Why aren't CLs whitelist only?

[Tharinoma]

I think the main problem is it's the CL that tries to create interaction with command (marines in general) when it should be the other way around.
Command should be the one going to the CL to obtain something. Not something important enough that CLs can hold the round hostage, but enough that refusing his demands hurts the operation in a significant way.

The CL would have his list of randomly generated objectives (capture a xeno, some eggs, reach a research tier, find an object, keep part of the colony undamaged, keep someone alive...), plus a fixed objective forcing them to work towards the operation's success (Wey-Yu wants their colony back).
And he would have some bonuses he can use as leverage to force command to do his bidding (more defcon, bigger guns, repair a squad prep's APC, REQ points, more detailed map...).

The trick would be to balance it so marines don't need the CL to win, but really want his help anyway. Spread the tasks and bonuses over the round, and there will be permanent interaction between the CL and command/marines as both sides negotiate to get what they want.

If no CL, the marines get stuff for free or something.

Does require heavy coding though.

[Dreven]

Hard disagree

The CL is a fun fluff role that fun players can do their own engaging roleplays and gimmicks with, giving the CL mechanical power would ruin one of the few player-driven creative roles in the game. Give them more toys to play with and more RP hooks, like different drugs, blackmarket stuff or unique aesthetic items they can do stuff with. We really don't need another whitelist and the elitist gatekeeping that comes with it

People who say the CL can only have fun if the staff reply to their faxes and spawn them stuff are just boring, plenty of CL's have fun and never touch the fax machine, some do and thats cool too. But CL's who just beg for things over and over in faxes then complain they had nothing to do are cringe to say the least

[SilentMountain]

Hard disagree

The CL is a fun fluff role that fun players can do their own engaging roleplays and gimmicks with, giving the CL mechanical power would ruin one of the few player-driven creative roles in the game. Give them more toys to play with and more RP hooks, like different drugs, blackmarket stuff or unique aesthetic items they can do stuff with. We really don't need another whitelist and the elitist gatekeeping that comes with it

People who say the CL can only have fun if the staff reply to their faxes and spawn them stuff are just boring, plenty of CL's have fun and never touch the fax machine, some do and thats cool too. But CL's who just beg for things over and over in faxes then complain they had nothing to do are cringe to say the least

Not everyone wants to play CL as Cargonia+, Dreven.

[CABAL]

You can debate your ass all day about pros and cons and you might even somehow came to 100% agreedment that CL should be whitelisted, but over they years staff clearly felt how whitelists work on their own skin, how much pain in the ass it is etc, so they won't ever add another one.

The only thing that keeps other whitelists is the same thing that keeps tank in game. Its because code and sprite monkeys who did the work on them would be very sad that its removed.

[lanche]

Not everyone wants to play CL as Cargonia+, Dreven.

Yeah, that's literally the point he's making though

Milking one identical RP formula and expecting entertainment to pop out of it won't work unless you play CL maybe once every decade. Staff is fed up with 1:1 copied faxes every round and so are the players that expect an answer to ''Today I'm here with the 2nd Battalion, requesting orders, send PMC assistance''

Dreven's just proposing player-driven roleplay, to what extent is out of the question but if you're against the idea itself, you're probably not going to have a good time playing a MRP server?

Hence, whitelisting. If you have a strict code like preds or synths, you don't self-antag.

this would literally turn the role into a cesspit of irrelevant wannabe ''roleplayers'' that see roleplay as nothing more than just a list of rules they have to follow, not to mention it would make CM even more on-rails - which is what killed roleplay on the server in the first place. Whitelist would literally kill the role.

So why wouldn't the WL work? For the same reason every single pred player that put ''I want to improve the RP standard of the role'' quit playing predator after a month. For that exact reason.

[LynuahSororitas]

As someone who passed 2 out of the 3 WLs, it is a big pain when you look back and you start to see that with some adjusts WLs could be opened/made far more accessible.

As far as I know, Synth WL, for example, was set up by Feweh ages ago (I might be making that up). Anyway, I think we are that way due to the entitled elitism that some people end up having mixed with the unwillingness to make major changes in an already established system and the difficulty, bureaucracy, and drama to make them.

