A Few Suggestions Relating to Game Balance and the gamemode rotation

[The Respected Man]

1) Shadowling Nerf

Shadowlings are not that hard even for a relatively new player. I ascended on my first shadowling run just by constantly using shadow walk and hiding in hidden rooms till i got the hang of being a shadowling. Shadowling players tend to be very experienced at being a shadowling, hatching early and thralling a dozen people before 12:20 when they exploit the fact that the assistants are all over maintenance at round start in search of maint loot. 

- One way to nerf them is to make mindshields actually useful. Mindshields are just a small bump in the road for shadowlings taking only 5 seconds to burn out. It should be something closer to 20 seconds, there is absolutely 0 incentive to use mindshields except for the sole purpose of finding out if your sec officer is a thrall or not, i rather a mindshield actually be a SHIELD that the sling has to put effort into destroying, that way it's less "thrall RD and lone inexperienced security officers for a confirmed win" as i'd have incentive to mindshield the heads of staff. 

- Another way is to cap the amount of shadowlings to 3 shadowlings maximum. 4 shadowlings can be beaten, but if all 4 are competent then it's their round to throw at their leisure, ascension will hinge on how willing they are to ascend.

- Nerf shadow walk. There are a few ways to go about this. One way is to change the cooldown from 30 seconds to 1 minute, that way their cooldown will be the same as the vampire's mist. Or, keep shadow walk as it is, but stunning the shadowling before they use the shadow walk ability will render them immobile, even if they use shadow walk the stun will still be active, a shadowling must actively shadow walk before the stun procs if they want to avoid being killed. The third and final way to nerf shadow walk is to make it so the shadowling cannot shadow walk if they're in the presence of a light source. They will have to make sure it's dark enough to shadow walk or it's a no go. 

 

OR

Remove shadowlings and add the nightmare antagonist. 

Over in /tg/ station changeling rounds are pretty boring, just like in paradise. The answer was the removal of the shadowling antagonist, and the addition of the nightmare antagonist that coincides with the presence of changelings on the station to make the rounds less "lingstended". 

https://tgstation13.org/wiki/Nightmare

 

2) Nerf Pulling

It just boggles my mind that you can pull a person as though gravity does not exist. People can just stun you, pop a meth pill, grab you and then run to the other side of the station to space you. I suggest a minor nerf. It can be something like a 10% or a 20% penalty to move speed. The hand you are using to pull someone should be free for pulling. If you use your right hand to pull someone, you will dedicate that hand to the pull. You can no longer have a shotgun in your left hand and a shield in your right hand while pulling someone, you need to have an empty hand to pull someone. 

 

3)Put Rev into high pop rotation

...With some changes. Namely that you cannot go around giving people free antag. 

For example, instead of a *flash* *flash* *flash* wtf everyone's a rev now. There will be a cooldown to the flash, say... One minute at minimum, now it might sound like it'll take a while but when there are 3 head revs there is enough room. Head revs cannot just enter the bar and flash, they will have to work in secrecy lest they be run over before 12:30. 

You might say, rev is a pretty violent gamemode with not much room for rp. 

- So are shadowlings, i kill thralls on sight when there are too many in order to prevent ascension, and there are sometimes this 1 sadistic sling that gibs everyone upon ascension. 

- If there are 4 shadowlings and all 4 of them are good at being slings? Round isn't gonna last for any meaningful rp anyway. 

- Rev can be a rare gamemode, it can be something like 5% and be a glim possibility only in high pop if the admins do not want to see much of it. 

- It can be an opportunity to give IPCs a utility. Namely being that they cannot be reved. The rev flash was designed to convert organics into being revolutionaries, not machines. This can act as a 'buff' for an IPC as they will always be on the side of the station and will help maintain order during a rev round. If the IPC playerbase is okay with this utility that is. 

- It's pretty fun

 

Edited December 12, 2017 by The Respected Man

[imsxz]

I really do enjoy rev on TG, but I can't see it working on paradise. For instance, it would take a while for everyone to get used to and become skilled at the rev gamemode. For security, it requires being absolutely ruthless, such as tazing and implanting people on the spots in hallways or harmbatoning revs to death if they outnumber you in combat.

