace in general and shared accordingly.

Shadekin hate is a problem on crew spectrum, but its understandable. Weird critters with superpowers appear out of nowhere and put station in darkness which many people can't see in. Logical thing is to fix the light and shoo away annoying critter, for some people, and they get clawed in the face for that. Its somebody else coming to your 'home turf', making it their type of comfort that doesn't really appeal to you and attacking you for trying to keep things as they're meant to be. When looked from that perspective, shadekin really are like pests in that regard. Which comes to the point of ICly enforcing their presence as normal. Central already made a point in one of events to tell crew to research them. I believe that point should be even more officialized and doubled down on. Its a research station, interaction with critters that includes learning is research wanted, if you have problem with it, you can hand in your ID and uniform for the shift.

And now the third point. Antag shadekin. Red-eyes. Their introduction was a disaster on multiple levels. Events regarding the said idea of "mystery species" have one aspect that is most important to be gotten correctly: leaving the right impression, IC and OOC. The latest event failed at both, in my opinion. First of all. Invincible antag. Whatever you say about it. However you promise that it was this one time. It was an invincible antag, and not even RP type, but murderbone type. Invincible murderbone antag does not leave good impression, it leaves impression of being used as entertainment for whoever is manning it. The whole "it was to show off red-eyes" argument forgets one important thing. While we're story driven, we're still a game, and interactivity is important. Leading people with feeling threatened enough to want to kill you and then not allowing them to, because that would "end everything before you show off enough" is a bad idea. Especially bad if the antag IS dealt wit... by another adminspawn character. It leaves impression of the fact that those two were only relevant, and crew was meant to be an audience, not participants at all. Which is opposite of what event was implying to be. Just two admins having fun in front of entire server. Maybe it wasn't like that and it definitely wasn't meant to leave that impression... But it did. And despite OOC promises of 'they won't be invincible down the line', there is nothing of sort that can be promised ICly, and right now the only thing ICly one can do when red-eye appears is call a shuttle and pray for blue-eye to appear and eat them. Few people like to be a powerless toy in a game. Because a game is about interacting. And if you can't/your interactions do not matter in slightest... what are you here for? It applies both mechanically and RPly.

I held belief of antag shadekin being a horrible idea since before official introduction of red-eyes, and I have to say, I'm still convinced same way. ICly, they're fae, godmode creatures, presented like that at least so far. OOCly they're impossible pain to deal with and are OP. Lack of knowledge adds to that OPness, just because you say they have weakness doesn't mean people have time to learn it or IC knowledge of it when its literally out and about already.

And as an engineer, stealing engines is a 'please no'. Darkness? Its annoying, but can be dealt with. But having no power? That's a big problem as a LOT relies on power, and even some people who decided not to get involved with kin and stay in their place doing their job will not be able to do so because no power.

As for future events? Other than what I already said, I believe there needs to be quite a period of remedying opinion of crew on them. By central's stern finger and kin themselves showing their positive qualities. Red-eyes were a mistake, in my opinion, but that's just mine and its extreme. For less extreme solution other than "have them never show up other than only to be butt of a joke regarding other kin and get disappeared before doing anything", I'd suggest first giving crew a second try. Allow people to see red-eye and roflstomp them naturally and without any real losses in process. It will give them idea of being in at least partial control and help showcase that they are in fact NOT invincible monsters of death summoned by admins to entertain themselves. Further in, red-eyes should be RARE and not be an OP threat they were first time EVER. They should be always dealt with by crew themselves IF the said red-eyes does cause public trouble, and if it does a quiet private scene? Its okay to let them disappear as quietly. However, that's more orange-eyes, I suppose.

tl;dr:
1) Basic info on shadekin that explains what they are generally, some basic details on eye colors and what NOT to do when they are around should be wider spread and ICly available.
2) Shadekin active hate IC (chasing away) should be controlled more and preferably with IC methods. If you don't like event, don't ruin it for those that do. You can always politely OOCly ask to move if it really is a big hassle.
3) Red-eyes should be handled with extreme caution and not be in any way a regular part of shadekin event. Preferably red-eyes and regular kin should be treated as separate event types whatsoever, if they're to appear again.
4) Pls no touchy engine
5) More effort needs to be put into mending the relations, reducing tension, increasing opinion of kin and reducing perceived godmodness of red-eyes before continuing whatever big plans there are.
6) Events in general should involve players with interaction that feels like it matters, not have them be your captive audience for demonstrating a thing.
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Re: Shadekin Events! What do you like? What don't you like?

Postby Wickedtemp » Mon Jul 02, 2018 7:32 pm

Alright, at a computer.