Making more roles go through all these problems just for the sake wouldn't be cool. This is a free unknown game on an unknown platform, gatekeeping is already something big, CO and Synth alike could be made open roles with the right changes and rules settled, I would go as far to say that the only reason CO is currently a WL role is simply because of the BE tool. MPs have an equal level of responsibility for ''''''RP'''''' and commitment as a CO and are constantly watched for mistakes, yet they do not have a specific WL to go for them.

Nobody should be held back from playing something due to arbitrary ancient decisions, anyone can argue that any role needs a WL due to any circumstance but that is not really the case.

[SilentMountain]

Dreven's just proposing player-driven roleplay, to what extent is out of the question but if you're against the idea itself, you're probably not going to have a good time playing a MRP server?



this would literally turn the role into a cesspit of irrelevant wannabe ''roleplayers'' that see roleplay as nothing more than just a list of rules they have to follow, not to mention it would make CM even more on-rails - which is what killed roleplay on the server in the first place. Whitelist would literally kill the role.

As much as TDMers hate it, CL is a roleplay only role, and it's the only one there is. CL doesn't need to enter an arms race with MPs faster, what the role needs is more situations to roleplay about. For example, there's some maps with server racks, perhaps using a multi tool on the server rack would produce a Hard Drive which the CL can recover for some kind of reward from the company, some Maps have laboratories, maybe an embryo in a jar could be spawned in there that the CL would again have to get somehow. These are just general ideas but the point is that you don't fix the CL role by just turning it into the Clown from regular SS13 because it already is the mime but shittier.

[lanche]

As much as TDMers hate it, CL is a roleplay only role, and it's the only one there is. CL doesn't need to enter an arms race with MPs faster, what the role needs is more situations to roleplay about. For example, there's some maps with server racks, perhaps using a multi tool on the server rack would produce a Hard Drive which the CL can recover for some kind of reward from the company, some Maps have laboratories, maybe an embryo in a jar could be spawned in there that the CL would again have to get somehow. These are just general ideas but the point is that you don't fix the CL role by just turning it into the Clown from regular SS13 because it already is the mime but shittier.

ok I don't know if you actually read what I wrote but just to remind you, if you couldn't connect the dots - I really like roleplay, in fact, that was what I was primarily known for back in 2017-19 until it got stomped to the ground by staff rulings, changes to the round flow and some dev changes such as removing half of the SS13 mechanics/dumbing down engineering to Cade & APC only etc.

I won't dig deep into your paragraph of indirectly crucifying dreven because you have a grudge against his style of roleplay or something but I couldn't care less, I am promoting the idea, not the one player and his exploits linked to it - If there were more examples of actually memorable CL players, I'd put them here but there simply aren't.

But in all seriousness, you genuinely think that collecting X and Y would make the role fun? Being told to go grab a jar of jizz from ETA labs just to get rewarded verbally by a fax or get awarded an irrelevant item that has no purpose whatsoever and won't influence the round in any way? Why not play IO instead, chances are you'll get more RP out of it by talking to the other IO than pretending to be some sort of a contractor that's deploying with the marines, collecting junk - and hey, you're also helping the so called 'tdmers' aint that the perfect compromise?

just look at the shipside antag role and tell me it ain't a joke lol

[Fewher]

Yeah, that's literally the point he's making though

Milking one identical RP formula and expecting entertainment to pop out of it won't work unless you play CL maybe once every decade. Staff is fed up with 1:1 copied faxes every round and so are the players that expect an answer to ''Today I'm here with the 2nd Battalion, requesting orders, send PMC assistance''

Dreven's just proposing player-driven roleplay, to what extent is out of the question but if you're against the idea itself, you're probably not going to have a good time playing a MRP server?

The state of the player-bases mentality of "what is roleplay" is essentially listening to Low-RPers claim what the standards should be under the guise of Higher-RP all while they've been banned, job-locked and shelved as Low-RP players themselves.

