Something ive noticed...

[Swagile]

CL, Survivor, and Predator are (from what ive seen) supposed to be semi-antag to antag roles.

The best rounds ive seen are when the CL is allowed to dick around with the Sulaco, spread lies about the USMC (and it being believed), rallying men under his/her cause, and/or doing a fishy objective for Weyland that causes chaos on the Sulaco / Planet.

Then you have Survivor semi-antag squads where the survivors somehow manage to get guns and meet each other without dying / getting hugger combat'd, and survive till its time to get rescued... but they don't go for rescue. They pick off xenos, steal guns off of stray USMC patrols, and generally be giant dicks to both xenos and marines. Ive seen this once on Ice Colony and it was amazing to watch how it became a 3 way fight of Survivors vs USMC vs Xenos, with all three fighting each other to the death. Survivors obviously lost since it was only 3 of them but they managed to fight it till the bitter end.

Then we have Predators, which are seen as the "obvious" antagonist (but usually don't act that way). When they do, however, it is great fun such as when a Predator runs into a squad of Marines to capture one of his duel partners who ran away, or a pack of Predators lead by an Elder fighting off xenos and marines in equal combat before kamikazing themselves in a last blitz of glory.

However, this usually becomes a back lash towards admins (for allowing such behavior) and so these antagonist roles get rules to be tightened up on them more and more until there is less and less fun things they can do until they are regulated to a boring niche.

CL is just your paperwork jockey that no one takes seriously and usually everyone wants to kill when he's being annoying or perma brigging them forever and then ignoring them (ive literally had to calm my BO's from murdering and spacing the CL three times over since there's the illusion of murdering the CL having no consequences).

Survivor is just a metagame tool that gets ignored because xeno's usually rush past River and attack anyway, giving the marines all the metaknowledge they need hence making a Survivors usefullness at an all time 0. And since they can't be antag survivors anymore (due to whining to admins, I bet) they are regulated to being discount marines at best, suiciding or going cryo at worst since there is absolutely nothing to do anymore once you escaped the Planet.

Predators seem to have it worse. Their every step is tracked by dead people and the moment they slip up, people immediately smell blood and smash that ahelp button about the "meanie roodie poo predator". Its fine to be upset in deadchat when you get killed by a Pred (fuck you Apop for plasma rifling me then challenging me to a duel when I was in paincrit you scrub >:( ) but some people take it lengths above this and I imagine thats also why Predators have also had their rules and conduct tightened up even more.

TL;DR all the interesting and "fun" roles have been nerfed to hell by rules because "damned if you do, damned if you don't" mentality hit them like a speeding freight train.

[Jembo]

I love the idea of predators as an antag, but I agree they are really forced to play passive. Even shooting a plasma caster once to scare off a group of assaulting xenos can result in deadchat screaming for DISHONOR BAN BAN! I also found it extremely difficult to even get into a duel with a pred, as whenever I'd get lured off to do combat with it. I'd get ambushed by a hunter / runner double hugged and ran off before any fun could happen.

[slc97]

These roles haven't really been nerfed by rules. The problem is, these are high RP roles. We've started enforcing harder on them because people were just dicking around and using the roles to be an antag. The roles aren't about antagging, they're about RPing.

CL's even now constantly just fax us and say "Hi, CL checking in, what's my goals?" That's not how that shit works. As CL, if you want an objective, you need to create an RP reason for us to give you an objective. Bill Carson is one of the great examples of this. Carson is constantly creating RP and sending legit faxes and updates that warrant objectives.

Survivor is similar. Survivors need to be RPing. We've had so many times where survivors get rescued, brought to the Sulaco, and then are just like "yeah, fuck it. I'll blow up the engine." That's not how playing survivor works. You need to work to create an RP scenario in which an antag option is justified.

As for preds, of course we throttle them with rules. We've given you special equipment, special abilities, etc, because we trust you to uphold the standards set. Predators don't exist to antag, they exist to create roleplay. That's why the hunt is a hunt and not a slaughter. If your predator isn't up to the standards by the rules we set, then you don't deserve to be a predator.

[Kerek]

honestly marines piss me off when Im a survivor. They magically know my name and my nickname (so I scream ghosts and theyre in my head since they know personal stuff) and they don't roleplay with me unless I kidnap them and then ask if its okay with them over looc. And I take marine supplies if I can get away with it. It saddens me a little cause antag survivor was SO fun, but I haven't seen anyone bwoink me for doing semi-antag things. but I feel I do a good job of making ic reasons to distrust and fight the marines.

[Swagile]

These roles haven't really been nerfed by rules. The problem is, these are high RP roles. We've started enforcing harder on them because people were just dicking around and using the roles to be an antag. The roles aren't about antagging, they're about RPing.