So, many events here tend to mirror game-modes on other servers. We'd sometimes even use antags from other game-modes for our event rounds. Generally, I feel like those usually went poorly. Many of the technomancer rounds ended up being nothing more than admin-abuse, where one would join, be a general nuisance and bait somebody into lashing out, then using that as an excuse to blow stuff up. Merc rounds in the past got a bit more bumpy than they were meant to as a result of an admin making a CC announcement to alert the station of the mercs presence before the mercs even docked, which meant their 'sneak attack' plan that they'd worked on was now pointless and they were being shot at before they even left their shuttle to board.

I know that some admins want to run events as if they're the game-master of a DnD campaign, they have a story they want to tell, things need to be done in a particular way, and if someone goes against that it isn't unusual for them to just get killed because "they did x when they were supposed to do y so they pretty much had it coming". The controls are taken out of players hands and instead, they're told "No, you can watch me play instead. It has to be done my way." often enough during events that it's become the expected route. Especially when the route is "No, you're meant to be powerless here."

Couple years back, we had this massive redspace event. General catastrophe, lots of dead crew, lots of wounded. Hostile mobs, broken lights, power was getting shut down, evac was called because nobody knew how to 'beat' the event. One character was supposed to be the protagonist and it kind of meant that nearly everybody else was just... a spectator at risk of dying. Evidently it was meant to be some type of weakness or objective that could be deduced by getting close to it, but honestly, when you're dealing with hostile mobs or patients or "oh god run away because I'm a civ", you're not going to notice that. It resulted in an evac, because the vast majority of the crew felt utterly helpless and that nothing they could do would turn the event in their favor.

Even in events that were literally game-modes, things were influenced by admins wanting more shooting or less shooting or wanting a particular ending, or simply by mistake. Why would I bother joining an event round when I know it's not going to be an 'event', rather, 'The Admins Playtime'. It only serves to drive home the point that what you do ingame doesn't matter. Yes, there are few cases where this type of thing is warranted, such as valid-hunting behavior or the crew wanting to evacuate because of a small handful of spiders, but for the most part, it isn't needed and it hampers gameplay. Look at how often Polaris/Bay admins need to directly influence the antagonists... The answer is "not really that often unless someone does a rulebreak". I know, different servers different playstyles, but honestly, leave this type of stuff up to the players.

Now, as for shadekin in particular? I'm not a fan of them, generally they just seem to be a nuisance, like Hero's mentioned. I'm not even that annoyed at people who act a bit hostile towards them, in a chase out of the room with a rake sort of way. Outright seeking them out to attack them is a different story hopefully covered by valid-hunting rules, but.. honestly? Every time one comes into Medical while I'm playing, I want nothing more than to throw it out, because I know chances are they're going to do very little that I can actually interact with outside of annoying actions like removing or breaking all of the lights. Personally, I wouldn't RP with them from a vore or erp standpoint because I'm just not attracted to them at all, so that leaves non erp interactions, which... so far has been limited to a few exchanged 'mlems' and 'shadekin removes all the lights, hisses at me when I put them back because keeping my entire department in the dark OOCly gets on my nerves and I'd rather they just leave, but I can't really do so without making Tempest the "bad guy". ' - And that isn't fun. I don't like it. I don't know why shadekin had to have an absurdly annoying trait become their defining behavior.

And... Iunno, it's like Technomancer-lite. You have a god-mode, cloaking, wall-phasing creature shrouded in mystery that shows up randomly, does whatever it wants, barely communicates, and attempting to stop it risks being attacked, and if you kill it after it attacks you, let's be honest, you're probably going to get killed, bwoinked, or in some way harassed until you feel like shit or leave the round. So it creates a "I'm not allowed to get in their way, else I'm punished for it." feeling, whether that punishment is simply being made out to be 'the bad guy' in that particular interaction, being harrassed by crew for daring to hurt a shadekin, being brigged, bwoinked and potentially banned, or the shadekins murder you. Every single interaction with a shadekin has been annoying. Every single one. I'm not a fan of their invisibility and wallphasing, not a fan of "fucks with the lights" as their defining behavior, I'm not really a fan of how they look from an ERP standpoint, the whole 'super rare and new and mysterious' bit could be neat if I was interested in them, but I'm not. Because usually, they tend to just be annoying.

In the future? Cut back on "This is the admins event. This is the admins plan. This is the way its going to be. It has to be done my way." and give players influence over how things go. This means removing the "And then Greyson Maximus shows up and saves the day in a Gorilla mech!" ((just an example, didn't actually happen)) and "Another event character kills the antagonist", let the crew handle it and actually make it something the crew is capable of handling. I'd personally change shadekin from "omg bad light bad light bad light, must break all lights, lights bad!" to "This is kind of uncomfortable but I'm not going to be a prick to people because I'm supposedly intelligent, which means I'd hopefully have manners and can infer that since the entire station is like this, these non-shadekins evidently are more comfortable around light."