The playstyle required to win against a revolution doesn't fit very well for paradise at all, as it requires tossing SOP out the window and powergaming rather hard, and avoiding RP in general. The reason you see revs stomp every single time on paradise is because the security players are so spooked of getting bwoinked over not faxing CC, gunning some greyshirt down in the hallway for having a stunprod, wordlessly implanting, etc.

I can easily see admins banning sec players over trying to do the bare minimum for surviving a revolution, as it so drastically draws away from the usual standards for security.

[The Respected Man]

17 minutes ago, imsxz said:

I really do enjoy rev on TG, but I can't see it working on paradise. For instance, it would take a while for everyone to get used to and become skilled at the rev gamemode. For security, it requires being absolutely ruthless, such as tazing and implanting people on the spots in hallways or harmbatoning revs to death if they outnumber you in combat.

The playstyle required to win against a revolution doesn't fit very well for paradise at all, as it requires tossing SOP out the window and powergaming rather hard, and avoiding RP in general. The reason you see revs stomp every single time on paradise is because the security players are so spooked of getting bwoinked over not faxing CC, gunning some greyshirt down in the hallway for having a stunprod, wordlessly implanting, etc.

I can easily see admins banning sec players over trying to do the bare minimum for surviving a revolution, as it so drastically draws away from the usual standards for security.

I didn't think of that. Guess rev is out the window then. But however the same problem here exists in shadowling rounds. I'm too spooked to kill thralls, and by the time i believe it's okay to kill thralls without getting bwoinked by an admin in order to prevent ascension the shadowlings ascend. 

[imsxz]

That's another reason why even the most competent security team can get easily trashed by competent shadowlings. As you mentioned, shadowlings can get dozens of thralls in the first 20 mins if they're competent. By the time shadowlings have double digits, security should really just start doing buckshot deconversion, and hiding the bodies so the lings don't use their 60s cooldown revival on them.

If it gets to a point where security channel goes completely dark, it'd be very safe to just field execute officers without mindshields. Wordlessly stunning and thrall checking people with masks should be more common once lings get a foothold. More field executions should take place when it's clear shadowlings are winning. You'd start seeing the rounds with competent shadlowings actually lose if such practices became standard.

Mass conversions don't work well with the servers current hugbox atmosphere. Expecting security to deconvert everyone for the sake of a safe environment isn't very realistic, and will just result in the station getting steamrolled if the antags are competent.

[Kyet]

The big snowball effect with shadowlings comes when they start thralling security.

It only takes a few sec officer thralls to tilt the balance heavily in favor of the shadowlings.

After all, security have gear/weapons designed to subdue people non-lethally (for conversion, exactly what slings want). They're trusted. They have access to sec comms. And crew have no way to know they're thralled until they're tasing you (since nobody but other sec officers asks sec officers to remove masks, ever).

 

If you want to limit the snowball potential of shadowlings, then just make it so that mindshields *prevent* thralling.

Not just slow down, but totally prevent. Just like they already do with mindslave implants, flashes during rev, etc.

 

A 'shield' that fails after a few seconds isn't really a 'shield', to my mind.

[Allfd]

5 hours ago, tzo said:

Not just slow down, but totally prevent. Just like they already do with mindslave implants, flashes during rev, etc.

 

Also does this for cult.

[TrainTN]

11 hours ago, The Respected Man said:

2) Nerf Pulling

 

It just boggles my mind that you can pull a person as though gravity does not exist. People can just stun you, pop a meth pill, grab you and then run to the other side of the station to space you. I suggest a minor nerf. It can be something like a 10% or a 20% penalty to move speed. The hand you are using to pull someone should be free for pulling. If you use your right hand to pull someone, you will dedicate that hand to the pull. You can no longer have a shotgun in your left hand and a shield in your right hand while pulling someone, you need to have an empty hand to pull someone.

