Devils

[Oldman Robustin]

They honestly shouldn't even be admin-spawned. They're horribly imbalanced in their current state.

You're basically unkillable. The weaknesses are a joke and only prevent the devil from doing his magic for a short period of time, It's incredibly easy to just yakkety sax if anyone actually goes through the effort of learning your name and then looking up your weakness and then finding your weakness and then using your weakness on you. The res-prevention stuff is also broken, like requiring you to put certain clothes on the devil when half their forms can't even wear clothes.

The contracts are not punishing at all. Free truesight? All Access? Hulk? Fireball + Knock? Those are HUGE benefits all for the cost of not being clonable. Considering there are lavaland roles, most people don't even die, and most deaths don't get cloned, taking the contract is a no-brainer.

Here's how the round plays out:

1) Stage 1 devil offers contracts, most people don't say no because of the reasons above. Even if someone pulls out a stun prod and murders the devil at this stage, they won't know the devil's true name in order to do research and prevent their resurrection.

2) Devil gets two contracts out because the crew doesn't have a realistic way to stop them from rezzing at this point and has no incentive NOT to accept all the great powers he's handing out. Any of these powers become a huge nightmare for security since "greytide" is usually the first course of action when these soul-sellers get their all-access card, all-access wallpunching, or all-access magic door opening.

3) After 2 contracts the devil can now instantly and permanently jaunt with zero time limits or cooldowns. Now they go from theoretically unkillable to practically unkillable. There is no realistic way to track or prevent the devil from making deals when they can appear/disappear anywhere on the station instantly. And after a few more contracts...

4) They become a true devil, now that their name is visible and people have a shot at researching the devil's weakness, some of the weaknesses/res-preventers aren't even possible against a true devil. Furthermore they have an absurd 350hp at this point. That's more than juggernauts but also with no movement loss and the same instant jaunting that was around before! To give you a clue how obscene these are, I researched the weakness of a true devil (salt), managed to FEED IT SALT while it was buying a soul, then it chased me and started to beat me to death with its 34dmg pitchfork when I detonated a maxcap bomb on it at point blank while it was still "weakened". Of course, it survived, 350hp means they pretty much don't even need jaunt at this point, but of course they do have jaunt, and resurrection, and fireball, and a 34dmg melee weapon...

5) They inevitably ascend because unless you have your head up your ass, you cannot lose at this role. Round is now over, GG whoever designed this.

[Ezel]

Dont blame the devil
Blame the powergamers

[Armhulen]

Uh, blame the devil, it's op.

[Wyzack]

I feel like as long as admins only give it to people who can be trusted to try and make fun for everyone/not murderbone/play the role in an interesting way it can still work.

[Lumbermancer]

The price for selling your soul should be 24h server ban upon death.

[confused rock]

>trade tcs for devil once as miner
>admins go through with it and I ascend in less than 20 minutes even though at first I didn't even know what I was doing
>another time
>trade tcs for devil
>madman admins go through with it
>madman admins made somebody else a devil that round too

[Oldman Robustin]

It's not even about powergaming. Evolving/Ascending as the Devil is forced, so even the most RP oriented Devil is going to end the round in less than 30 minutes.

Infinite+Instant jaunt and contracts being "auto-yes" for most of the crew are the two immediate problems.

[Oldman Robustin]

The price for selling your soul should be 24h server ban upon death.

I know that's a joke but Kor had a similar idea where people are "damned" and basically stuck in a box where they can't ghost. My problem with any after-death punishment is that Devil becomes a population-killer, especially at late-night.

[Armhulen]

How about when you sign the contract and you die, you cannot respawn but will automatically be summoned as an imp when he evolves? That way the demon can't infinitespawn imps and stuff and it doesn't popkill but it does hold you back from ever returning as yourself

[Anonmare]

I'd replace their jaunt when they hit the True Name reveal with something more akin to bloodcrawling, but make it take longer to come out of.

Getting more souls should make you stronger, but less subtle in my mind.