As for what I like, well... there isn't anything I specifically like about shadekin. Events in general, sure. I like how they can provide a bit of action to the server. It's usually fun as Medical to actually have patients. It's fun to be able to do the job I signed up for, and I'm sure there are other medical and security players that feel the same way.
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Re: Shadekin Events! What do you like? What don't you like?

Postby Keekenox » Mon Jul 02, 2018 8:22 pm

Honestly I just feel Shadekin are a silly concept is all. That's solely my personal opinion.
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Re: Shadekin Events! What do you like? What don't you like?

Postby Neopatra » Mon Jul 02, 2018 8:32 pm

I personally dislike shadekin in general. If they stay out of the way or do their own thing its fine, but as someone who is frequently playing security I find it difficult to reason out characters that go around messing with the station's infrastructure without interfering ICly. That, coupled with how godmoded they are makes it difficult for me to not see them in an aggressive fashion. I realize they are not crew but how else should I treat them? If one of us went on a trader ship and acted like the shadekin often do traders would start shooting lethal rounds at us. I'm not suggesting that they be treated as hostile entities per say but security really needs to be given some other definition to go by without going OOC. Cause right now Shadekin are just "teleporting troublemakers that break all the lights in the station and run around secure areas with no consequence." Given that you can't contain one easily, if at all, means that security has very limited options with what to do other than ignore them or tase them senseless.
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Re: Shadekin Events! What do you like? What don't you like?

Postby ktccd » Mon Jul 02, 2018 9:07 pm

Heroman3003 wrote:Okay. I will start this off by saying,...


Wickedtemp wrote:Alright, at a computer...


This covers my opinions pretty much spot on and is why I've avoided shadekin anytime I hear they are around ingame. I hear people shout 'mar!' in radio and talk about shadekin? I stay the heck away, 'cause I always got the feeling of it being a minor nuisance which more or less interacts at me, rather than with me? They sounded interesting the first time I heard of them, but all I gathered was that they were basically a more IC version of admin "spoooooky" shenanigans. As antags IDK... It doesn't strike me as a very good mechanic for antagonism, simply because of Wizards.
See, in my experience, Wizards on TG-code that take the most effort to beat and even reach, are the ones who pick up those blasted evasion spells on top of being good players in general. But they're supposed to need that much insane evasion capacity because they're fighting off an entire station hellbent on killing them. Heck, on TG, a wizard gunning someone down might find that the person was a suicide bomber and die if they don't take super precaution, as that's a bit of a low-RP environment.

Antag shadekins sounds to me like evasion-wizards. They might have some kind of limiting factor, like how wizards have limited spellslots and cooldowns, but I sure don't know about them IC or OOC, so if I saw one? I'd probably do my best to flee or evacuate. I sure as heck wouldn't try to puzzle out what weakness the admins had constructed for it and use my dying breath to whisper it on the radio as I died to find out... I'd run. I'm playing a reasonably self-preservating character who doesn't need or want to risk that. And something that eats supermatter is very high on any of my characters list of things to never be near.
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Re: Shadekin Events! What do you like? What don't you like?

Postby Nanaki » Mon Jul 02, 2018 9:17 pm

I would say my biggest complaint about the red-eye event is, as others have said, having another shadekin resolve it was the worst possible resolution, and, as others have said, it seemed like the red-eye was invulnerable to everything thrown at it. I have seen, first hand, security doing a barrage of (admitting poorly aimed) weapons fire directly at the red-eye itself. K't's reaction seemed to indicate that the bullets were not even hitting the shadekin, just phasing through and damaging the occupant of the shadekin's stomach instead.

Aside from that, one of the things we have seen is that a space station 13's crew reaction to an antag that kills is remarkably different to one that has not killed yet. As someone with experience with antags, generally, when an antag has killed in cold blood, they will largely be seen as valid and a lot of crew who would normally be willing to submit to an antag's demands will instead fight to the death, and generally, a lot of that is self-preservation instinct, when people are aware that the antag may kill them for no reason at all, they will fight to the death because, to them, that is the only valid option. This is why there was such a violent reaction the redeye, because its opening action not only killed crew, but also that the crew in question was Tempest. Which, most people are aware Tempest is a pacifist, and generally, there was no question to ask if the person was a shitter and antagonizing the redeye. Tempest just does not do that. It was a clear message, both ICly and OOCly, that the shadekin in question would kill anyone, and people reacted accordingly.

To put a gripe in place that has not been viewed that often: The player reaction.