The Colonial Marines server does this, to make Marines more vulnerable to the Xenos. Pulling is essentially the same thing as grabbing, you have to have a free hand and it slows you down. It also encourages the medics to actually use the roller beds, which would be nice to have here if only so that there'd be less ridiculously-long trails of blood criss-crossing the entirety of the station. I do have to agree that being able to pull people all over the station with no penalty is pretty wacky. Especially since I've seen traitors abuse this to use human shields with no slow-down, or create "tag-teams" with other traitors so one can focus on shooting security while the other focuses on running. It's pretty bullshit, I won't lie.

And I agree with what imsxz is saying about Rev. Rev encourages Shitcurity on other servers, even when it's not Rev mode, purely out of the rampant paranoia it causes. Security either dies, or goes full deathsquad just to survive. I'd assume most competent security players are too afraid of being bwoinked and banned for harmbatoning a guy a couple of times, there's definitely no way I'd grab a shotgun and start blasting crewmember antags just because they'll probably ahelp it and argue how Shitcurity I am.

I mean, I was told you can't execute vampires for being vampires. According to the wiki, a vampire is a corpse possessed by a demon from beyond the void, and executing it is against Space Law?

Conversion modes where most of the station can turn into antags is also generally poor for roleplay purposes, another reason I don't think Rev fits well on Paradise. At least cult is subtle for most of the round if they're capable, but shadowlings can really get out of control fast before you even notice the problem. I've seen enough complaints that the server has fallen to the low-RP end of the scale already, something like Rev would reinforce that.

[Allfd]

11 hours ago, TrainTN said:

, I was told you can't execute vampires for being vampires. According to the wiki, a vampire is a corpse possessed by a demon from beyond the void, and executing it is against Space Law?

A vampire is a blue space entity that inhabits a body right before death, pushing out it's soul.  It inherits the personality and memories of it's host.  From a lore perspective, and from a personal one, this is not really any different from the first person only now they may want to eat you.  It's not a corpse, and it has the personality and memory of it's host.  Unlike a changeling, it is actually your assigned crewmember.  Unlike other antags it does not necessarily represent a existential threat to the crew.

 

From a gameplay perspective, I view vampires as the most RP friendly supernatural antag.  They are the only supernatural antag class that can RP and does not have to murderbone.  Not killing all other types in rotation result in station destruction.  

 

 

As for the bwoinks, I wish there could be less of them.  Security gets too much attention, both from very salty antags, and bad security play having a much greater negative influence for other players then say a bad clown or janitor.

 

I would love to have new ways to make security more fun and interesting to play.

 

 

[Shadeykins]

The change to pulling is an interesting one.

If possible make it a variable 10-20%, so it's also noticeable when trying to speed-drag people while using stimulants.

[TrainTN]

8 hours ago, Allfd said:

A vampire is a blue space entity that inhabits a body right before death, pushing out it's soul.  It inherits the personality and memories of it's host.  From a lore perspective, and from a personal one, this is not really any different from the first person only now they may want to eat you.  It's not a corpse, and it has the personality and memory of it's host.  Unlike a changeling, it is actually your assigned crewmember.  Unlike other antags it does not necessarily represent a existential threat to the crew.

From a gameplay perspective, I view vampires as the most RP friendly supernatural antag.  They are the only supernatural antag class that can RP and does not have to murderbone.  Not killing all other types in rotation result in station destruction. 

I do not believe Nanotrasen considers "may eat its fellow crewmembers" to be an acceptable "workplace disability," regardless of how similar it is to the employee it used to be. And considering my experiences with vampire antags, just because they don't have to murderbone, doesn't mean they won't. They will. They almost always will.  Some of them are more dangerous than the changelings even. They eat and brainwash the crew, they have uncontrollable supernatural powers, they kill whoever tries to stop them; I'm really not seeing much of a difference compared to the other bad guys other than a vampire is technically more of a person. I cannot imagine a soulless bureaucratic Nanotrasen pencil-pusher looking at this predator of human beings and deciding "Yes, this is worth keeping on the payroll."

