[MRP] What do you think of the assistant cap?

Please give a slightly more detailed answer here about why you do/do not like the assistant cap or why you do not care about it.

Ckeys are anonymous unless you are logged in as an admin.

Text responses are completely unfiltered.

Player: its a mixed bag, on the one hand less assistants = more other roles, but on theother when you hit the large large pops it doesnt work
Player: It feels like it just forces everyone playing to have some kind of responsibility, which means anyone who might not be able to play for a long time or just wants to chill and not do much just can't really play if there's already 5 assistants.
Player: Hello, I love the assistant cap because it: 1. Balance the gameplay so everyone fills the role ensuring a fun gameplay 2. The assistant having a cap means there are less player that are annoyin. Since assistant have no priorities they are free to do anything and most often than not they use it for trolling 3. Honk Honk Gabby,
Player: I do not like the assistant cap... To be clear, I don't like the assistant cap because it does not allow me to hop on ss13 and pick a low stress, no-responsibilities role, because every other job has roles and responsibilities. A chef must cook, a janitor must clean, a cargo technician must run cargo. But during times where you're not able to play extended rounds, or simply don't wish to have any roles and responsibilities, you want to play the assistant.
Player: I think it could be a good thing as long admins are strict on people taking jobs just to fuck off
Player: Prevents graytide, so i guess it's fine, but for highpop hours or rounds where you don't have any jobs you like available it's not so great
Player: It does not fix the issue, and people really enjoy playing their assistant
Player: Sometimes I just wanna do a little assisting
Player: some people take jobs others want and do not do them, very sad, many such cases.
Player: Assistant is the only role I regularly play. Adding a cap, especially on this low, is effectively just telling me and other likeminded players to sit and spin. I heavily advocate for its immediate removal.
Player: no
Player: The assistant cap just promotes laziness within job positions, punishes those wishing to do gimmicks that involve heavy RP outside of department work, and punishes new players. I specifically believe that the worst aspect is the punishing of RP: there are so many unique assistant gimmicks theres an entire page of them on the assistant page on the wiki.
Player: Having all the jobs get filled out on high pop instead of 20 assitants running around looking to valid hunt and grief sec is great. Would love to keep it. Sadly it seems to be super widely hated despite being objectively good for the server. So I wont really complain if it gets removed.
Player: I get the idea the assistant cap is going for, but I think it wasn't the right option. The assistants were really bad and the cap somewhat fixed that. But now there's less people who have the free time of assistant to interact with longer gimmicks without hurting a department in the process. With the cap there is also no job to just chill out, work on a project without role responsibilities, or go with the flow (which you can do on any job but more so with assistant). And now with the cap on assistants I can't play assistant how I like. Which was filling in where it was needed and helping a department. At that point I might as well just chose a role with that department and late join with harder ability to switch to the circumstances of the round. Overall, I think the assistant cap has done more harm than good. It limits players on choices, hurts long gimmicks, and hurts the ability to actually assist without feeling like you're taking a popular limited role. (Though seeing assistants out match actual filled departments was rough.)
Player: Its stupid because we're punishing the players that play assistant to chill because some fuckheads ruin everyone's day I dont really think I need to say more
Player: It's bad. It's really bad. Assistant has always been the bonafide "No responsibility" role. Sometimes someone needs that. I've had many rounds where I perhaps don't want to be in a role with responsibility, for example, if I've maybe been drinking alcohol and then pop in for a round, it'd make sense to not pick something that could mess with someone elses round. You could argue picking a service role but that still steals from someone who might actually want to play that role specifically. With Assistant, there's none of the responsibility and none of the removing someone elses choices to what they want to play. With this new cap, that's been reversed. People who were problematic while playing Assistant did not simply disappear, and just went to steal other job slots such as Engineer to do their bullshit. Comepletely infeffective and illogical change that has made gameplay worse, please just get it over with and remove it.
Player: I like it a lot, it feels like there's a tendency for important jobs to be abandoned entirely despite there being 8 assistants. Assistant also feels like it's more of a selfish role, it doesn't really provide any kind of job content that other roles tend to use to generate interactions. It doesn't generate opportunities for interaction unless players go out of their way to do so (and those that do tend to burn out of doing so very quickly) and yet they consume opportunities for interaction that someone else could have taken. My only real issue with it is when the job slots fill up and you're left with nonessential jobs that are built around playstyles you don't enjoy and you're forced to pick that role or not play. If I ever go to join the round and the only option is atmos technician then I'm just going to close the game and come back next round.
