Paranoia on a deathtrap

[ShadowDimentio]

Bottom post of the previous page:

Where'd it go?

What's the easiest way of bringing it back?

buff the everloving fuck out of antags, especially the stealthy shit
make it so at any moment a traitor could just out and drop you dead in a second flat

Something being super lethal doesn't cause paranoia by itself.

Nor do consequences (sitting in deadchat for an hour). A wizard warping to station, cheesing stuns to kill everyone, and recalling the shuttle for 45 minutes is not fun or interesting for anyone involved.

Paranoia comes from not knowing.

But we know everything. We have brightly lit areas, cameras, universal radio, secHUDs that see your job and whether or not you have the AntagFree implant, meta tells for all antags, spammable antag tests/deconversion, team huds/private chat for most antag types, etc.

It is not about lethality, it is about information, and trust, and we have a ton of both.

Playing a game of Mafia or Trouble in Terrorist Town doesn't require the badguy to be able to shrug off bullets and rampage to be scary, and the games only last 15 minutes at most. But it exploits everyones lack of information, to sow mistrust and confusion. It is a race against time to figure things out as people get picked off.

We lack confusion, because our players desire clarity, in rules and in gameplay.

This used to be what changelings did. They'd cuck you in single combat no matter what, and that made everyone paranoid of everyone because WHAT IF THIS GUY IS A LING STAY AWAY FROM MY PERSONAL SPACE

Until the butthurt players that hated parasting had it removed.

Then ling lost it's shtick of "1v1 gods" and wandered around different gameplay ideas that were all shit, slowly dying, until people got so sick of it that it was removed.

Bring back parasting, bring back ling, bring back paranoia, bring back fun.

[Alex Crimson]

This is why Lifeweb has such a great atmosphere. You are so restricted in everything you do. You NEED to rely on other people to survive, and every single one of them is able to kill you at any point without consequences IC or OOC. TG has gone a completely different direction with its gameplay, and its way too late to start caring now.

[Scott]

Where'd it go?

What's the easiest way of bringing it back?

You didn't want it, remember? Sudden death was removed, permanent death was removed, rounds only last 30 minutes so even if you do die forever it's not a big deal, that shuttle will be called soon enough.

[deputi]

We could massively increase the level of paranoia by having people not be able to see everything behind themselves. It could work by having a black screen behind the person which would rotate when the person faces another direction. We could even replace the x-ray mutation with a mutation that gives you eyes on the back of your head so you can see behind yourself. I don't know about you guys, but I think it would be pretty spooky not knowing what's always behind you.
Concept Image:

As you can see in this concept image, any traitor/monster/corgi could easily sneak up on this poor unsuspecting chef from out of the freezer room and kill/nuzzle him to death! Pretty spooky tbh

[ShadowDimentio]

Trivia: Not even Bay does that. It's that awful, even if it makes sense.

[Luke Cox]

All antags need more stealth options, along with objectives that require them to kill multiple people. True paranoia doesn't come from somebody on a dual esword rampage, it comes from the knowledge that anybody you encounter could be a sleeper agent waiting to jump out, murder you, and wreck everything you've been working on all shift. This would mean reverting ebow nerfs, adding some stealth items, and adding traitor objectives like "ensure less than x % of the crew survives" or "kill all members of x department or "ensure the singularity engine or tesla engine escapes containment.

[Alex Crimson]

Ebow nerf was needed. Ranged stuns are stupid, especially one that could stunlock you and passively recharged its ammo. Limiting light-of-sight is a neat concept, but it would be a HUGE change for a server like TG, so its probably not a good idea.

[Anonmare]

This is all just speculating anyway, the /TG/ "If I can't solo a Nuke OPs team then they're overpowered" playerbase would never go with anything that would put being a loner at a disadvantage.

[Luke Cox]

Ebow nerf was needed. Ranged stuns are stupid, especially one that could stunlock you and passively recharged its ammo. Limiting light-of-sight is a neat concept, but it would be a HUGE change for a server like TG, so its probably not a good idea.