[Dinarzad]

3 hours ago, TrainTN said:

I do not believe Nanotrasen considers "may eat its fellow crewmembers" to be an acceptable "workplace disability," regardless of how similar it is to the employee it used to be. And considering my experiences with vampire antags, just because they don't have to murderbone, doesn't mean they won't. They will. They almost always will.  Some of them are more dangerous than the changelings even. They eat and brainwash the crew, they have uncontrollable supernatural powers, they kill whoever tries to stop them; I'm really not seeing much of a difference compared to the other bad guys other than a vampire is technically more of a person. I cannot imagine a soulless bureaucratic Nanotrasen pencil-pusher looking at this predator of human beings and deciding "Yes, this is worth keeping on the payroll."

I think you are drastically misinterpreting "RP Friendly" with just "Friendly".
Vampires are not friendly, and security should brig 'em. Vampires are, however, not obligated to be murderbone-y or thrall on sight style antags. You cannot summarily execute them just because they are vampires, just because players murderbone as an antag a lot, You may as well commit Greytide genocide cuz they are almost always shitters, using that logic.

You can (And should) absolutely throw them into the brig and throw away the key.  If the vamp gets out for being fully powered up an just misting away, then execution is on the table, because it is no longer viable to contain the threat.

Just killing antags outright for being antags is one major way you get boring, non-eventful rounds where nothing happens for 85% of the station's crew, because Security wants "Dat sweet red text" on antags.

 

Quote

I cannot imagine a soulless bureaucratic Nanotrasen pencil-pusher looking at this predator of human beings and deciding "Yes, this is worth keeping on the payroll."

Conversely though, a soul-less bureaucratic hyper corporation, so large it functionally has it's own military and black ops squads WOULD want this teleporting ultra strong entity for scientific study to apply for their own forces or for possible methods of controlling them, even at the expense of "expendable" crew members, that DOES seem very much up their ally, especially if it pushes the company's profits higher then their competitors, no?
Was that not the entire basis of the "Alien" universe? Aliens were scary shit, but companies wanted to control them, thus leading to terrible scenarios for the grunt levels?

Edited December 14, 2017 by Dinarzad

[TrainTN]

2 hours ago, Dinarzad said:

I think you are drastically misinterpreting "RP Friendly" with just "Friendly".
Vampires are not friendly, and security should brig 'em. Vampires are, however, not obligated to be murderbone-y or thrall on sight style antags. You cannot summarily execute them just because they are vampires, just because players murderbone as an antag a lot, You may as well commit Greytide genocide cuz they are almost always shitters, using that logic.

Vampires are still crew-chomping predators and/or Syndicate agents. Greytiders are jerks, but usually not blood-drinking murderers with an explicit objective to damage the station and harm the crew. Just because they're not obligated to be murderboney doesn't mean they come with kind intentions. And if they did, well, I'd consider that the same thing as a "friendly wizard."

2 hours ago, Dinarzad said:

You can (And should) absolutely throw them into the brig and throw away the key.  If the vamp gets out for being fully powered up an just misting away, then execution is on the table, because it is no longer viable to contain the threat.

In one of my few rounds as security, we actually did brig a vampire after he killed a crewmember. Later on I had to rescue the warden from him using his vampire powers in an attempt to escape the brig, at which point the HoS killed him, and him and the other heads all lambasted us for being dumb enough to brig a vampire. The only reason we brigged that vampire was because he was caught so early we weren't even aware he was a vampire until he busted out the superpowers later in the brig to attack the warden. Vampires come with dangerous stunning abilities by default, containing even a base-level vampire is risky. I'm glad the secvendor has muzzles but there's still risks involved that make them significantly more threatening than a normal human traitor. By the time Security manages to capture one, there's no telling what abilities they may already have until they're demonstrated. I don't want to be the guy who brigs what I think is a low-level vampire until he suddenly mists into the armory.

3 hours ago, Dinarzad said:

Just killing antags outright for being antags is one major way you get boring, non-eventful rounds where nothing happens for 85% of the station's crew, because Security wants "Dat sweet red text" on antags.

This isn't an argument about "dat sweet red text," it's about the crew's safety, and Security's own safety in dealing with a blood-sucking monster. Plus some antags ARE expected to be killed on discovery, and most vampires are only discovered to be vampires when they're already murdering the crew, which usually leads to a kill-on-sight order even for mortal traitors. If the round is boring and uneventful for most of the crew, I'd sooner say that's the antags' fault for letting it be as such, not Security's for stopping the threat to the station. That's not powergaming, that's their role. They can powergame their role, but you can't fault them for doing their job.

