The End of Antag Scaling

[wonderfulnewworld]

Short description

"It was a long journey, but now it is time."

On Starlight, merge with #4958. Our downstreams are free to not take this PR, since it's pretty catered for SL.

Implements the new features from the Antag Selection rewrite and tweaks Antag Scaling.

Why we need to add this

Six months ago, I made this pr, addressing an oversight in Wizden's antag scaling; namely, that it was hard capped to stop scaling at 80 players, matching their servers' player cap.

In the half year since, a lot of things have happened. I've adjusted the scaling, tweaked secret, added new game presets, and generally did my best to observe how my changes impacted Starlight. I saw Security mains get fatigued and quit the server, I saw Alpha's culture fundamentally change, and I bore witness to many, many arguments over antag scaling. I myself was harassed to the point I considered quitting SS14 all together. The weight and stress of all of this is debilitating at times.

Say what you will about Alpha being conversational, situational, MRP, LRP, NRP, PVP. Say what you will about Starlight changing.

At the end of the day, no matter what you do, you'll always make someone upset. You'll have the players who desperately want this game to be non-stop action, but you'll also have the players who will diametrically oppose anything that gets in the way of their roleplay.

And personally, I don't think catering to either of those is healthy for the server. We've seen the extremes of both, with 30 antags rolling sometimes and turning the station into their playground, but also, on the flip side, when antags rolled in such small numbers that Security outnumbered all of them and they were too scared to take any actions at all, in turn leading to people getting bored and resorting to... less than savory things. Neither side is right, and both have some ground they need to give, so that they can at the very least find peace somewhere in the middle.

Neither side will ever find peace unless they agree to compromise.

This is my attempt at finding that compromise. I only ask that people remain respectful and collected in their discussions of it.

Please.

Controversial changes

This section's mainly here to address the biggest points of contention with this PR.

Mining Specialists

Vampires are pretty cut and dry for them; they die in space. It's quite possibly the worst pairing you can get.

Changeling, on the other hand, is a bit more nuanced. Yes, you can "technically" play Changeling well as a Mining Specialist, but in reality, one of three things will happen.

• You will never go mining. It's very risky, being all the way out there without a food source; and in doing so, you effectively starve the station of 1 of the 3 miners. Miners of other antags don't have this problem to this extent; Traitors, Thieves, and SELF can use it to stash stuff, Revs and Cultists can set up an off station base, Devils can at the very least offer deals to the other miners, and Initial Infecteds can harvest corpses there from the mobs, to infect later. Changelings can do none of these things.
• You will kill the rest of Mining, and will bring their bodies back. At this point, the damage is done, as you've effectively starved the station of resources for half an hour, if not more.
• You will kill the rest of Mining, and will not bring their bodies back. This is a rulebreak, but one that's incredibly easy for newer players to do. It's essentially a trap for new player Changelings who don't know they can't hide bodies, as they're likely to come off of it with a note. On top of this, it starves the station more permanently, which is even worse than the prior case.

Roboticists

This one's pretty straight forward; nobody else on the station save for RD and the Captain has as unrestricted access to Cyborgs as Roboticists. Hell, they can even pre-FREEmag the chassis, although I don't think this actually "erases" the laws due to how borg chassis selection works. Still, they're unequivocally trusted by borgs, and are also in a position to just outright arm them with guns due to them having access to the exofab too. It's both too easy and too likely to lead to a debate on a cyborg being armed with guns.

Chemists

Easiest decision of the bunch; as a Chem II, you dump all the nitrogen out, dump anything useful out, then destroy the machines, and Zombies have essentially won unless they all get killed quickly.

The Devil

The second most controversial change in this PR, already toned down twice from what I originally wanted it to be. Now, Paramedic's whatever, it's a mostly harmless role that can't use guns, and is encouraged to talk to people. But that's not the one you care about, right?

The Head of Personnel sits in one room the entire shift. Their entire game is paperwork and talking to people. They're in charge of a department that realistically never calls on them. In that sense, they are simultaneously the most "free" member of Command, but also the most "restricted", in that they're always expected to be in one room. So why let HoP roll devil?

I think it makes for a very interesting roleplay opportunity. Someone who nobody will immediately question discussing paperwork with others, and somebody who the rest of Command doesn't really pay attention to. I think they're in a perfect spot to slip under the radar, and they're not encouraged to blow their cover either; the Devil just wants souls; they don't want to kill people, that's bad for business. In that sense, their goals align quite well with the station's...

As for IAA, they're mostly powerless. They already have very little to do on the average shift, and given their role as a Lawyer sometimes, I find them being able to roll Devil quite fitting. They can't force security to free a prisoner, security doesn't even have to listen to them, and since Devils can't use guns, having security access really doesn't offer them much either. Compare this to the Paramedic, who'll get security access anyways, and it's honestly even weaker than them. But they're also in a very unassuming spot to make a great deal with someone...