More often than not, players who have the information intentionally refuse to share it, and there are too many people who have the mentality that they, and they alone, will participate in the event and that everyone else should not get involved and wait until the event is resolved, which results in everyone except the few people who are allowed in having a shitty impression of the event. The ideal event, in my opinion, is one that involves as many departments as logical, and as many people as possible, utilizing their respective expertise to work out a complex problem with multiple people, but there are too many people who just solo rush into the event, and actively turns away help even when it may be relevant and deliberately go out of their way to keep as many people out of the event as possible. We had a shuttle event a few days ago where a piece of the pool got teleported into space, it looked like it would have been logical to have science take a look, but security cordoned off the crash site and threatened to arrest anyone who was outside until the end of the shift. We also had the recent ambassador visitation event where security formed a cordon around the VIP which prevented the VIP from interacting with anyone outside of security. Usually the only time I see security involve other departments is when they have no other option and/or are ordered to by centcomm, and even then, it will be under Security's terms with the barest minimum of involvement from that other department.

In many cases, after the event happens, the one or two people that actually participated in it tend to not be interested in sharing knowledge of what they learned to general tether crew. They might fax a report to Centcomm, but... other than that, silence.

It sounds like a complaint against security, but that is mainly because security is the only department who can legally throw its weight around the tether and, to put it harshly, bully the other departments with threats of arrest. Especially with no Colony Director to reign them in, which, most events there is no colony director.

If anything, I feel the exploration events are handled better, because while they tend to focus on the exploration team, exploration I find tends to be a lot more eager to accept outside help and assistance, probably because of the SOP, so anyone who wants to get involved in an exploration event can, and anyone who does not want to get involved, can just stay on the Tether and not get involved. We had an expedition event earlier this morning which was crafted up by Ace which consisted of an RD, Pathfinder, HoS, Security Guard, Journalist, and Explorer, and it went well.

I know this is not strictly shadekin specific, but shadekin events often do suffer from this as well. The previous (before the red-eyes) major shadekin event, it seems like the admins anticipated the above happening and distracted security with combat against faceless while having a portal in another part of the station that led to the Dark, that eventually a cargo technician and civilian, and then later, some explorers found and then investigated with the Overseer's permission. Maybe having an overseer that round helped, as well, since an Overseer is more likely to look at various departments' strengths in dealing with problems and using those strengths accordingly.
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Re: Shadekin Events! What do you like? What don't you like?

Postby Heroman3003 » Mon Jul 02, 2018 9:43 pm

To clarify, I believe I need to add an addendum. Yes, I think shadekin are cool... but extremely misused.

Main people who hold actual interest in kin, main populace supportive of those majorly consists of A) people that scened with them B) people interested in scening with them. Which clears up why shadekin seem swarmed by some people and shunned away by others. Not a lot of people I saw hold big, serious interest in them as a RP mystery to be slowly chewed through, which stems mostly from the 'trickster' behavior that they exhibit. Hard to take them seriously because of it. And when they are not taken seriously, the only remaining interest there is is scene-interest. It creates a big divide between people, people who want to get ate by/eat a fluffer and people who are annoyed at blackness and general messing around shadekin bring.

I will repeat. I like creature design, and concept of mystery, and all. But the way it is all executed makes shadekin look much better as not some big storyline, but a thing that occasionally pops up just to scene with a person or two away from public attention. Because, even if I like them, they ARE annoying as every hell possible, and that's by design. Not speaking of how ICly those are the perfect example of "they could fucking destroy everything if they wanted, those things are dangerous, even if its fun and messing around right now", only reinforced by red-eyes.

Public places being flooded by shadekin lovers chasing out anyone without darksight trying to just hang out in public place. Somebody bringing a kin to a workplace, disabling all lights and getting in the way of coworker who was there and working away from kin. Those are examples of divide caused by split interest. And kin having barely anything interesting about them in terms of general non-scene RP, because they are overly silly; with a storyline that would make more sense if they were less trickstery and OP and more serious and focused; only reinforces that.
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Re: Shadekin Events! What do you like? What don't you like?

Postby James Holder » Tue Jul 03, 2018 12:21 am

I think it would be nice to scene with/as shadekin, and I think they're interesting as long as they aren't getting in the way or making the entire station dark. In the earlier shadekin events, they were fairly elusive and there was actually a problem with people hunting them down to crowd around them and turnip, rather than the shadekin getting in the way. If they're going around snatching all the lights and being pests, that's just going to make them annoying. You'd expect the crew to treat them like solargrubs, hunt them with prejudice.

I'm disappointed in what I'm hearing about the red-eyed shadekin too. Apparently, it ate the engine and just murderboned Tempest. I was hoping the aggressive shadekin variety would aggressively explore and investigate the crew, not aggressively kill people for no apparent reason. Finally, ending the event with a deus ex machina sounds like the worst way you could end anything, next to blowing up the entire station.
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