Player: I think having an assistant cap is not productive for MRP in general. My reasoning is that having vagabonds and vagrants about the station creates a more colourful environment and willing interactions. Clamping down on player freedom of choice will always result in a negative outcome. Secondly, assistants can also fill spots for people who wish to play but do not want to do their regular job preference and can be a break from regular routines. Taking this away may have people simply not play instead. Finally, forcing people into jobs that they may not wish to play will propagate a negative impact on said jobs. As these players do not want to play the jobs, but are forced into it, they will abandon the job to begin with and/or take slots from late joiners who wish to play said job. That said, assistant players may discover that they like playing a job after being forced into one, but as an assistant they could always ask a job holder to take them around the department if they are interested in the first place.
Player: The cap should be lower in my opinion, some rounds even have 18 assistants. However, it depends strongly on the ammount of players. If there are too many players, we need assistants, else the lobby gets full and people cannot join
Player: As many people have pointed out, Assistants are now flooding into roles and are not fulfilling them. Furthermore, what about people who main it? We have reason to believe that Jonathon Gupta quit Manuel over this.
Player: uhm. so basically. I like playing assistant. and sometimes. I can't. and that sucks. because assistant lets you just exist without pressure or focus on a gimmick. and thats awesome. if you cap assistant again I will be sad. dont do that. im tiding out. for real on god.
Player: It takes away a crucial job for when I want to relax and can't give my best. A job I often use when I'm tired after work or after a difficult command/sec shift and would like to hang out, or maybe join just for a short while, test some things, or see what the state of the shift is before I decide on which department to help. Having assistant is very important and I found myself not playing when it was at full cap. Please restore assistant and impose a total population cap to support the MRP experience
Player: While I appreciate efforts to playtest different settings/configurations I am not at all a fan of this change. Perhaps TG/Manuel could get more gimmick jobs like barber or musician or something but I don't think removing the unlimited assistant slots will fix any problems with the server or gameplay culture.
Player: With our relatively lower player count over the last few months, an assistant cap hasn't felt too restrictive. The only time it has directly affected me is when attempting to join during high pop rounds, where the only jobs left are unappealing to me personally to play (sec suc). Otherwise, the lower number of people joining as assistant feels like it is causing a higher volume of RP, if only because the people joining a round are those who actively want to play a job, rather than just explore the game
Player: I enjoy the assistant cap for its increased department usage but at the same time I find it limiting of roleplay opportunity when it comes to assistants forming anything related to gangs or other oddjobs that could bring strange dynamics to the round.
Player: assistants should NOT be captains... haha no just kidding, the cap sucks and solves nothing
Player: I feel like the assistant cap hurts more players than it helps. Sometimes you just wanna chill with little to no responsibilities, but if assistant is full, then you either close the game or observe.
Player: I dislike it because people play assistant because they do not want to or feel able to take responsibility in a job in the round. Without assistant cap, this forces would-be assistant players to either leave, or take a job slot and are far less likely to either be productive or enjoy their round. This is anecdotal, but since the cap has been implemented, I have found it harder to play the jobs I want and some of those picked for it do not really try or abandon the job because they wanted to play assistant. While too many assistants can be an issue, it is only so as a moderation issue and admins would be handling either way. Having assistants around is also important to server culture and the identity of SS13.
Player: I think it served the purpose of getting the assistant metagang off of Manuel and has in every other respect just been an annoying roadblock. Should have just banned them instead.
Player: Do not like it one bit, heavily restricts choice and forces someone to do a job they dont want to. people who want to do nothing and mess around will still do that but on a job thats actually important.
Player: There are a lot of great round start assistants and the halls feel empty without them. It does wonders to prevent the shitters from tiding but it hurts them. I think if the cap were to stay, a better alternative would be to cap roundstart assistants but allow any number of late join assistants. This would help prevent the antag rolling assistants who only exist to cause problems, datum or not.
Player: Good. We don't need 15+ assistants not providing much to the round.
