"How to make PVP more fun"

[Absolutely-Steph]

Due to my PVP rounds this week, and Qai's rule experiment on them, we have seen many of the problems associated with pvp in action.
Though it is currently unmaintained, it's core gameplay works nearly flawlessly, some minor bugs aside.
BUT IT AIN'T THAT FUN, NOR IS IT VERY FAIR.

Let's face it, PVP ain't fair, running a tournament with it will result in one side stomping the other in most cases, that's not good.

Here are some core lessons we learned:

• Boarding is good, though sabotage isn't.
• Players prefer a direct fight between the two vessels, without meddling NPCs.
• The Syndicate crew needs some way to replenish, or there is a need for some way to balance teams.

ALL OF THESE STEPS ARE FIXABLE BY ADMIN INTERVENTION, RENDERING PVP A FULLY FUNCTIONAL GAMEMODE.
AS AN ADMIN, I REALLY WOULD LIKE IT IF I DIDNT HAVE TO BABYSIT THE GAME ALONGSIDE THE PLAYERS.

Here is how admins are fixing these issues in-round:

• We tell people about to sabotage the other ship that it aint cool, and they most often agree and stop.
• We delete the lighthouse on the syndicate ship, sacrificing win-by-points-gameplay for direct fights.
• We tell people to ahelp so that we can manually place them into the round.

Here is how to provisionally fix these problems with next to no effort(mainly mapping):

• add syndicate crew sleepers to the PVP ships, akin to the boarding ships.
• HAVE AN ADMIN PRESENT.
• Remove the Lighthouse from the syndie ship.

Here is how to fix these problems with more effort, turning PVP into a gamemode that should be okay to put in normal rotation.

• Implement a way for crew to spawn on both ships/respawn on both ships. FTL13 seems to have had a system for that where you could buy ghosted crewmembers.
• Fix bugs(the canopy bug should take priority imo)
• refactor the lighthouse, give both ships one, have it claim the system if clear of hostiles and after a short delay(1-2min), awarding 100 points.
• Have a new overmap gamemode that is chosen only for PVP, where the only mission is to destroy the hammurabi or win with 1k points.
• Turn off all NPC fleet spawns during PVP.
• Maybe, with the new Json map loading, have a symmetrical brawling ftl map specifically for PVP.

RIGHT NOW, PVP WORKS PRETTY WELL AS LONG AS YOU HAVE ADMINS BABYSITTING, DON'T BE SHY TO ENABLE PVP WHEN POP ALLOWS.

[Bokkiewokkie]

When you code it.
The few issues you mentioned are fairly trivial and I feel like they can all be resolved by any rookie coder with some determination. On top of this I think it's important to mention that PvP as a game mode is currently unsupported for a variety of reasons (a few of which were mentioned here) and that general development will not focus on PvP at all right now or in the immediate future because of this.

[Absolutely-Steph]

yup, as i said, this is more of an "if you wanna fix it someday, here is what we noticed" thing. I'm not really interested in fixing this right now, though it sounds like a fun little project.

[IndusRobot]

PVP really does not have to "be fair". NT and Syndicate have two separate play styles with their own set of pros and cons. NT gets superior crew capacity with more opportunity for department ingenuity, but their personal armaments aren't as strong. Syndicate have reduced crew numbers and superior firepower in every aspect.

Yet we still see both sides routinely win and lose. For any number of reasons. Problems with sabotage? Go put some more sec officers or syndies on top of the turrets and engines. Bridge likely to get bombed? Have engineers or extra supplies, or even an extra set of consoles on hand. Distribute more guns to the crew. Rely on each other. Communicate with each other. Work together to solve problems.

This is literally how antags work, the original nature of SS13 gamemodes, but on a fleet wide scale now. Sometimes you just lose.

[IndusRobot]

Frankly by the op's comment, we should be removing uplinks, genomes and wizard spells for the same reason. Putting everyone on equal fighting grounds. Is that more fun?

[Absolutely-Steph]

Obviously our definitions of "fair" are mismatched, im not saying to make them the same.
fair does not have to be equal, there can be fair asymmetry.
Asymmetry is good, our asymmetry(with one party having a clear advantage) is terrible.
Players very clearly liked the "equalised" PVP experiment more, if you have any ideas on how to do asymmetry good(without involving NPCs maybe?) you are free to share them.
Until then, I will stay with what the players liked more, which isn't necessarily "less asymmetry", but more of an "less of THIS asymmetry".

[thenewbio]

This crazy tagging should stop