Closing thoughts

It took me four weeks to finish porting the Antag Selection rewrite from Wizden. It was a gargantuan task that I sacrificed so much of my time for, time that I could've used to apply for jobs, or enjoy my free time. But I chose to give it up, because I know that my antag changes all those months ago affected a lot of people, for better, or for worse.

And if my changes impacted you negatively, then, from the bottom of my heart, I sincerely apologize to you. I'm sorry I made the game worse in your eyes, I'm sorry I made it unplayable for you. I'm sorry I ruined your old home, and made all your friends leave. I'm sorry I ruined Starlight. I'm sorry, for everything.

I only want people to enjoy this game, as I have, and for it to be a place where others can relax after a long day of work or school. A place they can call, not necessarily a home, but, a place of respite.

I know a lot of people won't like these changes, but I urge you to look at it from the other side, and see if you can at least understand their way of thinking.

Don't insult and harass each other, please. Everyone just wants a game they can play and enjoy at the end of the day, and all of this bitterness and resentment only polarizes people further.

Please, be nice to each other.

Please.

Checks

• I do not require assistance to complete the PR.
• Before posting/requesting review of a PR, I have verified that the changes work.
• I have added screenshots/videos of the changes, or this PR does not change in-game mechanics.
• I affirm that my changes are licensed under the MIT License and grant permission for use in this repository under its conditions.

Changelog
🆑 wonderfulnewworld

• add: Added Dynamic and DynamicLP to Alpha and Beta's Secret pools respectively.
• add: The Head of Personnel, Internal Affairs Agents, and Paramedics can now roll Devil.
• add: Initial Infecteds now scale based on player ratio, meaning there should be less of them on Beta. Alpha is always above the number where 6 would spawn anyways, so this doesn't affect Alpha.
• remove: Mining Specialists can no longer roll Vampire and Changeling.
• remove: Roboticists can no longer roll SELF.
• remove: Chemists can no longer roll Initial Infected.
• tweak: Reduced scaling for Traitors, Vampires, Changelings, Thieves, SELF, Head Revolutionaries, and Devils by ~20% across the board, dependent on their specific gamemodes/subgamemodes.
• tweak: Reduced TraitorLess, Nukeops, Revolutionary, and Cosmic Cult chance in Dynamic, giving it to Vampire instead.
• tweak: Slightly increased VampireLess and SLChangelingLess's Dynamic Cost.
• tweak: Slightly lowered SLDynamic's variant budget threshold.
• tweak: Dynamic gets budget slighly less quickly.
• tweak: Slightly decreased Dynamic's maximum budget.
• tweak: Ninjas are slightly less common in Dynamic.
• tweak: Slightly decreased spawn chance of midrounds (both types) in dynamic.
• tweak: There can now be 1 more Devil.

[wonderfulnewworld]

time to resolve all this

[Conflee]

the final push to victory

[github-actions]

This pull request has conflicts, please resolve those before we can evaluate the pull request.

[coderabbitai]

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📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between 52eb3a6 and 6e2e21d.

📒 Files selected for processing (23)

• Resources/Prototypes/GameRules/roundstart.yml
• Resources/Prototypes/GameRules/subgamemodes.yml
• Resources/Prototypes/Roles/Antags/changeling.yml
• Resources/Prototypes/Roles/Antags/zombie.yml
• Resources/Prototypes/_Starlight/CosmicCult/antagonists.yml
• Resources/Prototypes/_Starlight/CosmicCult/game_presets.yml
• Resources/Prototypes/_Starlight/GameRules/Antags/abductor.yml
• Resources/Prototypes/_Starlight/GameRules/Antags/changeling.yml
• Resources/Prototypes/_Starlight/GameRules/Antags/devil.yml
• Resources/Prototypes/_Starlight/GameRules/Antags/self.yml
• Resources/Prototypes/_Starlight/GameRules/Antags/thief.yml
• Resources/Prototypes/_Starlight/GameRules/Antags/traitor.yml
• Resources/Prototypes/_Starlight/GameRules/Antags/vampire.yml
• Resources/Prototypes/_Starlight/GameRules/dynamic_rules.yml
• Resources/Prototypes/_Starlight/GameRules/roundstart.yml
• Resources/Prototypes/_Starlight/GameRules/secure_terminal.yml
• Resources/Prototypes/_Starlight/Roles/Antags/base.yml
• Resources/Prototypes/_Starlight/Roles/Antags/devil.yml
• Resources/Prototypes/_Starlight/Roles/Antags/self.yml
• Resources/Prototypes/_Starlight/Roles/Antags/slchangeling.yml
• Resources/Prototypes/_Starlight/Roles/Antags/vampire.yml
• Resources/Prototypes/game_presets.yml
• Resources/Prototypes/secret_weights.yml

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[walksanatora]

https://youtu.be/1kGmc1BOyPY?is=RbW_jn2uKiDWDtRt

[walksanatora]

Wait why donotmerge?

[wonderfulnewworld]

it was just there from the other one to show that they were supposed to be merged together, i added it myself

[wonderfulnewworld]

removed dnm