Player: I not too keen on the assistant cap in its current implementation; I'm just confused more than anything. Non-assistant roles are sometimes taken in place of assistant in order to do other things. I, myself, would be lying if I said I hadn't signed up for curator just to walk around and talk to others after doing the bare minimum. Assistant is a great role to get your space legs and to learn other jobs when used responsibly, and its almost always at capacity. I can't help but worry about new players, as the availability of simple beginner jobs, like the janitor, have diminished. The reason for the cap is unclear to me, as the thread itself is really quite short. I wish more information was available, or centralized if it can be found elsewhere. Perhaps I'd be content if I knew more about the reasoning. We limit the amount of assistants, but for what? Above all, I really hope its not some indirect way of handling problem-players, blatant misuse of the role, or any of the holistic roleplay rules.
Player: Assistant cap was a good idea. Good way to limit shitters and focus on a working station.
Player: hallways are dead boring now, haven't seen a commissary shop gimmick in who knows how long. multiple RP heavy assistant players I know have stopped playing entirely because the slots are always filled. the NRP shitters this is meant to target have simply filtered into other departments to bring down the overall quality of work and play shoe stealin' jimmy as scientists or engineers instead. in short I don't like it very much please change.
Player: The assistant cap is somewhat beneficial to an extent as it makes more departments filled overall, but the current cap of 5 seems very restrictive. I'm concerned it may limit the amount of low-entry level jobs for newer players, and potentially force them into a job that they are not yet capable of doing, as they may have not yet learned the basics. Additionally, it limits the amount of slots for those simply wishing to do something silly or not overly job focused, as they would have to take another job's slot in order to do so.
Player: i do not like it if there is ever a situation where we got more that 50 people no one will be able to join the server now i know the hop has the power to add more people but lets face it when in all of your years have you ever seen a hop add more job slot anyways i do think you should remove the cap for it again
Player: For highpop, I believe it is important to give players the opportunity to still choose their desired occupation through the head of personnel, or for them to simply be able to rp during the round without much gameplay. This is simply my opinion, and I do not believe it would be well-applied practically.
Player: Hey buddy, don't do that it's a bad idea. god forbid this illness spreads on terry
Player: I do not like the assistant cap because the tide should have no limits. If the tide desires to be infinite then let it be
Player: I don't like it. It removes some of the quinessential slash tg slash station charm.
Player: I think that MRP coder ideas should be kept out of the game and GIT. I've never seen a good one
Player: ñ
Player: I think it's really stupid Now all assistants will just be power gamers and new players will be forced to Play other roles
Player: Seems a bit small but it does seem like a decent way to make people not just pick assistant and have an excuse to not help the station.
Player: Because it wont stop the shitter issue, it will just move it to other jobs. plus i like just playing assistant and chilling cant do that when it is now a competive job slot.
Player: I dont love the assistant cap because a. Many people love to play assistant for things other than greytiding b. People who were gonna tide anyway are just going to play engineer or some other role.
Player: Now the problem players simply take other jobs and tide with even more access than an assistant, meanwhile, quality assistant players don't get to play their role of choice.
Player: rounds got boring immediately after assistants livened up rounds when antagonists failed to, which happens most of the time now, the cap literally just served to make sure nothing ever happens, talking in the bar gets old multiple rounds in
Player: I strongly dislike the assistant cap. I would prefer a server population cap over an assistant cap. Capping assistants will not prevent people who want to tide from tiding, or people who want to shirk responsibility from shirking responsibilities. It will simply lead to these people taking up more valuable job slots either breaking into places to do their own thing or otherwise shirking the responsibilities of their given role because they did not want to play that role, but it was the least egregious of the ones available to them. Limiting server population and disabling the assistant cap is a better solution in my opinion.
Player: I don't believe that the issue is the job, it's the players making problems who gravitate towards that job. I want to late join and do random projects or bum around with friends.
Player: The assistant cap has really hurt assistant players who actually are good players. We don't really get any of the assistants who roleplay or hang out and about and cause minor shenanigans. Now it's only the hardcore assistant tiders who try and role for it. It really sucks not being to latejoin a round that has been ongoing to hang out and see what people have been doing. Sometimes you just want to see what has been going on in the round without being committed to a job. It feels bad taking a job you don't want to do just so you can hang out when latejoining. Many people I know don't even bother playing because of this.