The codex should also be indestructible, or easily replaceable. Hell I'd give the librarian an innate sense of where it is at all times.
The lawyers should be immune to devilry shenanigans, straight up immunity akin to the Chaplain's magic immunity, and share the librarian's ability to research fairly safely. The HoP and Captain should be resistant to Devilry to them being a bunch of pencil-pushing politicians (in theory).

Hitting a devil with their bane object should do a straight 60-70 damage, making their bane practically an e-sword to them. Holy water should always be effective against them and be severely debilitating at best (hallucinations, stamina damage, confusion etc.) and downright lethal at worst. The Null rod (or whatever the Chaplain's made it) should make the Devil disorientated if they're on the same screen as it and do roundabout 35 damage to them on hit, trying to pick it up burns them.

Tiles blessed by holy water should be impassable to them both in the real world and by their jaunting unless they hit Ascension. Someone who has a Holy Bible in their inventory or contents should take less damage from any of the Devil's attacks, a chaplain can wield one as a weapon against a Devil but it only deals minor damage to them plus confusion. Devils trying to pick up a Bible will get burned.

[DemonFiren]

HoP and Captain?

Better add QM, he's the embodiment of paperwork.

[Grazyn]

It's a gamemode that simply can't work on this server. Make the devil too weak and players will just murder it as soon as it jaunts out to hand over contracts. Make it too tough and it will murderbone everything. The last devil I saw was just random murdering and threatening people to get them to sign contracts on pain of death.

If you think about it, no other antag role relies on peaceful interaction with another unrestrained crewman while being obviously antag. That is because the fight-or-flight response is so deeply ingrained into the playerbase that it's usually the only response upon sight of an antag. So the devil has to be tough.

[Reece]

The concept is fun. The execution needs work.

[Steelpoint]

This is something that would work on bay.

Unless you really, REALLY, make selling your soul something that has just as grave negative repercussions as there are positive then even then that does not fix how brokenly powerful the Devil is.

At least if you shove a bomb down a Wizard's throat they usually die (lich's exempted).

[Wyzack]

I kinda like the dayban on selling your soul idea tbh. At the very least it should lock down your ghost in "hell" so that you can not observe or take ghost roles when you die

[Steelpoint]

I kinda like the dayban on selling your soul idea tbh. At the very least it should lock down your ghost in "hell" so that you can not observe or take ghost roles when you die

How about we make fun of the player after the fact?

Make it that if you sell your soul your guaranteed 100% to LOSE out on your next antag selection.

So you sell your soul on one round, and the next day your in a Ops round and you get selected to be a Op. HOWEVER since you sold your soul you instead get a message that you've lost out on a antagonist opportunity (no hints as to what it was).

[Grazyn]

Do you guys realize that the only thing that keeps players in the room when the devil appears in front of them is the fact that contracts are worth a dime? Make them too much punishing (contracts don't even make you antag fyi) and they'll just run away/attack/scream on radio like they do with every other antag

[Archie700]

Are you guys seriously trying to punish people for selling their souls inround with out of round punishment?

Did you even think this through?

[Steelpoint]

Are you guys seriously trying to punish people for selling their souls inround with out of round punishment?

Did you even think this through?

>Quoting yourself

Its called selling your soul for fantastical powers. It should have some drawback later on, besides my suggestion doesn't hamper your ability to play the game in a major way.

[Shadowlight213]

I am of the strong opinion that devil should only be played by players who are willing to rp convincing crewmembers to sell their souls. Threatening death if they don't sign, or just handing people contracts and walking away, are the kinds of players who I feel should not be playing this role.
I think devil should remain admin creation only with no assignment by random event.
I personally deny prays or tc trades for devil, unless I know that player is good at rp and won't just go abuse the role.
I'll probably switch over to a one chance and then you have to prove you can handle it if you fail system. If someone prays to be devil and I decide that a devil would be fine to add to the round, unless I know they have played devil before and are good at the role play aspect, I'll inform them that devil essentially requires roleplay. If you don't put effort into roleplaying and just treat it as lel antag time to murder, you are not going to get to play that role again unless you show exceptional roleplay elsewhere.
I encourage other admins to follow this system as well. Check notes of the player before giving the role and add a note to said player if they go 0 roleplay murderbone.