And ranged crit revolvers aren't? If you encounter a semi-competent antag and you aren't prepared for combat, you WILL die.

[leibniz]

Ebow nerf was needed. Ranged stuns are stupid, especially one that could stunlock you and passively recharged its ammo. Limiting light-of-sight is a neat concept, but it would be a HUGE change for a server like TG, so its probably not a good idea.

Then nerf just the recharge, like you can fire 5 shots then nothing for 30 seconds. It makes sense for a hit and run weapon.
Not being able to miss with your first shot is VERY punishing because anyone with a basic taser can just spamfire in return.
(this shouldnt apply to the RnD version, why can they even fucking make this)
Or decrease the price, because right now it is overpriced.

[Zilenan91]

It's not overpriced. If it was anything less every traitor would have a rechargable taser on them. The ebow has its own use, and that use isn't for mass murder, which isn't something traitors want to do anyways.

[PKPenguin321]

It's not overpriced. If it was anything less every traitor would have a rechargable taser on them. The ebow has its own use, and that use isn't for mass murder, which isn't something traitors want to do anyways.

Spooky traitors secretly murdering everybody in maint with the rest of the crew being none the wiser is actually really paranoia-inducing

[Zilenan91]

Not even a little bit. If greyshirts and sec die in maint I couldn't care less unless they start coming into the halls to murderbone, but we've mostly moved away from mass murderbone as a server.

[PKPenguin321]

Not even a little bit. If greyshirts and sec die in maint I couldn't care less unless they start coming into the halls to murderbone, but we've mostly moved away from mass murderbone as a server.

Which sucks
The best days of the game were when traitors were so powerful they could take out most of the station and a significant number of its crew. Cry "but muh murderbones" all you want, at least the antagonists actually felt like antagonists and not "greyshirt with an esword and a license to grief."

[kazeespada]

Remember the PR to buff eswords to prevent disarms got shot down because it would also block punches.

"ITS OP IF I CANT PUNCH A JEDI IN THE FACE."

[Zilenan91]

Honestly, if all antagonists want to do with their rounds is murder people, that's fine, but it's also boring and uncreative if all they do is just tase and lase. The best antag rounds I've ever played, either as the antag or not, have been where they've done benevolent or benign things. Like being All Access Man and killing all of the heads of staff then giving all access to everyone and becoming the hero the station deserves. Or mindswapping everyone into a corgi as a wizard, or making an army of syndiborgs with old multiverse swords. Or the time I flooded so many holocarp I killed the whole station and nearly lagged it to death. Doing nothing but murdering people is horrible not because it takes people out of the round, but because it's such a waste of potential.

[PKPenguin321]

Honestly, if all antagonists want to do with their rounds is murder people, that's fine, but it's also boring and uncreative if all they do is just tase and lase. The best antag rounds I've ever played, either as the antag or not, have been where they've done benevolent or benign things. Like being All Access Man and killing all of the heads of staff then giving all access to everyone and becoming the hero the station deserves. Or mindswapping everyone into a corgi as a wizard, or making an army of syndiborgs with old multiverse swords. Or the time I flooded so many holocarp I killed the whole station and nearly lagged it to death. Doing nothing but murdering people is horrible not because it takes people out of the round, but because it's such a waste of potential.

I'm not saying this isn't good. Antags are meant primarily to drive the round in a fun way, and gimmicks like these are a perfect example of that. This thread, however, is about paranoia, not silly laugh-out-loud gimmicks. Antags should be able to drive the round in a scarier, more intimidating and atmospheric way, at least from time to time. Traitor rounds where I actually fear for my character's life have not happened in weeks.

[InsaneHyena]

Paranoia? What paranoia? Rounds last about an hour, I have absolutely nothing too lose. Back on russian server, they are three hours of baymed and bayatmos, there it's different.

[Actionb]

Removing features that have no counter (para-sting, paraC4) is a double-edged sword.
On the one hand, those features are a bullshit "I WIN!" button... on the other, the fear of being completely helpless in some circumstances is what creates paranoia: "No! I don't want to get into that situation! No, stay out of my personal box! Stop following me!".