Player: I forces people who like to play assistant into other jobslots that they do not wish to play making it so people who simply want to do their own thing are forced into a position where they HAVE to do a certain thing and with jobs like mining leading to them just dying extremely fast or ending up with every jobslot full and no slots open for latejoiners
Player: I feel that having a role where you have no responsibilities but at the same time no privileges is pertinent to keeping the sandbox nature of ss13 intact. If I have a gimmick in mind that may result in my death, I would not want to do it if I am forced to take a role that has a limited number of slots, or a responsibility that is expected of me like doctor or engineer. Assistant in my mind also exists to be an option for people who wish to have the freedom to hop in and out of departments to help, since a lot of assistant mains are familiar with every job role. I have spent rounds as assistant where I do this, and it is a nice option for me if I cannot allocate the time to an entire shift and therefore do not want to risk taking a role from someone.
Player: It's incredibly bad. Rounds feel lifeless and everyone's a jobbie. People (including me) just don't play when no other roles are open. Security is bashing their heads open waiting for dynamic to spawn a singular antag with no tiders to arrest. It's so bad please revert
Player: Assistant cap in all honesty at this point reeks of a half baked solution to a problem that has better solutions implemented in the hopes that it will solve administrative problems for them (it doesnt really). It should be replaced with a general popcap imo and people who are causing problems by tiding should simply be banned either from the server or assistant.
Player: I think it's a ham-fisted solution to a problem that should have been solved by admin enforcement(which, speaking from experience, even in the case of blatant rule breaking, is extremely lacking because the admins who willingly volunteered for the position don't want to enforce the rules). It's hurt a lot of non-problematic assistant mains who just want to play the game their way, instead of the way others want them to. The problematic players should have been noted/banned/punished for their behavior. Instead we got a crappy blanket solution, from a headmin who actively acknowledges it was a crappy solution, that actively encourages and emboldens controlling MRP players who want the game to be played their way and no other way. Revert it and enforce the rules properly--that's literally what you willingly signed up for as admins and headmins.
Player: I think that the assistant cap generally just restricts latejoin players who want to join a round and help or do a gimmick, but doesn't do anything at all to address the types of players who roll for it roundstart to just minge with it. It really doesn't affect any of the people it's supposed to target, and screws over good-faith players who want to join but don't want to take up a job that they don't think they'll do well at the moment.
Player: Stupid idea
Player: Stupid idea
Player: so bad.... the assistants are vital to the spirit of ss13. this will not get the assistant statics to branch out at all it will just make them grief and do nothing in other jobs, or play only when assistant is available
Player: I like it as it stops the constant stream of assistant antags. However, now the tiding is from people with actual jobs, taking away from the available jobs for players who actually want to do their job. I think that as such the assistant cap should be raised, but have a cap still remain in place. Of course the question is still raised about what role new players should take joining for their first round.
Player: It feels like a bandaid solution to whatever perceived culture problem is happening.
Player: The limit is set too low, the limit should be variable, for every 5-10 crew 1 slot should be available
Player: There is less whackiness and whimsy in a given round, and the game is more boring as a result. Assistants, their aimless side projects, and low impact gimmicks add spice to a round that shouldn't be restrained in response to bad faith players.
Player: The Assistant cap is a terrible idea. 1- If the cap is reached, any inexperienced players joining either have to wait for a later round, or be forced to pick a role they have no experience in, limiting their ability to roleplay effectively with others, hampering their enjoyment and reducing their likelihood of continuing to play SS13. Assistant is the perfect learning role, as their role is generally described as intern. Additionally, during highpop hours, the cap may be reached early and again force players wishing to play to join in as roles they do not understand, again harming RP opportunities. Both of these risk pushing players onto other servers. 2- Players who wish to become cyborgs, given the typical round-start limit of one or occasionally two, generally choose assistant so as to not take up limited slots in other roles. Other roles would not generally have good RP reasons to become cyborgs. 3- Allegedly the cap is because players that pick assistant are not RPing and are instead gimmickers. Given the low access and power assistants have, this often means they have to RP MORE. After all, character gimmicks are ultimately what good RP stems from. 4- Another allegation against assistants is that they are often griefers. This argument is without merit, as ANY role can be used to grief, with other roles often having more powerful options to grief with through their access. For all the above, the assistant cap is ridiculous, frivolous, and harmful to the future of SS13.
Player: I don't play mrp. But also, let my people tide.

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