But maybe I'm just biased because the vampire rounds I've been involved in always turned out to be bloody crises involving powerplays like Sleeping Carp Vampires. I don't play Security often because I struggle to deal with issues like these, so I don't think I'm well-suited to the role.

2 hours ago, Dinarzad said:

Conversely though, a soul-less bureaucratic hyper corporation, so large it functionally has it's own military and black ops squads WOULD want this teleporting ultra strong entity for scientific study to apply for their own forces or for possible methods of controlling them, even at the expense of "expendable" crew members, that DOES seem very much up their ally, especially if it pushes the company's profits higher then their competitors, no?

Was that not the entire basis of the "Alien" universe? Aliens were scary shit, but companies wanted to control them, thus leading to terrible scenarios for the grunt levels?

By this logic, we should be brigging the lings too. And the actual xenomorphs. And wizards, and terror spiders, and the blob. The vampires already work for their competitors, if NT wants vampires they can go hire them themselves and not expect the security force, whom they hire explicitly to protect the crew from these things, to keep these teleporting ultra strong entities under lock and key. And even if the crew is that expendable (which they probably are), the station itself still isn't. Because if it was all really that worthless, there would be no ERTs or evacuation shuttle, they'd just let it burn when a problem came up.

It may be a dystopian hyper-capitalist future, but I still don't think NT is as stupid and insane as Weyland-Yutani. Maybe just insane, but not stupidly insane.

[Dinarzad]

Quote

In one of my few rounds as security, we actually did brig a vampire after he killed a crewmember. Later on I had to rescue the warden from him using his vampire powers in an attempt to escape the brig, at which point the HoS killed him, and him and the other heads all lambasted us for being dumb enough to brig a vampire. The only reason we brigged that vampire was because he was caught so early we weren't even aware he was a vampire until he busted out the superpowers later in the brig to attack the warden. Vampires come with dangerous stunning abilities by default, containing even a base-level vampire is risky. I'm glad the secvendor has muzzles but there's still risks involved that make them significantly more threatening than a normal human traitor. By the time Security manages to capture one, there's no telling what abilities they may already have until they're demonstrated. I don't want to be the guy who brigs what I think is a low-level vampire until he suddenly mists into the armory.

The problem is though, that's just how the game plays. If it DOESN'T, then you get dreadful expierences for everyone involved really, Sec runs out of things to fight, Crew has nothing eventful happening and the antagonist player is likely not so thrilled he was shot on sight before he even got a chance to cause some trouble.

That mind set of "But what if" is, and I fucking hate myself for having to use the phrase, a slippery slope. Because it's what enables power gamers most of all. Not that you ARE power gaming, just that it is a VERY problematic mindset, because "What if that Civvie in the tunnels is a traitor" "What if that clown is a cultist, he's always kind of beat up." is the go to for a lot of people who ARE.

As a more non-specific general statement to anyone playing Security OR Antagonists, Winning/Losing isn't even really a feature of SS13, you get no achievements, you unlock nothing special, and you get zero points for doing all objectives as an antagonist, or stopping antags as Sec.  The goal of the antagonist is/should be to cause trouble, to make shit happen in a round, and for Security is to keep order on the station and protect the crew, NOT to hunt down and murder enemies of Nanotrasen. That just usually comes about as part of protecting the crew.
Remember, you're dealing with other players and SS13 is a role playing game first an foremost. To what degree of an RPG it is, is kinda up to debate an the server you are on, but Roleplay IS an element.
Cops don't usually resort to shooting people to death for being scary, and when they do it causes a PR shitstorm and makes people furious. Even murderers/known killers usually get an attempt at an arrest before police start going for the lethal option.
But I digress an that's beyond the scope of the discussion at hand.

[TrainTN]

2 hours ago, Dinarzad said:

The problem is though, that's just how the game plays. If it DOESN'T, then you get dreadful expierences for everyone involved really, Sec runs out of things to fight, Crew has nothing eventful happening and the antagonist player is likely not so thrilled he was shot on sight before he even got a chance to cause some trouble.

