/tg/Station 13

I've been on a long break from /tg/ and coding, and now that I'm around again, I've heard a lot about clockcult. A removal PR was even pushed on the GitHub, and although it failed, I think it speaks volumes about the amount of player dissatisfaction about the mode currently.

I'm making this thread because I know a lot of people have disliked clockcult since its conception and addition. Back when I first added it, I thought the gamemode was fine and had no issues, and that it was a player problem. The fact that the complaints have persisted more for this gamemode than any other one shows me that I was at the time nearsighted and too proud to view my own work as anything but perfect. Now that I can see where my issues lie, I'm cooperating with Joan, who's graciously kept the gamemode running and mostly stable, to try and make clockcult a mode that more people can enjoy playing as and playing against.

Improving clockcult right now

Yeah yup we're doing this, it's a thing.

The removal PR was the best improvement that could have been made and it was rejected.

That's the exact kind of feedback that doesn't help us, and certainly doesn't help you. What don't you like about it? Tell us what we can fix, rather than what we have to saw off! If you just dislike the mode, that's fine. But I really doubt that there's nothing we can do at all to make you like it even a bit.

But it's true. Even if you guys make it less cancerous, and the PR about making you keep your unlocks even if your requirements drop isn't helping, it'll still be bad. It's to the point where if I'm roundstart security and we find out clock cult, we nearly never lose because the cult is that weak at the start. If I latejoin and the cult's already snowballed then I just suicide and observe the five minute wait for them to win. The entire mode was a mistake, we don't need more conversion modes and honestly if I had to choose one to take out it would be this one.

The best improvement for any code baby is they that begat the thing walking away.

BeeSting12 wrote:But it's true. Even if you guys make it less cancerous, and the PR about making you keep your unlocks even if your requirements drop isn't helping, it'll still be bad. It's to the point where if I'm roundstart security and we find out clock cult, we nearly never lose because the cult is that weak at the start. If I latejoin and the cult's already snowballed then I just suicide and observe the five minute wait for them to win. The entire mode was a mistake, we don't need more conversion modes and honestly if I had to choose one to take out it would be this one.

That's literally why we made the thread, dude. To make that not happen like that.

BeeSting12 wrote:But it's true. Even if you guys make it less cancerous, and the PR about making you keep your unlocks even if your requirements drop isn't helping, it'll still be bad. It's to the point where if I'm roundstart security and we find out clock cult, we nearly never lose because the cult is that weak at the start. If I latejoin and the cult's already snowballed then I just suicide and observe the five minute wait for them to win. The entire mode was a mistake, we don't need more conversion modes and honestly if I had to choose one to take out it would be this one.

Your problems can be addressed, for the most part. The cult being weak at the start can be fixed, as can the unstoppable snowball that plagues the lategame. The conversion factor will always be a controversial one, and while we're trying to minimize it, the fact of the matter is that if you dislike conversion as a whole than you probably won't ever like this mode. Joan and I have discussed alternatives, or making it work in a much different way, but right now it's too early on to say if we want to implement any of them.

Incomptinence wrote:The best improvement for any code baby is they that begat the thing walking away.

This doesn't help me, Joan, or anyone else. If you want to help, say something that the community can work with, which that isn't. Besides, I already walked away for four months, what else do you want? If this project flops, and it turns out that it really isn't ever going to be a good mode, then I will be the first to advocate for its removal. I did it with shadowling, and if I need to, I'll do it here. But, having just returned, I want to give it a chance. Robustin brought bloodcult back from the brink and turned it into a great mode, and I think that it isn't too late to do the same here, too.

The cult loses if they are caught early.

The cult grows exponentially in power and numbers if they stay hidden.

This means the optimal strategy for the cult is to not interact with the rest of the players, leading to a boring round capped off by 8 minutes of unlimited RCDs+malf+wizard powers

The optimal strategy for security is to just leave or metagame like crazy before it is too late. This leads to boring and frustrating rounds.