[pondering]

Spoiler:

I was never a big fan of changelings. Newlings were awfully boring; not having to actually kill anybody to achieve your objectives, really? Team-antag ling was just murderboning deluxe with invincible lings from hell.
Oldlings were solitary creatures for the most part. They had to absorb people which took the victims out of the round unless somebody was bored enough to do a brain transplant/borging - or until upgradeable machines were a thing. Getting absorbed by an oldling was cereal business, you really didn't want your muscle to tighten and end up as a husk in the chef's gibber.
So you stayed the fuck away from people you didn't trust.

Maybe it's just nostalgia about a time when I didn't know just about everything there is to know about ss13, but nowadays I don't really feel any fear.
Maybe it's because there are so many ways for getting back into the round now (posibrains, autocloning, etc.)?
Maybe it's because antags aren't stealthy enough in that any attempt on my life is easily recognizable?
Maybe I just don't care about dying because observing for 15 minutes isn't the end of the world anymore?

Bottomline is: we won't get para-anything back, we won't remove super-cloning, defibs or posibrains. Death will not be a real penalty.
With that in mind, can there even be such a thing as paranoia?

[/pondering]

[Scott]

No, you're definitely right, parasting was good. It's the mentality that nobody must have a tough round that kills the game's RP fun (even though rule 10 states that losing is part of the game).

[DemonFiren]

Paranoia? What paranoia? Rounds last about an hour, I have absolutely nothing too lose. Back on russian server, they are three hours of baymed and bayatmos, there it's different.

For a change, this guy's actually got a point.

[TheNightingale]

Not standing next to people because they might parapen-C4 you is paranoia, but it's not a good sort of paranoia. People murdering everyone isn't paranoia, it's immersion-breaking. Paranoia is not knowing what might happen, having to be ready for anything; paranoia is hearing a suspicious noise in maintenance and wondering Am I next?; paranoia is arranging a meetup with someone, and then finding a trail of fresh blood instead of your friend; paranoia is the Detective working all shift to find a mysterious bomber, never finding them, boarding an escape pod with their investigation assistant, the assistant revealing that, all along, it was them.

I'd argue that we can get paranoia without having to randomly kill everyone. There's no paranoia in knowing Billy Bob Johnson can walk into your department and revolver you to death; when people regularly do this, you stop caring about what might happen. That's not paranoia, that's boring.

[Remie Richards]

We could massively increase the level of paranoia by having people not be able to see everything behind themselves. It could work by having a black screen behind the person which would rotate when the person faces another direction. We could even replace the x-ray mutation with a mutation that gives you eyes on the back of your head so you can see behind yourself. I don't know about you guys, but I think it would be pretty spooky not knowing what's always behind you.
Concept Image:
- img snip -
As you can see in this concept image, any traitor/monster/corgi could easily sneak up on this poor unsuspecting chef from out of the freezer room and kill/nuzzle him to death! Pretty spooky tbh

If this was done, I really wouldn't want it to be done (or do it myself) that way.
I'd have:
* Areas behind the player are Visible, but black and white/greyscale. (client.color can't be applied to just 1 piece of the screen, plane masters might be able to with blending)
* Areas behind the player don't visually update. (I don't believe DM has any easy way to do this, we don't control screen rendering at all)
* Sound effects make a small effect if they occurred in the player's "blind" areas, but configurable in the sound call (so you can have quiet sounds not show up, and only "loud" ones like eswords turning on, this is entirely doable.)

So essentially the areas behind a player become a "soundscape", they can sense things going on but can't actively see what's going on without turning around.

[TheNightingale]

On that note, it'd be good if sounds had a text cue as well, for people who can't use sound otherwise (they're deaf, they don't have headphones and they're on a bus, et cetera). "You hear a fwoosh" for an energy sword, for example. Display those for stuff that happens outside your field of vision.

[CPTANT]

To be honest it doesn't help either that everyone goes completely apeshit every time someone tries to make something more lethal.

