/tg/Station 13

Bottom post of the previous page:

I still think cult spells are way more powerful then talismans. Like, way, way more powerful.

The health cost is incredibly minor. A medibot or a cult pylon will heal any damage you take from cult spells.

The most major change that made them powerful is how incredibly convenient they are.
-You can cast cult spells with a button push. They happen automatically.
-They do not take inventory space.
-You do not have to manage inventory or take them out of your bag (which makes a sound)
-You can drop your dagger and security will have no easy way to tell you are a cultist unless you get fed holy water.
-Spells can't be taken away from cultists because they're spells, not talismans.
-You can't disarm the cult stun
-All but one of the spells are invisible now and dont show up in hand.
-The cult stun is visually difficult to see.

I think the runes themselves are still fine. They've always been fine. I've never had a problem with cult runes, ever, because they're static and the effects aren't changed very often and they're pretty easy to spot.

Cult items are still pretty ridiculously strong. The mirror shield is super fucking cancer to fight, because of the throw / homing stun and reflecting. And the spitting.
Seriously it has way too many powers for one item.

Constructs still need to be nerfed and I don't know why they even got buffed in the first place since they're so easy to make. Seriously one morgue raid can boost cult numbers double or triple.

What do you mean they don't show up in-hand? They all have the same in-hand icon, just using different colors.

Talismans only made inventory noise if you used them from your bag.

Using spells (with the exception of EMP) takes as many clicks as it did before. You'd click once to equip them, once again to attack. With hotkeys you could also unequip them without having to mouse over your inventory.

The inhand is larger and animated compared to talismans, which were very small or flat out invisible depending on the direction you faced.

You can make cultists lose their spells by exposure to any amount of holy water. An officer vaping holy water is now an AOE cult magic neutralizer. '

10 health isnt major per spell but I wouldn't call it minor either. The idea is that casting major spells without stopping for healing will leave you vulnerable. The issue I had before was you could shove 12 talismans into your bag+pocket and rambo entire departments by yourself in 60 seconds, this system limits the power of a single cultists by capping your spells and punishing you for spamming them back to back.

Of the things you listed the only ones that are actually meaningful are the disarm protection and the convenience. The most important change is that Johnny Randomname can now actually participate in a cult using the cult's mechanics without having to stop and read a wiki (or more typically, just putz around trying to figure out how anything works). Before I'd estimate <35% of cultists would stop and make talismans after conversion, now i'd say its the inverse with >65% stopping preparing at least one spell before leaving a base.

I've nerfed the mirror shield in that PR but the throw itself wasn't homing and if you missed the throw anyone can pick it up or drag it away, or just attack you while you're unprotected. I think the shield was fine in single combat but in larger fights it was frustrating to have to fight through multiple shields. Remember though that a single shotgun slug will shatter the shield and stun the user. I'd like to promote that more and see how the metagame shapes up.

I think the nerf PR I have up will go a long way to getting the winrate back under 50%. Some people seem to forget that I'm following a very intentional pattern of buffing/nerfing the cult to get rid of the worst aspects of being a cultist + worst aspects of fighting the cult. Every year the gameplay gets a little better and I'm proud of that.

@Yakumo_Chen

The problem with the old research and talisman systems is that they weren't challenging but rather incredibly counterintuitive and autistic. Either everyone stumbled getting nothing done or someone sperged out and did it in 5 minutes. I think there needs to be some ramp up for more powerful runes and maybe spells too, and I think having a conversion requirement is the most straightforward way of going about it.

Hand spells simply have to go, we're in agreement there. Going emo on your arm is not even close to balanced enough. I think my tome proposal would actually be a net nerf compared to talismans, because a black tome with glowing eyes is a hell of a lot less discreet than a piece of paper.

Mirror shield and shit needs to go, unarguably. Cult armor and swords is all they need.

If there is one change that needs to happen, it's making it so that constructs don't count towards unlock requirements and cannot invoke runes. Think about it, a live conversion is the hardest to achieve for a reason. Constructs used to be a sign of a cult that was starting to spiral, and this nerf would return them to that. The cult sacrifices (heh) getting closer to high tier spells and runes and invoking power, and in return they get either a shell factory with magic missile, a free AI kill, or a lumbering giant that can't even be scratched with anything weaker than a shotgun. Lock constructs themselves behind a few converts too.

The current PR https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/pull/37024 fixes the issue I had with a lack of feedback for non-cultists. Good work Robustin.