Fucking around with the powers wont matter. More or less abilities wont matter. The flaws are in the basic structure and goals of the mode. You would need to redo it from the ground up to not be a stealth carry basebuilder that prizes non interaction.

The fact that the complaints have persisted more for this gamemode than any other one shows me that I was at the time nearsighted and too proud to view my own work as anything but perfect.

Glad you realize that now but until you recognize that an enemy that you arent aware of that also grows exponentially in power will never be fun to fight you are going to fall into the same trap again.

Kor wrote:The cult loses if they are caught early.

The cult grows exponentially in power and numbers if they stay hidden.

This means the optimal strategy for the cult is to not interact with the rest of the players, leading to a boring round capped off by 8 minutes of unlimited RCDs+malf+wizard powers

The optimal strategy for security is to just leave or metagame like crazy before it is too late. This leads to boring and frustrating rounds.

Fucking around with the powers wont matter. More or less abilities wont matter. The flaws are in the basic structure and goals of the mode. You would need to redo it from the ground up to not be a stealth carry basebuilder that prizes non interaction.

The fact that the complaints have persisted more for this gamemode than any other one shows me that I was at the time nearsighted and too proud to view my own work as anything but perfect.

Glad you realize that now but until you recognize that an enemy that you arent aware of that also grows exponentially in power will never be fun to fight you are going to fall into the same trap again.

If a rework from the ground up is what needs to be done, then I'll do it. The problems you mentioned can all be addressed. If changing powers and abilities doesn't matter, then surely removing them all wouldn't change the mode? No! The cult's toolkit is what defines them as antagonists. As for the structure - basebuilding - I will admit that it's problematic with the way SS13 is designed, and is bound to lead to problems no matter what we do in its current state. I've bee thinking of making the cult less stealthy and more about converting large swathes of the station into clockwork material, but that also has its flaws. I don't believe that the concept is unsalvageable, but if the base-building mechanic has to be reworked in favor of a different focus, then we can do that, too.

Here is my pitch for a mode that plays on the strengths and deep lore of CC without being a poor rehash of blood cult


-The clock dudes start on The Derelict(TM), another Z level

-The clockmen have X points to spend on defenses/powers/summons and miniportals

-Mini portals let them make gates to go fuck with the station or convert people or whatever. Only clock men can pass through them but crew can smash them

-Crew gets a warning about the mode after Y minutes for prep time though the portals can obviously blow their cover early (risk vs reward!)

-After X minutes the ark or whatever is turned on/appears on station. Cant destroy this

-The crew gets a big warning and has to go to the derelict and kick ratvars shit in before it turns on and wanders out the gate

Basically reverse war ops with the crew on offense

Clock cult gets to build their fort in relative peace, but can use the mini portals to shake things up on station to prevent a stale meta. Crew gets to unite and plan around a common goal instead of having pseudo extended. Everyone gets to have a big battle with prep time instead of one side stomping the other. Shuttle is no longer an issue.

serious question, why not just make a whole new gamemode no-holds-barred that is designed to replace clock cult instead of trying to completely and utterly change clock cult while still trying to make it seem like clock cult?

The resource system is totally arbitrary, all it takes is one guy five minutes to make enough caches and walls to feed the cult resources forever.

Those are all actually pretty good ideas. It's unique, but still manages to keep the aspects that are good (like you said), plus there's a lot of room for potential. Maybe there could even be a cult master-like role where one person can be nominated as a kind of "overseer" who can manage the base remotely, designate construction, and that kind of thing.

I want to see that happen in action now, but like I said, I'm apprehensive about making big changes in one go. It's always backfired on me every time I've done it. For now, I'm going to try to see how I can make the mode in its current state work out, and if I can't, then that's very possible and very good of an idea.

Kel wrote:serious question, why not just make a whole new gamemode no-holds-barred that is designed to replace clock cult instead of trying to completely and utterly change clock cult while still trying to make it seem like clock cult?