Devil is a fantastic antag when played by people who actually roleplay, and a terrible antag if played by people who don't.

Also I was told that cargo can order another demon book.

Devil resurrecting costs souls. The devil's effective soul count is the number of souls they have minus the number of resurrects they have used. If you kill the devil and they don't have any souls remaining they can't resurrect. Hitting people who have sold their souls with employment contracts will get their soul back, and will revert them to previous forms if they lose enough souls.

[Archie700]

Are you guys seriously trying to punish people for selling their souls inround with out of round punishment?

Did you even think this through?

>Quoting yourself

Its called selling your soul for fantastical powers. It should have some drawback later on, besides my suggestion doesn't hamper your ability to play the game in a major way.

I wanted to edit my post but pressed the wrong button.

Also why would you restrict a player from antag roles for one round just because he sold his soul for powers another round when he can't even be changed into an antag unless he is already one?

The most that I think is reasonable is ghostrole banned for the rest of the round and even that's pushing it a bit.

[Shadowlight213]

How is ghost role banned for the rest of the round pushing it? We have so many ghost roles currently that the unable to be cloned/mmi is a literal joke.

[Wyzack]

Shadowlight is spot on with this. Also maybe a short ban is too harsh, but also maybe go fuck yourself. Locking down their ghost at least is absolutely fair. If you don't like it don't take the goddamn powers, they are not supposed to be free

[Archie700]

How is ghost role banned for the rest of the round pushing it? We have so many ghost roles currently that the unable to be cloned/mmi is a literal joke.

Some people might just want to relax and do something in lavaland rather than observe a round.

Then again, ghostrole bans would prevent the person who sold his soul from validing the ghost in any way possible so I can see that it's reasonable at least.

[Grazyn]

I'm fine with ghostrole ban for the current round, anything beyond that and carrying over to the next round is overkill. Expecially not being able to observe

[EmGee]

They honestly shouldn't even be admin-spawned. They're horribly imbalanced in their current state.

You're basically unkillable. The weaknesses are a joke and only prevent the devil from doing his magic for a short period of time, It's incredibly easy to just yakkety sax if anyone actually goes through the effort of learning your name and then looking up your weakness and then finding your weakness and then using your weakness on you. The res-prevention stuff is also broken, like requiring you to put certain clothes on the devil when half their forms can't even wear clothes.

The contracts are not punishing at all. Free truesight? All Access? Hulk? Fireball + Knock? Those are HUGE benefits all for the cost of not being clonable. Considering there are lavaland roles, most people don't even die, and most deaths don't get cloned, taking the contract is a no-brainer.

Here's how the round plays out:

1) Stage 1 devil offers contracts, most people don't say no because of the reasons above. Even if someone pulls out a stun prod and murders the devil at this stage, they won't know the devil's true name in order to do research and prevent their resurrection.

2) Devil gets two contracts out because the crew doesn't have a realistic way to stop them from rezzing at this point and has no incentive NOT to accept all the great powers he's handing out. Any of these powers become a huge nightmare for security since "greytide" is usually the first course of action when these soul-sellers get their all-access card, all-access wallpunching, or all-access magic door opening.

3) After 2 contracts the devil can now instantly and permanently jaunt with zero time limits or cooldowns. Now they go from theoretically unkillable to practically unkillable. There is no realistic way to track or prevent the devil from making deals when they can appear/disappear anywhere on the station instantly. And after a few more contracts...

4) They become a true devil, now that their name is visible and people have a shot at researching the devil's weakness, some of the weaknesses/res-preventers aren't even possible against a true devil. Furthermore they have an absurd 350hp at this point. That's more than juggernauts but also with no movement loss and the same instant jaunting that was around before! To give you a clue how obscene these are, I researched the weakness of a true devil (salt), managed to FEED IT SALT while it was buying a soul, then it chased me and started to beat me to death with its 34dmg pitchfork when I detonated a maxcap bomb on it at point blank while it was still "weakened". Of course, it survived, 350hp means they pretty much don't even need jaunt at this point, but of course they do have jaunt, and resurrection, and fireball, and a 34dmg melee weapon...