[deputi]

If this was done, I really wouldn't want it to be done (or do it myself) that way.
I'd have:
* Areas behind the player are Visible, but black and white/greyscale. (client.color can't be applied to just 1 piece of the screen, plane masters might be able to with blending)
* Areas behind the player don't visually update. (I don't believe DM has any easy way to do this, we don't control screen rendering at all)
* Sound effects make a small effect if they occurred in the player's "blind" areas, but configurable in the sound call (so you can have quiet sounds not show up, and only "loud" ones like eswords turning on, this is entirely doable.)

So essentially the areas behind a player become a "soundscape", they can sense things going on but can't actively see what's going on without turning around.

I agree that greyscale would look much better than blacking out half the screen. Would it still be possible to just not show anything on a certain layer behind the player?
Also greyscale concept image:

Spoiler:

[Remie Richards]

If this was done, I really wouldn't want it to be done (or do it myself) that way.
I'd have:
* Areas behind the player are Visible, but black and white/greyscale. (client.color can't be applied to just 1 piece of the screen, plane masters might be able to with blending)
* Areas behind the player don't visually update. (I don't believe DM has any easy way to do this, we don't control screen rendering at all)
* Sound effects make a small effect if they occurred in the player's "blind" areas, but configurable in the sound call (so you can have quiet sounds not show up, and only "loud" ones like eswords turning on, this is entirely doable.)

So essentially the areas behind a player become a "soundscape", they can sense things going on but can't actively see what's going on without turning around.

I agree that greyscale would look much better than blacking out half the screen. Would it still be possible to just not show anything on a certain layer behind the player?
Also greyscale concept image:

Spoiler:

With 510 we got "plane masters", allowing us to wrap an entire layers worth of object as one slice of the screen, and rotate it, colour it etc.
A plane could probably be hidden, but not for individual users, and that also limits us to having every object in the game on the same plane, which severely limits our ability to use that feature in other ways.

As I said, it'd be hard to pull off "right", but if we could it'd be the best solution to a "You can't see behind you"-style visual system.

[Malkevin]

Why was the ebow nerfed?
It costs like half your TCs and it is inferior to the fucking basic tasers sec officers have.

Because.....

>Paprika

[PKPenguin321]

People murdering everyone isn't paranoia, it's immersion-breaking.

I disagree. When I first started playing and there were robust traitor murderbones, there was one round in particular where I was chased all the way to arrivals by the murderer and ended up hiding in a locker in arrivals locker room. Most of the lights were put, maybe due to electrical storms or more likely due to a lack of power from a sabotaged engine. The guy went to the lockers and started opening them one by one. This was less paranoia, but more actual fear (which IMO is even better). During this, some security officers walked in, and they had a firefight with me quivering in this locker and practically pleading for the officers to win, as I was too unrobust at the time to even consider helping them.

They did not win. The miniature panic attack I had as the murderer turned from finishing off the last sec officer and back to the lockers was the kind of immersion this game could use more of.

[Malkevin]

And little did you know, being the unrobust newb you were, that if you locked the personal locker with your ID card whilst you were inside he wouldn't be able to open the locker unless he had personal locker access on his, stolen, id card or and emag.

[lumipharon]

he could drag the locker and space it though. honk.

[Actionb]

People murdering everyone isn't paranoia, it's immersion-breaking.

I disagree. When I first started playing and there were robust traitor murderbones, there was one round in particular where I was chased all the way to arrivals by the murderer and ended up hiding in a locker in arrivals locker room. Most of the lights were put, maybe due to electrical storms or more likely due to a lack of power from a sabotaged engine. The guy went to the lockers and started opening them one by one. This was less paranoia, but more actual fear (which IMO is even better). During this, some security officers walked in, and they had a firefight with me quivering in this locker and practically pleading for the officers to win, as I was too unrobust at the time to even consider helping them.

They did not win. The miniature panic attack I had as the murderer turned from finishing off the last sec officer and back to the lockers was the kind of immersion this game could use more of.