Constructs need to go in my opinion. Why does the cult need them anymore when they have significantly more weapons than they did when they were introduced. It also means that the cult gets an easy way to make bodies uncloneable which is not something they should have. Make them have to go through the trouble of body disposal like every other antagonist does.

balance: Once the blood cult reaches 20% of the active player population, they will receive a notice that the cult is "rising" - and the eyes of all existing and new cultists will be permanently red. Examining a cultist with uncovered eyes will confirm their supernatural appearance.
balance: Once the blood cult reaches 40% of the active player population they will glow red, permanently revealing the identity of existing and new blood cultists.
balance: Juggernauts have 25% less HP and 35% less projectile reflection
balance: Cult mirror shield is 40% less effective at blocking physical attacks, has less illusions, and has -33% throwing distance.
balance: The EMP blood spell has -1 light and heavy radius
balance: The revive rune now requires 3 sacrifices per revive, it still starts with one "freebie" revive. Giving "souls" to AFK/Catatonic cultists remains free of charge.
balance: Twisted Construction now has a channel time with added noise/effects when used on doors
balance: You can now only hold 1 blood spell without an empowering rune and 4 with one.

I really appreciate this level of balance and fine tuning.

Also yay one spell. Having played a few cult rounds the flexibility of two spells did feel like a really strong starting position. Having to choose between offensive and defensive options is a great way to make the empower rune far more desired, forcing the kind of hidden base building that I feel makes cult more fun than rev

Oldman Robustin wrote:What do you mean they don't show up in-hand? They all have the same in-hand icon, just using different colors.

i think they mean the spells don't show in people's description if you examine someone with a spell active, whereas talisman spells would at least tell you that they have a paper in their hand

Stickymayhem wrote:
I really appreciate this level of balance and fine tuning.

Also yay one spell. Having played a few cult rounds the flexibility of two spells did feel like a really strong starting position. Having to choose between offensive and defensive options is a great way to make the empower rune far more desired, forcing the kind of hidden base building that I feel makes cult more fun than rev

I'd like to add more depth to the empower rune too. Maybe make it so that the cap only goes up to 2 if you're alone but additional chanters will let you reach 3, 4, or even 5. Would add some flavor too.

It just feels a little basic right now.

factoryman942 wrote:

Oldman Robustin wrote:What do you mean they don't show up in-hand? They all have the same in-hand icon, just using different colors.

i think they mean the spells don't show in people's description if you examine someone with a spell active, whereas talisman spells would at least tell you that they have a paper in their hand

Huh, they should, I gave them names and descriptions and everything... maybe an abstract flag is causing it, I'll investigate later.

Dr_bee wrote:Constructs need to go in my opinion. Why does the cult need them anymore when they have significantly more weapons than they did when they were introduced. It also means that the cult gets an easy way to make bodies uncloneable which is not something they should have. Make them have to go through the trouble of body disposal like every other antagonist does.

Cult gibbing their sacrifices has been a core part of their flavor, I don't think that's going anywhere. Also upgrading cloning is arguably easier than ever and you can still be cloned if you backed up.

They're a way to keep cult victims in the round but more importantly they offer some versatility in tactics/gameplay.

My updates have nerfed the construct's combat potency in exchange for giving them utility. Wraiths have lost HP and damage, Juggernauts will have lost 100hp and over half of their laser reflection along with damage. I overbuffed juggs initially because I wanted them to be more than floating walls but I'm bringing them back into line. Artificers haven't really changed much but I'd still like to give them a more creative role. I've been thinking of ways to bottleneck "souls" a little more because even a shade from every kill can get snowbally, but it's pretty hard to move away from 1 player = 1 soul. In the last couple months I have added a lot of restrictions on being able to convert or shard catatonics, AFK's, and non-players.

If I were you I'd grab a shotgun or make an improvised one. Shotgun slugs will 3-shot juggernauts (post PR), 1-shot artificers, and do like 97% damage to a wraith, and anyone with a mirror shield will be stunned and have their mirror shattered if struck by one. I even added shotgun ammo to the Security lathe to help with accessibility.

The proposed changes seem to address a lot of the issues, great job with that. My only issue is that sacrificing someone to make a construct still feels like the superior option 99% of the time.

Oldman Robustin wrote:

factoryman942 wrote:

Oldman Robustin wrote:What do you mean they don't show up in-hand? They all have the same in-hand icon, just using different colors.

i think they mean the spells don't show in people's description if you examine someone with a spell active, whereas talisman spells would at least tell you that they have a paper in their hand

Huh, they should, I gave them names and descriptions and everything... maybe an abstract flag is causing it, I'll investigate later.

https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/ ... ic.dm#L341

Luke Cox wrote:The proposed changes seem to address a lot of the issues, great job with that. My only issue is that sacrificing someone to make a construct still feels like the superior option 99% of the time.

wasn't this literally what robustin built his new cult around?

oranges wrote:

Luke Cox wrote:The proposed changes seem to address a lot of the issues, great job with that. My only issue is that sacrificing someone to make a construct still feels like the superior option 99% of the time.

wasn't this literally what robustin built his new cult around?

