The issues with "maining"

[spookydonut]

if everyone readies up as a marine there can be no benos so you win by default

The round will start with 0 marines and 1 xeno player but will refuse to start with 1 marine and 0 xenos.

Xeno bias confirmed.

[Rohesie]

This is basic utilitarianism, one (support) guy has to suffer so that ten (frontline) people can be happy, or else it'll just be eleven (frontline) unhappy guys. But I don't think the solution to this is an internal feeling of guilt or external pressure, it's always better to set up positive incentives instead. IRL generally there's supply and demand in these kinds of things. If there's a job that's not fun to do, it'll get less applicants, so the guy wanting to hire people has to do something else to make it more desirable, pay more, or advertise it to make people want it, or fund university programs for it to get people skilled in it or something. It's why there's such a massive disparity in pay between game devs and COBOL consultants, both of these jobs are programming, but one of them is oversaturated by people who want to do it and the other has to resort to exorbitant money to its employees to stop them from leaving. In the end, one group of people gets to have exciting "fun" work on games, while the other group gets fairly boring work but comes home with massive wads of cash, and (hopefully) both groups are "equally happy" as a result. Obviously real life is much more complicated and the unchecked free market does stupid shit like global warming and lootboxes, but supply and demand generally evens things out.

The same applies to CM roles. Obviously there's no in-game currency that pays shitty jobs more, although there is something similar if you think of combat as a desirable thing: boots get the most combat, but have the shittiest gear and skills. NCOs don't face as much combat, but they get fancier toys. Shipside roles have the least combat, but the fanciest gear and skills. Then you have other "fun" things like RP, chain of command, "impact on the round" that the different roles have a different balance of. Most importantly, I think the point needs to be made that the devs are all completely in control of all this. If there's genuinely not enough people joining support roles and it's adversely impacting people having fun, they can just make the support role more fun by tweaking it. There's really no point "taking one for the team" and doing something you don't want to do, if anything this might actually be a bad decision because the devs won't be sure that the role is unfun if there's people who keep playing it anyway.

The flaw in this logic is that the same role has different values for different people. I have never played spec nor am yet interested in it, and yet it's the most sought-after role. I love support roles, and frequently play in less popular jobs. Not because I'm good or more altruist than others, but because I get a different kick. I enjoy doing support.

If the problem is that everyone wants spec, then there's no problem. Having a good thing sought after and decided merely by RNG ain't an issue.

If it's that nobody wants to play certain roles, then please point me which. I see many doctor, engineer, cargo, police and command main players around. Think they are playing something they don't want to? As someone who has played all of them quite a lot I'm sure it's not the case.

To a job that nobody wants to play the right approach is to propose changes to make it more enjoyable, but first try to understand what their mains enjoy in them. Your action x fancy toys/skills is a simplistic view that represents your own preferences. Some people do NOT want action nor care much about gear or skills. Could be because they want to have more RP, because they want to play until the end with lesser chances of dying, because they simply enjoyed one of the many mini-games CM (and SS13) is fragmented in, because they like for their actions to have a higher impact in the game progress, because they enjoy enabling others more than benefiting themselves, because they want a job that will be less demanding, because they have a a bad connection or are otherwise less robust, or for any other reason.

The wrong approach is to turn it into a moral question in where the blame lays on people not being decent enough and sacrificing themselves towards others. I dread such approach.

[Challenger]

Yeah, that's something I mentioned further below, you have different groups of people playing the game. Some want shooting, some want to give out nonsensical orders, others want X Y Z. Changes to the game will often increase one of these groups' satisfaction at the expense of others, but usually the group affected adversely is either not playing the game anyway or "shouldn't" be, like when roles are made to fit MRP more which is the desired audience of the server, at the expense of people who just want this to be shit and banana peels simulator. But yeah, people who play CL and people who play marine are doing it for different reasons and are usually different people as you said. I thought I already mentioned it anyway:

Then you have other "fun" things like RP, chain of command, "impact on the round" that the different roles have a different balance of.

Regardless, you're also saying that enhancing jobs no one wants requires the input of its current mains. I think that's only one approach, to increase what makes it more appealing to its current mains so that a larger pool of people who have similar but more muted preferences join it. You could alternately change the target audience of the role entirely, kicking out the current mains and hoping to replace them with a larger pool of people who have different preferences. Or even just axe the role and diffuse its responsibilities into other roles. In the end, the roles aren't set in stone and it's just a game, and it all comes down to how the devs decide to optimize "fun", where hopefully they're trying to make the game appealing for as many people as possible while maintaining their desired vision. It's difficult to quantify this result, but if the server population keeps growing without losing old players then that would generally be an indication that more wants are being met, but you'd probably also want to confirm this with experience sampling polling of the server population or something.

[Renomaki]

Discussion is more about maining a role instead of a squad. Like playing only specialist.

Too be honest, it still DOES involve squads to a degree. Although I suppose it isn't as big a focus.

[caleeb101]

I love Bravo/Alpha because I do like newer players TO AN EXTENT. I'm not saying I love to have Baldie McBalderus as the only person to cover my ass when a Runner pounces me.

In specific, the new player I am referring to are the people who have played SS13 and maybe are experienced on another server and then come to CM. The reason is they have a fresh perspective on the game and are usually more focused on the RP side of things because.. well CM is arguably (most definitely) the biggest SS13 server with to a certain degree, the lowest RP expectations. Compared to other servers at least.

Playing with friends is fine. Just be aware that while playing with friends all the time, you're denying yourself the chance to build a bond with any other player.