Mainly because I haven't had time to discuss that with Joan. Having worked on it for so long, I doubt she's comfortable with the idea of suddenly dumping all the work out the window to start on a new idea that might not work, and I myself am worried that if I did so such a thing it might fail, leaving a very large project dead in the water.

ShadowDimentio wrote:The resource system is totally arbitrary, all it takes is one guy five minutes to make enough caches and walls to feed the cult resources forever.

That is why in Derelict Cult(TM) they get a fixed amount of starting cult dollars that scales based on server population. Anything else they want after that they have to go and steal from the station.

Xhuis wrote:Those are all actually pretty good ideas. It's unique, but still manages to keep the aspects that are good (like you said), plus there's a lot of room for potential. Maybe there could even be a cult master-like role where one person can be nominated as a kind of "overseer" who can manage the base remotely, designate construction, and that kind of thing.

I want to see that happen in action now, but like I said, I'm apprehensive about making big changes in one go. It's always backfired on me every time I've done it. For now, I'm going to try to see how I can make the mode in its current state work out, and if I can't, then that's very possible and very good of an idea.

Cult has had the same problems you are trying to tackle for 7 years now and Joan has made several hundred balance tweaks to clock cult over the past year, I would be very very very very surprised if you somehow stumbled on the answer to making conversion/farming cult fun that has eluded dozens of people on half a dozen servers over nearly a decade.

It will be less work for you in the end to just try and get out of the rut now.

We're discussing it right now.

I do think that'd be a good replacement for clockcult but I doubt I'd be able keep motivation long enough to code it.

I'm just going to jump in and blather about the resource system.

It is not sustainable in its current form.

Either people know about to run a daemon factory and they get infinite resources at applications or they don't and everyone is resource starved and screaming at each other because you've got 10 people competing for the new component generated every 30 seconds.

Either make components differentiable and have acquiring them make sense according to their role, or simplify it down into a power-stealing system that requires more than camping out on a solar. Clock Cult would be a lot spookier/cultier if you could trace its presence through unpowered departments into of hunting for orange things in maint.

Ending needs to be sped up. It's somehow slower than bloodcult's old ending.

do kor's thing or uhhhhhhhhhhh i'll come to your house with a gun does double finger pistoles chk chk i''ll be seeing you!

Do NOT view post history. Only warning.

danno wrote:Do NOT view post history. Only warning.

{i]

After some discussion, I don't believe that we can make this choice tonight, for a lot of reasons. We're going to get some sleep on it and we'll let you know if/when we've made a choice, now or some time later. I don't want to rush this, and if it's been this long then a little more time won't hurt.

Xhuis wrote:

BeeSting12 wrote:But it's true. Even if you guys make it less cancerous, and the PR about making you keep your unlocks even if your requirements drop isn't helping, it'll still be bad. It's to the point where if I'm roundstart security and we find out clock cult, we nearly never lose because the cult is that weak at the start. If I latejoin and the cult's already snowballed then I just suicide and observe the five minute wait for them to win. The entire mode was a mistake, we don't need more conversion modes and honestly if I had to choose one to take out it would be this one.

Your problems can be addressed, for the most part. The cult being weak at the start can be fixed, as can the unstoppable snowball that plagues the lategame. The conversion factor will always be a controversial one, and while we're trying to minimize it, the fact of the matter is that if you dislike conversion as a whole than you probably won't ever like this mode. Joan and I have discussed alternatives, or making it work in a much different way, but right now it's too early on to say if we want to implement any of them.

Her PR relating to the cult not losing their powers if they lose the requirement is not helping the snowball. I enjoy conversion. Honestly speaking, this one is the only conversion based mode in rotation that I hate. It's the only antagonist I have turned off because it's not fun.