He might have, and I think that's a bit of a mistake. Constructs should be powerful but difficult to obtain. Live conversions are the most difficult to do and the least rewarding, which is outright bad design. Either sacrifices should take 3 people and live conversions just 1, or constructs shouldn't be able to invoke runes.

I like constructs more than converts because constructs are so damn easy to play there's basically no chance that they'll fuck up and ruin everything for the cult like a bad cultist can. But at the same time there's a skill ceiling and hard limits to what constructs can do unlike with cultists, so I think it all balances out. The only issue is when the cult can get a whole bunch of corpses sacrificed for free shards, though I think this has already been fixed.

Constructs are stupid because it means that implants literally do nothing to stop the cult.

I mean seriously, there is no actual method to hinder the cult from converting at all. This is a problem. You cant stop the snowball conversion effect as sec.

Not only do cultists have a large amount of other tools but they have an unstoppable ability to convert. THERE IS AN ENTIRE MODE BASED AROUND JUST THAT ABILITY.

As long as the cult can sacrifice people with implants in them for free constructs cult will forever be broken in my book.

The cult needs to be encouraged to keep people alive for converts, constructs do the opposite.

Oldman Robustin wrote:

Stickymayhem wrote:
I really appreciate this level of balance and fine tuning.

Also yay one spell. Having played a few cult rounds the flexibility of two spells did feel like a really strong starting position. Having to choose between offensive and defensive options is a great way to make the empower rune far more desired, forcing the kind of hidden base building that I feel makes cult more fun than rev

I'd like to add more depth to the empower rune too. Maybe make it so that the cap only goes up to 2 if you're alone but additional chanters will let you reach 3, 4, or even 5. Would add some flavor too.

It just feels a little basic right now.

The empower rune would be an interesting defensive option. Perhaps it gives some bonus like being able to throw your enchanted hand at someone to provide a ranged affect for 15 seconds after it's been used. Needing two buddies to achieve that effect would stop it being used too aggressively without a smart set-up, and it can make bumrushing bases a little more dangerous.

Also, constructs are still a problem. I think they should be removed from altars and religated back to artificers only to create a sufficient bottle-neck and make those economic decisions more impactful (Should I make 2-3 artificers to go into mass production later or do I need a juggernaut/wraith straight after the first artificer?)

oranges wrote:wasn't this literally what robustin built his new cult around?

Where'd you get that idea? The only big change I've made was moving from talismans to "touch spells". My only vision for constructs was sacrificing some of their combat strength for added utility. My "ideal" for blood cult has always been to have constructs available as a strategic option.

With the coming "removal" of late-game stealth for the cult, I suspect constructs will end up being more of an endgame-oriented choice since one of the big draws of human converts if they can help you infiltrate their department and grab more victims whereas once the "blood aura" is triggered you'll probably get more bang for your buck from constructs.

I'll see how things go after the coming Juggernaut nerf and consider removing shells from altars, but I do feel pretty strongly about not pigeon-holing artificers. One of my biggest regrets has been my inability to find a better playstyle for arti's so they can be a support construct without just being a semi-AFK role where you poop out construct materials every 5 minutes. I had plenty of ideas but they already have so much utility that I didn't want to overbuff them. It is funny though because a year ago you had 3 shells you could make from the starter talisman, 2 you could make from the altar talisman, and 2 from every 50 metal. Now those numbers are 0, 1, and 1 - I need to see some rounds in action to get a feel for it once the nerf PR is merged.

Have you considered decoupling sacrificing from obtaining constructs? If you remove sacrificing and make construct production just require materials while pulling someone from the pool of ghosts it would make the cult a bit less frustrating to fight. I mean right now construct shells require 50 metal so mass production would be rather difficult unless you loot every bit of metal on the station.

Getting people back into the round as constructs instead of having making constructs be a 100% guaranteed way to make someone uncloneable would be a better way of using them. Plus you could even tie construct production to cult population thresholds if you want to.

Keeping constructs while removing their ability to make mind shields absolutely useless would solve some problems. I mean it would at least mean that the cult would be required to dispose of fucking corpses for a change.

How about make it so that only artificers can help with casting runes, while J U G G and wraith can't?