That mind set of "But what if" is, and I fucking hate myself for having to use the phrase, a slippery slope. Because it's what enables power gamers most of all. Not that you ARE power gaming, just that it is a VERY problematic mindset, because "What if that Civvie in the tunnels is a traitor" "What if that clown is a cultist, he's always kind of beat up." is the go to for a lot of people who ARE.

That's fair, and definitely taking a certain mindset too far. A guy who checks every single memorized nook and cranny of the station just in case he finds a tator or cult there is going too far. Security force-feeding everyone holy water at the merest suspicion of a cult is going too far. Arresting a guy for having a multitool and a gas mask is going too far. And it goes both ways, it's entirely possible for antags to go too far as well, like with the "telecrystal pooling" strategy and other things discussed in this thread.

3 hours ago, Dinarzad said:

As a more non-specific general statement to anyone playing Security OR Antagonists, Winning/Losing isn't even really a feature of SS13, you get no achievements, you unlock nothing special, and you get zero points for doing all objectives as an antagonist, or stopping antags as Sec.  The goal of the antagonist is/should be to cause trouble, to make shit happen in a round, and for Security is to keep order on the station and protect the crew, NOT to hunt down and murder enemies of Nanotrasen. That just usually comes about as part of protecting the crew.

There are no rewards, or real win/lose scenarios. But as antag, I still try to go for the greentext, because I want to prove I can actually accomplish it. I'm better with direction instead of being left to do my own thing. As Security, if antags get greentext, I feel like it's because I didn't perform well enough to notice all the thefts and murders going on nor catch the guys committing them. I do try to worry about keeping the crew safe more than hunting down that one guy running around in the maintenance halls, but that guy tends to pop out of maint and murder people anyway.

I don't play either role very much, personally. Security and Antagonist tend to be too stressful for me, for all these discussed reasons. They're the roles where if you screw up even a little bit, you will die and disappoint people.

[davidchan]

it's entirely possible for antags to go too far as well, like with the "telecrystal pooling" strategy and other things discussed in this thread.

 

Don't forget vampires mist forming places for free access (cap's office when cap hasn't arrived yet to snag ID, armory, genetics) and creating unmonkies to get free blood with almost no chance of getting caught. (Seriously why do vampires still have jaunt)

[Buford]

1. Yep nerf them, shadowling rounds are boring and it ends up just being a conversion war in which shadowlings can convert easily where every single person who is a shadowling has to be put on a table in which there are only two and deconverted at a rate based on the skill of the doctor.

Edit: Just replace that round it's boring and dumb to be honest.

2. have u no sec b4

 

Edited December 15, 2017 by Buford

[Rumiluntti]

Fuck rev. That's all

[Rurik]

22 hours ago, Rumiluntti said:

Fuck rev. That's all

D:

[The Respected Man]

22 hours ago, Rumiluntti said:

Fuck rev. That's all

Completely heretical. 

For real though, rev as it is now is ass. 

Why not just recode it to make it slower, and less of a blood bath so it fits into the paradise picture? 

[TrainTN]

1 hour ago, The Respected Man said:

Why not just recode it to make it slower, and less of a blood bath so it fits into the paradise picture? 

Then it wouldn't really be Revolution anymore. Rev's is characterized by being a rolling snowball of chaos and violence. If you take that away, what would be left? A workers' strike?

[The Respected Man]

40 minutes ago, TrainTN said:

Then it wouldn't really be Revolution anymore. Rev's is characterized by being a rolling snowball of chaos and violence. If you take that away, what would be left? A workers' strike?

It'll still be revolution, just less likely to end the round before 12:30. More like 13:00. Cooldown on rev flashes for example so they need to stealth rev for a while. It'll still be a bloodbath later though. 

[davidchan]

Clearly you never played the old rev style where stalemates could last for 2 hours or more where Revs camp out in medical/cargo/science while command and security just relocate the bridge to security and spam ERT requests.

[Jountax]

What if the rev's goals were not to murder command, but to convert them to being revs too? They'd have to take things more subtle, and then when their numbers were great enough they could smash, grab, rip out the implants and flash.