"Nerf everything" mindset

[Kuraudo]

Hi. I'm posting this because i identified a tendancy among both the coders and the playerbase basically directed towards nerfing everything that's efficient.

Back then, the tendancy among the coders was to slowly improve the game, bit by bit, and track bugs. Nice suggestions were added, even if they removed one or two things like the barber job. (You'll be missed, barber.)
Then, for the sake of "balance", the coders started listening to any buttmad player asking for a nerf.
This "balance" mindset takes for granted three thoughts: 1/The normal crewman and the antag should be kinda "equal" in combat, the crewman should defend himself easily against an antag for the sake of fun.
2/ A new policy advocating pretty much the end of brutal deaths "you-can't-do-anything-against"
3/ A new role to antags, whose new duty is to bring fun to the other players. (?!)

In the now locked parapen nerfing topic, i said to someone that following that reasoning, the parapen would be on the top of the list of a very very long items that he's want to nerf. Only to see a coder come in and reply "yes, yes it is".
I find this worrying for the future of the server. This is not a direction you'd want to head in.
For the sake of "giving everyone a chance", and "giving everything a counter", we are basically nerfing initiative.
Getting the jump on someone doesn't mean anything anymore. Hell, even being an antag doesn't mean shit because there is an easy counter to almost everything now. Add on top of that, cloning and a heavily populated server reducing the antagonists margin of error.
All it takes for one item, one spell or one mechanic to be nerfed, is someone good at using it. All it takes, is someone pulling out a spectacular round using a specific feature of the game, for that feature to be on the coderbus iron's sights, following an angry player demand or not.

Changeling nerf, C4 nerf, parapen nerf, ninja nerf, portable flashers nerf, mining droprates nerf, Double Agent incoming nerf, people asking for Rev to be removed, even the ghosts can't rotate chairs anymore. And i'm forgetting plenty.
If you could just stop listening to angry players asking you to reduce, delete, decrease and nerf, that be great. Just stop carving the game to the bone.

I hope that this topic could serve as a base to discuss this issue that i think is major.

[Lo6a4evskiy]

Your whole post is built around the idea that nerfing is inherently evil and bad without a question.

That is not true.

Stahp.

[Miauw]

all the changes you listed were for the better. instagib gg no re that you cant do anything about is not fun and will never be fun. paranoia is not "don't stand next to anybody".

[Scott]

what was the ninja nerf

[Steelpoint]

Removed the Ninjas ability to telegib players with its teleporting ability, instead it stuns targets.

[Scott]

telefragging is dumb in any game

[Remie Richards]

For the sake of "giving everyone a chance", and "giving everything a counter"

Umm. Yes. The majority of games have people on equal footings and the only difference is the skill of the player.
When one item or thing is inherently better than another, the game needs fixing, that item needs changing.

[Scott]

That's not a rule. There are more ways to balance a video game besides making every thing the same thing.

[Kuraudo]

For the sake of "giving everyone a chance", and "giving everything a counter"

Umm. Yes. The majority of games have people on equal footings and the only difference is the skill of the player.
When one item or thing is inherently better than another, the game needs fixing, that item needs changing.

So let's make the crowbar as robust as the esword. Let's even all weapons. Let's destroy any gameplay diversity for the sake of a twisted view of the balance concept.
You see, that's exactly what I'm talking about. Antags and non-antags are not equal.

SS13 is a game in which the balance in found in the long run. One round you're an assistant dying a pathetic death five minutes into the round, in the next, you're a wizard playing mind games and robusting your way to victory.
That's what keep people online saying to themselves "One more round. The next one will be better"

[cedarbridge]

3/ A new role to antags, whose new duty is to bring fun to the other players. (?!)

When you and I come to the server. There is an understanding that we're both there to have fun. Server rule 1 outlines pretty clearly that acting like an asshole to deprive others of their fun is not ok here. We also operate on the concept that some things are out of our own personal control and may take away from our fun. However, it is within the very obvious control of the playerbase and the coderbase to determine an adequate level of acceptable "unfun." There is a medium to large number of players who seem to only have fun when they can remove as many other players from the game as quickly as possible and then get a little text blurb at the end of the round that few will ever remember. You're sacrificing a lot of fun for a lot of players (playing the game vs being dead and not actually participating in the game for XX minutes.) That's really only half the story anyway. Lets look at the things you're complaining about being nerfed.