5) They inevitably ascend because unless you have your head up your ass, you cannot lose at this role. Round is now over, GG whoever designed this.

This, to be honest, wasn't my experience playing as the devil. At all.

When I got devil the first time today by trading it for ling, what I experienced was basically a underpowered version of ling.

I took care making contracts only in isolated places, away from the public eye. However, very soon I had a overzealous warden on my tail, who relentlessly lasered me to death, dragging me to the chapel and incinerating me.

I had three contracts, but I still hadn't ascended to the "Infernal Humanoid Form".
'

[Wyzack]

How is ghost role banned for the rest of the round pushing it? We have so many ghost roles currently that the unable to be cloned/mmi is a literal joke.

Some people might just want to relax and do something in lavaland rather than observe a round.

Then again, ghostrole bans would prevent the person who sold his soul from validing the ghost in any way possible so I can see that it's reasonable at least.

If they want to do something more relaxing then maybe they should not barter magical powers from fucking satan.

[Shadowlight213]

To clarify the levels and spells of devil
Weakened level: <0 effective souls (if you revived once and the lawyer got people's souls back)
Spells:
Summon contract
Base level: at least 0 effective souls
Spells:
Summon contract
Hellish fireball
Summon pitchfork
Blood lizard: at least 3 effective souls
Spells:
Summon contract
Hellish fireball
Summon pitchfork
Infernal jaunt
True devil: at least 6 effective souls
Spells:
Summon contract
Summon greater pitchfork
Hellish fireball
Infernal jaunt
Sintouch
Arch devil: at least 9 effective souls
Spells:
Summon contract
Summon ascended pitchfork
Ascendant Sintouch
Ghosts can click on them to become imps

Until arch devil, losing souls via death or lawyers and falling below the threshold will cause the devil to revert to the previous form.

[Lumbermancer]

I'm with the people saying there should big repercussions for SELLING YOUR SOUL, otherwise the whole theme falls flat on its face.

[confused rock]

How is ghost role banned for the rest of the round pushing it? We have so many ghost roles currently that the unable to be cloned/mmi is a literal joke.

Some people might just want to relax and do something in lavaland rather than observe a round.

Then again, ghostrole bans would prevent the person who sold his soul from validing the ghost in any way possible so I can see that it's reasonable at least.

If they want to do something more relaxing then maybe they should not barter magical powers from fucking satan.

[Armhulen]

I like rp, I like the devil. Still, more downsides, yes.

[Anonmare]

I'm still of the opinion that devils should have a few more counters, mainly wards that'll reduce the damage they can do to you or outright prevent an attack.

Where's a Demonologist when you need one?

[Armhulen]

I'm still of the opinion that devils should have a few more counters, mainly wards that'll reduce the damage they can do to you or outright prevent an attack.

Where's a Demonologist when you need one?

Maybe more common things he has to avoid to give away his devilness

[Screemonster]

I'm still of the opinion that devils should have a few more counters, mainly wards that'll reduce the damage they can do to you or outright prevent an attack.

Where's a Demonologist when you need one?

Maybe more common things he has to avoid to give away his devilness

just make him go on fire if he sets foot in the chapel

[lumipharon]

Just use the whole 'evil cannot enter your home without invitation', only instead of home, make it your workplace/department.

[Zilenan91]

Holy Water shouldn't be a counter to devils because if a chaplain loads that shit into a fire extinguisher suddenly the devil can literally go nowhere on the entire station because he can bless entire water tanks and spread it everywhere

[Wyzack]

Which is motivation for him to keep a low profile

[Zilenan91]

That's a motivation for him to murder, actually, since it's so simple for the chaplain to whack a water tank and start spraying. Sometimes they do it just because they're bored and have nothing else to do and it's easy. I genuinely can't think of a more persuasive mechanic for murder.