This makes me think that all us oldfag neckbeards just can't get that feeling back ever anyway.
The only thing that still makes me jump is accidentally smashing a table as a hulk during surgery.

[CPTANT]

The problem is and has always been that traitor items have been nerfed to shit because they felt "cheap" without giving traitors other powerful options.

At the same time everyone shoots down any attempt at buffing traitors.

[Zilenan91]

Traitors don't need a buff. Full stop. I don't think you people understand how to balance a game or how to make a game fun for people.

[LiamLime]

Paranoia is the antonym of roleplay. You can target one or the other, but you can't have both. Nobody will roleplay if they are suspicious of everyone.

OpenSS13 of 2007/08 was 'balanced' for paranoia, and it was great. But there was no roleplay to be found.

[Cheimon]

I'm not convinced I want additional paranoia. I've found teamwork to be fun, but that's not really possible if paranoia is too high.

Deathtrap is more that you're trapped on the station than that the station is always deadly (though parts of it, such as the engine and atmospherics systems, can definitely be sabotaged to kill you).

[CPTANT]

Traitors don't need a buff. Full stop. I don't think you people understand how to balance a game or how to make a game fun for people.

They do need a buff and they need it bigtime. The average server goer can't do shit with the tools provided to them and rounds suffer as a result.

And yes I know very well what I am talking about.

[PKPenguin321]

Traitors don't need a buff. Full stop. I don't think you people understand how to balance a game or how to make a game fun for people.

All I know is that they both used to be more powerful and the game also used to be more fun. Maybe you can't relate since you didn't start playing until long after I did, but I promise what I say is true.

[ShadowDimentio]

Speaking as someone who defected to Goon for 6 months and they're basically dancing on a knife's edge with how deadly everything is, it's a shitload of fun. The antags have a ton of extremely deadly toys, but so do you, and you get the throw what you have at them. It's great.

[LiamLime]

Speaking as someone who defected to Goon for 6 months and they're basically dancing on a knife's edge with how deadly everything is, it's a shitload of fun. The antags have a ton of extremely deadly toys, but so do you, and you get the throw what you have at them. It's great.

There's nothing wrong with it. But there are consequences to doing that. If everyone is paranoid, there is no team work and no roleplay (spoiler: goonstation).

I don't think goonstation doing something means we should imitate or avoid it. I think offering an alternative is fine. Anyone who wishes to play a more paranoid and deadly version can simply play on Goonstation. Nothing wrong with that.

[Zilenan91]

Traitors don't need a buff. Full stop. I don't think you people understand how to balance a game or how to make a game fun for people.

All I know is that they both used to be more powerful and the game also used to be more fun. Maybe you can't relate since you didn't start playing until long after I did, but I promise what I say is true.

Perhaps the game is no longer as fun for you because you've been playing it for literally years.

[PKPenguin321]

Traitors don't need a buff. Full stop. I don't think you people understand how to balance a game or how to make a game fun for people.

All I know is that they both used to be more powerful and the game also used to be more fun. Maybe you can't relate since you didn't start playing until long after I did, but I promise what I say is true.

Perhaps the game is no longer as fun for you because you've been playing it for literally years.

or maybe having stronger antags with the odds stacked against the crew is more interesting and engaging instead of having a select few people get traitor only to immediately get dunked every round

[Oldman Robustin]

Parapens, Parasting, both of those were difficult to catch and virtually a guaranteed kill if you were ever alone with someone. Nothing made you more paranoid than going into interrogation with the lawyer and a suspect knowing that the lawyer could kill you silently and have the suspect free and posing as you within a minute.

Now? How the fuck would someone pull off a truly silent kill? Even if you mute them your means of murder will inevitably involve bashing, beating, or shooting that everyone nearby can hear.

Throw in the Harmyeller McDoorbolter 9000 and you've got a recipe for never dying.

[TechnoAlchemist]

I've gotten plenty of silent kills using the silenced stechkin / mutesting +stunprod.

[Helios]

I've gotten plenty of silent kills using the silenced stechkin / mutesting +stunprod.