While Dreven is a role-player he's demonstrated numerous times that he a Low-RP player who will ignore lore, rules and other players roleplay at the expense of what he views as "Fun".
Which is essentially using RP as a guise to do stupid and irrelevant shit because you think it's fun and promotes your narrative of RP. Having Dreven state what Roleplay should be is like an alcoholic telling everyone at an AA Meeting it's ok to a have a few drinks daily cause it'll improve you addiction.

this would literally turn the role into a cesspit of irrelevant wannabe ''roleplayers'' that see roleplay as nothing more than just a list of rules they have to follow, not to mention it would make CM even more on-rails - which is what killed roleplay on the server in the first place. Whitelist would literally kill the role.

CM was "On-rails" with rules to follow for a solid 7years and was the number one server with constant growth maintaining Medium RP standards. RP "died" due to a shift in development, RP Enforcement and the playerbases gradual shift to Low/No-RP in the last 3 years.

Your statement is just factually false.

But in all seriousness, you genuinely think that collecting X and Y would make the role fun? Being told to go grab a jar of jizz from ETA labs just to get rewarded verbally by a fax or get awarded an irrelevant item that has no purpose whatsoever and won't influence the round in any way? Why not play IO instead, chances are you'll get more RP out of it by talking to the other IO than pretending to be some sort of a contractor that's deploying with the marines, collecting junk - and hey, you're also helping the so called 'tdmers' aint that the perfect compromise?

Yes it absolutely would.

Adding Lore friendly mechanics to a role is exactly how you improve gameplay and role relevance. Adding a job to the CL would vastly improve it's goal on the ship and give weaker players a position to roleplay with. Right now CL's rely on basically good strong role-players to be relevant. Adding simple retrieval objectives to the CL would make them interact more with the marines and push a narrative that they could use using roleplay.

CL's should not have to rely on staff responding to them to have something to do. Setting up a basically feedback loop or a reward system for playing the job would vastly improve it for players who struggle with roleplay.

Edit: To clarify my position I'm not in favor of whitelisting CL unless it became more important or round impacting.

[Fewher]

As someone who passed 2 out of the 3 WLs, it is a big pain when you look back and you start to see that with some adjusts WLs could be opened/made far more accessible.

As far as I know, Synth WL, for example, was set up by Feweh ages ago (I might be making that up). Anyway, I think we are that way due to the entitled elitism that some people end up having mixed with the unwillingness to make major changes in an already established system and the difficulty, bureaucracy, and drama to make them.

Making more roles go through all these problems just for the sake wouldn't be cool. This is a free unknown game on an unknown platform, gatekeeping is already something big, CO and Synth alike could be made open roles with the right changes and rules settled, I would go as far to say that the only reason CO is currently a WL role is simply because of the BE tool. MPs have an equal level of responsibility for ''''''RP'''''' and commitment as a CO and are constantly watched for mistakes, yet they do not have a specific WL to go for them.

Nobody should be held back from playing something due to arbitrary ancient decisions, anyone can argue that any role needs a WL due to any circumstance but that is not really the case.

So I generally agree that gate-keeping is bad in most games, especially when it completely blocks someone from progressing.
However I believe that in RP oriented games whitelisting/locks are essential in order to maintain a balance and standards.

This is amplified in a game like CM where a single role (Predator) can have such a large impact of every other players game. The argument would then boil down to locking the role to players more experienced (hours etc) which would annoy players even more. So the best gate-keep system for this scenario is a Whitelist which doesn't encourage players with the most hours, but rather the player with the most experience, understanding and playstyle to fit these roles.

I also believe that whitelist like Synthetics function as a great "Carrot on a Stick" method. Players who may be weak RPers who want to achieve these roles have something to work towards and improve themselves in-game with. As someone who did all the whitelisting years ago I took particular notice in players who started out as terrible roleplayers and months down the line would reapply as strong roleplayers, good players and great community members.

In almost any situation whitelists or applications generally bring out the best in a playerbase. Players in these roles often set an example for others to follow and it helps to maintain or improve standards of the game and I think if you didnt have a whitelist on CM you'd have the reverse affect.

This is just my personal experience from years ago and honestly only works if those whitelisting are qualified to do so. Unfortunately for a long time, the council system seemed to be rotting and spoiled from a few select council members which essentially degraded the whole original intention of the whitelisting.