[Anonmare]

Holy Water is actually a mechanic against Wizard jaunting last I recall. Considering the sheer number of tiles you have to bless and you play with limited access, most chaplains won't bother - assuming they didn't suicide 5 minutes in.

[Zilenan91]

Yes, but the reason it isn't widely used is because wizards can make do without Jaunt. They have more alternatives to getting around past holy water, and even if a tile is holy, they can still walk on it and otherwise have full functionality. Utterly preventing the movement of something on holy water is terrible if it has no way of getting rid of holy on a tile, this is how revenant gets away with it.

[Oldman Robustin]

What are you guys even arguing about, Devils have INFINITE jaunt, you're really not going to be able to stop them from going anywhere. Holy water should be able to stop them, but the jaunt needs to be made LIMITED in nature first. I'm talking it needs a cooldown, channeling period, etc.

[Armhulen]

Yeah, the jaunt is bullshit, plz nerf

[Reece]

What are you guys even arguing about, Devils have INFINITE jaunt, you're really not going to be able to stop them from going anywhere. Holy water should be able to stop them, but the jaunt needs to be made LIMITED in nature first. I'm talking it needs a cooldown, channeling period, etc.

Indeed, I play as Pablo Escabar, I'm sure most of you have at some point murdered me, I have yet to murder more than about twenty people, ten of which were on devil where you can literally jaunt around people and shank them with your pitchfork.

Also as a general feedback note: the fork sprite does not scale with the ascended devil sprite, so it looks you're stabbing people with a toothpick as the giant final devil form.

[Shadowlight213]

What are you guys even arguing about, Devils have INFINITE jaunt, you're really not going to be able to stop them from going anywhere. Holy water should be able to stop them, but the jaunt needs to be made LIMITED in nature first. I'm talking it needs a cooldown, channeling period, etc.

You can only actually exit the jaunt next to someone who hasn't sold their soul.
So if they are wounded, they cant just jaunt anywhere they want to go heal, they have to emerge next to someone.

[oranges]

Oldman actually can't envision a situation where a player wouldn't use all the powers available to them to make the round more enjoyable. Seriously, it's not his fault he just cannot imagine that situation at all.

[lumipharon]

Oldman actually can't envision a situation where a player wouldn't use all the powers available to them to make the round more enjoyable. Seriously, it's not his fault he just cannot imagine that situation at all.

It's almost as if peolpe have consistantly abused everything and anything to their advantage, ignoring RP and fun for anyone but themselves.

You make it sound like oldman is being rediculous, when he's simply being practical.
You cannot say 'devil is fine if the player decided to not be a powergaming shit', unless we actually have a ruleset to ensure that they're not a powergaming shit - because guess what, people like to be powergaming shits, and always have been, as seen by: literally every feature ever.

[oranges]

I was making a joke

[Armhulen]

I was making a joke

Have you even read the rules???
https://tgstation13.org/wiki/Fun
Educate yourself

[Shadowlight213]

Oldman actually can't envision a situation where a player wouldn't use all the powers available to them to make the round more enjoyable. Seriously, it's not his fault he just cannot imagine that situation at all.

It's almost as if peolpe have consistantly abused everything and anything to their advantage, ignoring RP and fun for anyone but themselves.

You make it sound like oldman is being rediculous, when he's simply being practical.
You cannot say 'devil is fine if the player decided to not be a powergaming shit', unless we actually have a ruleset to ensure that they're not a powergaming shit - because guess what, people like to be powergaming shits, and always have been, as seen by: literally every feature ever.

Or, you know... admins do what I suggested and only give devil to players who are actually going to rp.

[Oldman Robustin]

Shadow it doesn't really matter, you can RP the fuck out of your contracts but the contracts already sell themselves and you are forced to evolve/ascend as you sell contracts. Once you ascend the round ends and its IMPS ERRYWHERE.

RP or not its poorly designed.