Artis are great for following juggs around and playing combat medic and I don't see why they don't do that more. Maybe take away their ability to damage and give them healing touch instead to heal humans in addition to constructs.

These stun hands or whatever it is are cheap and dumb, bring back stun papers.

Perhaps it's not so much feedback about the coding as much as it is feedback about planning. I am worried about the current way we are approaching doing gamemodes. Although we may be making new and ideal types of game modes, there always is the chance they will not work out (as seen with clockcult.) I want to make sure there is at least some plan to revert back to the previous blood cult if this new one does not work out. I don't want to disable another mode in the config again just because someone worked on it, got bored, and is too lazy to revert it back.

CitrusGender wrote:Perhaps it's not so much feedback about the coding as much as it is feedback about planning. I am worried about the current way we are approaching doing gamemodes. Although we may be making new and ideal types of game modes, there always is the chance they will not work out (as seen with clockcult.) I want to make sure there is at least some plan to revert back to the previous blood cult if this new one does not work out. I don't want to disable another mode in the config again just because someone worked on it, got bored, and is too lazy to revert it back.

Design documents need to start being required for game modes, Blood cult is power creep: the game mode.

There is a reason professional game devs use it, it provides a nice basis for understanding changes as they pertain to the entire game mode, so you can actually look at a change like giving all cultists un-removable magic spells instead of papers that can be confiscated, or making mind shields just gib the person and give a free shard, and see how that might be a problem for the overall balance and goal of the game mode.

Personal Gripe: Bloodcultists never need to heal anymore.

A round I played a few weeks ago went something like this: I rolled a starting blood cultist on Metastation, and bee-lined immediately to the arrivals vacant office. Boarded the walls up, and placed an Offer Rune, Teleport rune, Manifest Spirit Rune, Empower Rune, Barrier Rune, AND to top it off I dropped an altar, archives, and used twisted conversion TWICE after running to get metal from cargo. By the time I had run back and forth and done all of these things, I had a serviceable cult base, with practically 100% self-sustainability. Hell, the base outlasted me that round. All in all, by the time I was done, I don't even think I dropped lower than 60% health, I still had fast movement through the halls and looked no more suspicious than anyone in the halls. And while I could just say that since I was setting this up in a private area, with no time constraints, the amount of time I spent setting this up is it's own price, I feel like with current blood cult healing is almost unnecessary. You have blood rites with self-use and you have pylons to heal for the negligible cost of runes and spells. It doesn't FEEL much like I'm doing blood magic, it feels like I'm cutting myself with a butter knife and it's leaving a tiny baby scrape.

Now, old blood cult at least felt like the actions were HEAVY. There was a reason why blood cultists would luck out if they had any cultists in medbay and that was because you ran through medkits and brute patches like Totinos pizza rolls at a LAN party. Disgustingly fast, BUT, it meant you were gambling with every conversion and every minibase because blood cult focused on a health risk-reward dynamic. Honestly, as an honest to god test I'd love to see a round where every rune scribe cost about 15 brute damage, while leaving the healing aspects the same, JUST to see if that perhaps slows the roll of cult

Also yeah fix bloodcult so people can stop complaining I have bad taste for enjoying cult

Something I haven't seen suggested anywhere in discussions about cult changes is why isn't something just added which increases both the importance and vulnerability of the cult master? It seems like at the current moment, the cult master only serves to be the one who summons everybody to the place once it's time to poke Narsie awake. Why isn't this expanded on to add some form of serious weakness to the cult?

Maybe for instance if the cult master is killed, the cultists all suffer a debuff to movement speed and spellcasting in the same vein as xenomorph a who've lost their queen, while if the cult master is full-on deconverted, all cultists are revealed a la clock cultists during Reeve invasion. This way the cult has a genuine goal to protect the cult master, and successfully capturing the master results in an immediate benefit to the crew.

Just a suggestion, of course, and maybe there's more to it that I'm not seeing. Possibly then nobody would want to volunteer for cult master? So maybe it's randomly assigned instead if nobody volunteers within a period of time? Really overall it just seems like there's this role within the cult that has extra power without adding any type of extra weakness, and that could be a good place to look for balancing changes.

There is a weakness for the cult master. Some noob who doesn't know what he's doing presses all the buttons and gives himself the cult master rank. (Whoever's the first one to press the button always gets it. You can't convince people to press no.) Also, Apocalypse rune. Griefy cult masters waste mass summons on an Apocalypse rune and fucks over the cult. That rune is literally free grief for the cult to fuck over each other. Why was this made a rune

It's RUNE not RUIN you smoothbrain REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

ShadowDimentio wrote:It's RUNE not RUIN you smoothbrain REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

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