CL's even now constantly just fax us and say "Hi, CL checking in, what's my goals?" That's not how that shit works. As CL, if you want an objective, you need to create an RP reason for us to give you an objective. Bill Carson is one of the great examples of this. Carson is constantly creating RP and sending legit faxes and updates that warrant objectives.

Survivor is similar. Survivors need to be RPing. We've had so many times where survivors get rescued, brought to the Sulaco, and then are just like "yeah, fuck it. I'll blow up the engine." That's not how playing survivor works. You need to work to create an RP scenario in which an antag option is justified.

As for preds, of course we throttle them with rules. We've given you special equipment, special abilities, etc, because we trust you to uphold the standards set. Predators don't exist to antag, they exist to create roleplay. That's why the hunt is a hunt and not a slaughter. If your predator isn't up to the standards by the rules we set, then you don't deserve to be a predator.

I dunno about Low Pop, but in High Pop this is nearly impossible to achieve as Marines (and those who help Marines such as Command) tend to not give a shit about roleplay and are more focused on winning the game (trust me im no better than those people either, im just saying it how it is).

No one cares about the CL because he has no gameplay relevance unless an Admin gives him gameplay relevance, hence everyone can safely ignore him unless he raises a stink; then he either gets brigged, or tased and abused by MP's then let go to repeat the cycle.

Survivors have no gameplay relevance in High Pop besides to give metaknowledge; something that, again, does not matter since Xenos get bored and attack past the River which gives the marines all the metaknowledge they need without Command telling them that "the damn crazy survivor said you will get infected if you have a crab on your face". And no one gives a shit about Survivors outside of that most of the time; they just tell them to go shoo afterwards and they are stuck in a lurch of just running about with no real goal and no real power at all since most of the time people in Command forgets to give them ID's.

Predators have an actual gameplay relevance of thinning down either side, but they are restricted to being Heavy RP... which people don't care about most of the time because High RP in High Pop is restricted to "that spooky rasta man in the darkness making roar noises and not actually doing shit all" or "that rasta man making roaring noises then luring our marines into the darkness to die to a hunter, so no one else ever bothers with them anyway".

[Renomaki]

When it comes to the CL, I honestly prefer that they keep the antag to the minimum. Marines already get salty enough as is fighting xenomorphs as is, and we all know how people get upset when hostile ERTs arrive and fuck up already battered down marines. Having a CL killing command staff and blowing up vital components is just going to make things even saltier. Even moreso, why would Weyland send a CL with the marines if they don't want them to be there in the first place? If Weyland wanted to kill off the marines, they would deploy PMC squads, not a businessman who relays information back and forth and nags command to do the job they were requested to do.

As for survivors, as much fun as it can be to RP with them, it works better with OTHER survivors, as well as the CL or other non-combat roles. Trying to RP with marines is hard because so much chatter is happening in your radio that it is hard to really focus on them, as well as keep with your squad. This is even WORSE when you are an SL and a survivor tries to talk to you. If you are a survivor and you try to RP with me as an SL, I'm sorry if I appear to be brushing you off, but that is because I have to juggle a squad of manbabies while command is babbling into my ear about status reports and updates. It is difficult to juggle all those things and still RP with a survivor, moreso if it is the moment marines land and you bump into us while we are just entering Nexus, where a tsunami of sweaty marines is pouring on in and it gets crazy in there.

And Predators? The problem with RPing with them is the fact that marines (and xenos) are just as limited in their interactions as preds are towards them. Xenos are normally quite hostile to preds due to the threat they pose to the hive, no matter if they are an active threat to them or not, and marines are not supposed to have any idea who they are in the first place. It is always kinda odd how aliens kinda make these passive truces with predators in game, and how sometimes you have marines that are much too eager to "Duel" with them, despite the fact that they have no idea who the hell they are, let alone understand their garbled english and culture. When I come across a predator, my reactions varies, but I never go out of my way to do OOC things like challenge them to duels or hunt them down for their tech. Really, a predator to me ICly is one of two things: Either a mysterious local native of sorts if they are passive towards marines, or a space pirate if they turn out to be hostile, and thus treated as such. Again, the only people that know what a predator even is happens to be Weyland, due to them studying their ruins and temples.

[ExGame]

I kinda wanted there to be a random chance for Dutchs Dozen to be sent during Predator rounds who have to focus on hunting Predators instead of helping Marines and Xenos are just a side-quest which you can freely kill when they attack you.

[Katsukai]

I kinda wanted there to be a random chance for Dutchs Dozen to be sent during Predator rounds who have to focus on hunting Predators instead of helping Marines and Xenos are just a side-quest which you can freely kill when they attack you.

Would atleast help the preds stop disturbing the round for the marines.

[MrJJJ]

Just gonna hop on in here

Has anyone actually seen a survivor taking out both the entire hive and marine force with a pump shotgun yet?

I await for that day.

But yeah, all those 3 roles aren't exactly rare to me, but when i see them...nothing really changes, its usually the same thing.