I'd also like to agree with Robustin on the fact that resources need to be reworked. I'd say even do away with the whole resource system and switch it to stealing power from the station. This way, it has an effect on the station, a negative effect, and it also doesn't lead to shitty things like this:

Xhius, please. Please do shadowlings instead of this. Improving this would be making it into blood cult.

And I don't mean making it bloodcult in a meme way. This gamemode is really bad and the way to improve it, as you describe, is exactly how blood cult was changed to be good. You can't have it not snowball late game if they just wait to be overpowered before they summon ratvar, and if you lower the requirements to summon, boom. bloodcult.
Too many abilities, like old bad bloodcult.
Et cet.

And finally, JUST SAYING.

Most active topic:Umbrage: Shadowling Redux (delayed?)
(71 Posts / 3.01% of your posts)

I want shadowlings, Xhuis. I NEED shadowlings!

You even have the code done. Just PR it tomorrow on my birthday and we'll all be good

Clock cult can be improved by removing it entirely.

Clock cult was a mistake. It was a vanity project.

the

clockcult

emperor?

shitposts aside, Kor's suggestion could fix a lot of things

Ending needs to be sped up, there's never really enough opposition to stop the summoning by the time it begins.

If you're gonna go with Kor's reverse-ops suggestion though then I could see it taking about the same as it does now.

Armhulen and pals wrote:shadowlings!

Heh, that's a whole other can of worms. I've actually been doing some work on it in my spare time just for fun, but I'm still not entirely sure. I'm unsure if I want to have another debate about conversion, because while it's gone from the code, I still feel that the mode is lacking without it and it doesn't meet up to its full potential without thralls/veils. (Not to mention, the concerns about full meta murderbone are mostly alleviated by the fact that they're revealed through examining without a mask on, so if someone isn't wearing a mask you know right away they're either incredibly ballsy or just not a thrall!)

InsaneHyena and Lumbermancer wrote:snip

This doesn't help anyone but yourselves. We're not going to flat-out remove it unless it's absolutely necessary. Kor's suggestions are very promising, for instance - if something can be salvaged, there's no point in throwing it to the wolves.

imblyings wrote:the

clockcult

emperor?

shitposts aside, Kor's suggestion could fix a lot of things

Heh, I wish. I doubt I'd ever be given the same amount of recognition as Joan no matter what I do.
Kor makes some good points, and we're still talking about whether or not it's what we want.

darkpaladin109 wrote:Ending needs to be sped up, there's never really enough opposition to stop the summoning by the time it begins.

If you're gonna go with Kor's reverse-ops suggestion though then I could see it taking about the same as it does now.

That's one thing we can make changes to until it matches up to what we and the players want. Thanks for your input.

After sleeping on it, we've decided that going Kor's route is probably best, yeah. Not sure when I'll start work on it, but probably soon-ish.

Armhulen and all you other folks, umbrages is something separate from this! They're both modes, but the similarities end there. I know that the amount of modes we have isn't a problem because of the thing we're having with gang. If people want it, I'll make it at some point, even if I have to go without conversion, although I do want to talk more on that issue when the time comes.

Oh, and it should also go without saying that the changes we wanted to do (like remove unnecessary scriptures) are still fully applicable and we'll be trying to do them along with the rework.

My plan right now for the "second Z" implementation is for the cult to spawn on a big cube on the centcom Z. It's made of indestructible clockwork tiles that look slightly different than others (to distinguish them) and is 32x32 tiles across, to allow for building and whatnot. I imagine that I'll have the cultists spawn in the center of it, in a kind of spawn room with some basic structures and whatnot, to allow them to use it as a starting point for their base. There's a lot to work with here and I'm not super sure where I want to go with it.

Should we forward feedback and bug reports to you or Changeling?

Should not put it on centcomm. Load it like an away mission

D&B wrote:Should we forward feedback and bug reports to you or Changeling?

Me. Joan has worked on this mode constantly and nonstop since it was released. She needs a break for once, and I started this project so I might as well take it up again.