And how many have you gotten with new cult?

[Steelpoint]

Nothing will ever change as the player base is apethetic towards any changes towards paranoia.

It's easy to talk the talk, but no one has walked the walk.

How many times have we had these threads pop up only to dissapear again?

Nothing will change.

[PKPenguin321]

Nothing will ever change as the player base is apethetic towards any changes towards paranoia.

It's easy to talk the talk, but no one has walked the walk.

How many times have we had these threads pop up only to dissapear again?

Nothing will change.

the problem is nobody's sure what exactly to change

[Zilenan91]

>going quiet
>newcult

Just get an artificer and some swords and then everybody is dead from construct snowball

[MisterPerson]

Nothing will ever change as the player base is apethetic towards any changes towards paranoia.

It's easy to talk the talk, but no one has walked the walk.

How many times have we had these threads pop up only to dissapear again?

Nothing will change.

the problem is nobody's sure what exactly to change

You need to make a point so strongly that you convince people to side with your opinion. For example, I personally felt that Kor's point was strong enough that I'm finding myself agreeing with it.

[DemonFiren]

Honestly, if all antagonists want to do with their rounds is murder people, that's fine, but it's also boring and uncreative if all they do is just tase and lase. The best antag rounds I've ever played, either as the antag or not, have been where they've done benevolent or benign things. Like being All Access Man and killing all of the heads of staff then giving all access to everyone and becoming the hero the station deserves. Or mindswapping everyone into a corgi as a wizard, or making an army of syndiborgs with old multiverse swords. Or the time I flooded so many holocarp I killed the whole station and nearly lagged it to death. Doing nothing but murdering people is horrible not because it takes people out of the round, but because it's such a waste of potential.

I'm not saying this isn't good. Antags are meant primarily to drive the round in a fun way, and gimmicks like these are a perfect example of that. This thread, however, is about paranoia, not silly laugh-out-loud gimmicks. Antags should be able to drive the round in a scarier, more intimidating and atmospheric way, at least from time to time. Traitor rounds where I actually fear for my character's life have not happened in weeks.

Much as I absolutely fucking despise murderboners, this guy has a point.
As does Kor.

[Steelpoint]

If you want to go hard core minimal information you should effect the below changes.

• Make the majority of the station have minimal lighting, only vital/high tech area's such as Research, Security, Command and Medbay have full flood lighting.
• Maintenance should have almost virtually no lighting.
• SecHuds should remain as is but they require a target to remain stationary for a few moments for the Hud to complete a scan. Making a moving person not get caught out by some Officer taking eating chips who catches a glimpse as they walk by.
• Weapons in general (real weapons) should be more lethal but armour should be more viable to a extent. More so Traitor weapons. A traitor, or antagonist (Changeling with stealth kills) needs to be able to kill someone easily, at least when they are alone.
• Remove the AI period, or make it utterly uninterested in whatever shit the Humans do and focus it on maintaining the integrity of the station. The AI is near built to catch antags, limiting its ability to do is law wise may remove this annoyance.
• No round start Cyborgs. Cyborgs are not linked to the AI sans if its a Traitor and it expends resources to hook them up, this means its not guaranteed a Borg is subverted to a rogue AI but its a possibility.
• At extreme only the Head of Security, Captain and the Warden are 100% guaranteed to be utterly loyal to the station. They get a unique Loyalty Implant that can be detected on SecHUD's. Security Officers and the Detective get a lower quality Loyalty Implant that only shows up, like wanted statuses, if they remain still for a few seconds to be scanned. The higher quality Loyalty Implants are always visible, but can be removed and reimplanted into someone.
• Revert to Oldling or steal Goonling.
• Cult, man.....

Take Kor's idea and run with it, limit information as much as we can to a certain degree. In fact I would argue you allow Traitors and some antags to buy uniquely skinned Traitor items that have a item skin of something job related, a Medipen skinned Energy Dagger, a Clown Pie that is actually C4 or Revolver ammo hidden in a pack of ciggerates.