Please fund kors idea!!!

As a point of note, although I've decided on this, I'm not sure how fast it'll happen, or when I'll even start working on it as a whole. I'm lacking motivation for several reasons, even if I do intend to finish it. In the meantime, this thread serves its original purpose of collecting feedback on stuff, so if you want to say anything about the mode or, more importantly, mechanics/abilities/etc that can be improved, I'll keep an ear open.

Can we remove it in the meanwhile then?

It sucks mad dick

That's not up to me. Joan is still making changes to it based on the things we outlined in the OP. It seems rather unfair to cut out a mode just because I'm working on another iteration for it, especially because of how useful it is as a metric for feedback good and bad.

Can we keep the clockwork marauder please? I have fond memories of calling my marauder and sending him into a room (that a Borg immediately bolted closed afterwards) akin to putting someone into a blender

christ110 wrote:Can we keep the clockwork marauder please? I have fond memories of calling my marauder and sending him into a room (that a Borg immediately bolted closed afterwards) akin to putting someone into a blender

I don't see a reason to cut it out currently, but it's kind of in an awkward spot. There's also a lot of unclear and dumb rules/mechanics that plagues it, so we'd at least cut those out.

If you are keeping conversion in the Kor idea, could you please retain silicon conversion? It is the only thing I personally liked about the Steampunks.

Heres a completely outlandish effective rewrite of how clockcult works at its core (but keeps the same concept):

Clockcult would no longer be about having impenetrable yet very slowly built defences. They would instead be able to swiftly "consume" parts of the station with the proselytizer with minimal cost, however, removing brass is now extremely easy. Something like a crowbar or even more simple to remove the influence of the brass.

Chaplain would take a much more upfront role as a character who can extremely easily take back territory and is a force to be reckoned with even alone in territory skirmishes. No more sitting in brig with 2k units of holy water and staring at prisoners. Leave that job for the warden.

Clockcult machines would no longer be about debuffing, they would be about buffing. Everything would now revolve around being on brass floortiles. Almost everything in its current form would be scrapped entirely except the ocular warden, which now acts like a deterrent rather than a base defender. The eyeball is now incredibly weak, does minimal damage, is incredibly cheap to build, and can be made swiftly. Other machines would "buff" brass floor tiles that increase the power of cultists who stand upon them (maybe only 1 type of buff per a certain area?) that could give movespeed, health regen, damage mitigation, stun reductions, or really anything else you could think of.

Sigils would be reworked into more of a "combat trap" kind of ordeal that only work on the brassland still, be alot more obvious, but alot more influential and like traditional traps. Things like causing flashbangs that effect non cultists, creating walls, the el classico stun, or doing damage in some way. Convert runes would be gone because those are just shitty. Null Rod holder ignores these completely when walking over them and the chaplain specifically could instantly scatter them for his allies. Otherwise you just gotta break em with a weapon or something.

Other magics would be balanced around this concept, alot of superfluous spells would probably be completely removed to keep their power contained within their territory.

No clue how conversions would be handled. I figured something unique like conversion projectile could be cool but would also probably be alittle cancerous. I don't really like the idea of "stunpaper but it converts you" as it is in its current state.
Perhaps they drop the whole "cult" mantle and just not convert all together? A large amount of crew would have to start as clockwork... fanatics? then

although I guess I was too slow on the draw because this is too much of a departure from current clockcult to be handled by joan and xhuis has already taken up on doing kor's idea

Even so, I appreciate the ideas. I'm probably going to go with kor's idea as, even though we might disagree at times, he's still the design lead and I imagine he knows what's best here (although I have yet to start the actual thing.) Joan is currently maintaining current clockcult, and lacks the motivation to do huge rewrites like that.

https://tgstation13.org/tgdb/irvpolltally.php?id=171

Dont have to take my word for it either. Nuclear emergency (a small, but powerful, external threat that the crew unites against) is the 2nd most popular mode.