Changelings - Parasting is going to be part of the list of things we're going to discuss called "free rides." Being antag isn't supposed to be easy. Its supposed to be challenging. People play games to be challenged and overcome those challenges. Any item or ability that takes away an atagonist's need to even consider "Is this the right time or place to use this?" is a problem. Tools should be tools bound to their situation. The situation should not simply be "yes." An uncounterable parasting falls in this bucket.

Parapen - Zero reason for an antag not to just take the uncounterable KO and get their free kill. I say free because it really was. No armor mattered, no awareness mattered. The only counter was be surrounded by people, (at the time) hope they don't have C4), or hope they slipped out an airlock after penning you. The only interaction between players was Player A Pens Player B, the end. Player B's only option would be to just never stand next to anyone on the assumption that anyone on the station could be carrying a magical antag tool that will ensure they're dead without anything they can do or say (literally) otherwise.

C4 Nerf - I posted this elsewhere, but with C4, it was fun for nobody. Well, I mean, I'm sure some powergamer really enjoyed the garunteed gib on any target they tagged with it. but that's about where it stopped. Lets look at another hypothetical and stop me when it starts getting fun. I get tagged with c4 but through some luck I manage to get away from my attacker. a) I get some tools so I can remove the C4 that is strangely attached to my person. Boom, gone from the round never to return. b) Rush to genetics to get a clone backup made before the explosion goes off. C4 goes off in cloning, now I'm gibbed and the cloner is gone. Essentially, because an antag went through all of the stress of clicking an item purchase on their PDA and applying it, no number of actions of my own will prevent or stop my gibbing and thus permanent removal from a round for XX minutes.

Ninja - I really want to hear your defense for telefragging/permainvis ninjas.

Flashers - Non-interactable outside of a number of very specific and fairly limited things. Generally unfun for most and lead to stagnant gameplay. I'd really like to hear a clear argument here why this should have remained in its previous state.

Mining - I remember all the fun I always had in robotics/RnD/Chemistry knowing that mining was probably never going to arrive so a fair number of things on my roster of cool things I could make/do/sell/hand out were forever outside of my reach except once every 30 rounds or so. Good times indeed. What a shame somebody had to go and "nerf" all that sitting around with my thumb up my ass and gave RnD/Robotics a way to actually get to do things other than make fun of the cargo staff. Oh wait, I don't miss any of that. I don't think anyone else seriously does. Making things is fun, and having the ability to do so is also fun. I can't think of a time where "give me less fun things to do" added to a game positively.

DA Nerf- Its being discussed because its viewed as a problem. You've already posted that you disagree with any sort of changes to it but because you didn't like the answers you were given in that thread you're dragging it out over here into another thread. Stop.

Rev Removal - I don't think I've ever seen that suggested except in frustration. The proposed changes I've seen have been fairly reasonable and targeted to the causes of why rev really kinda sucks right now.

Ghost chairs - Metagaming with ghosts is bad.

Its almost like all of these things were/will be/can be changed for a reason other than people being mad about them.

[lumipharon]

The fuck are you talking about? A crow bar is a commonly avaliable tool, an e-sword is a traitor item with a fixed value (4tc). an E-sword lets you kill people at melee range, a c4(2tc) was a fucking one click gib that can't be removed because mega glue. This is not fun, this is not balanced. The parapen was basically an invisible item that meant anyone so much as going within 1m of you could ggnore you, that is not fun, that does not involve skill, or planning, it involves clicking one button. Items need to be balanced in relation to one another, for example, the syndie bomb, is a huge item, costs 7tc, and has a long timer UNLESS you have a button OR you take the time to figure out the wires before hand. And yet people still use it plenty. Now imagine if it was 2tc, that would be retarded.

Also 'dying easily' or 'killing lots of people' does not mean you need UNFUN and dumb ideas to exist. How can you honestly justify parasting/pen? How was this fun for the victim (and for the assailant for that matter, unless they're purely looking for greentext). Initiative is not 'walk past someone and press one button to win', using your initiative is reacting to things as they happen, you can't react to 'tiny prick - ded'.

Honestly the e-mag is OP as shit as well, it's 3tc and is fucking used by everyone, for everything, it has such a MASSIVE range of uses, and is cheap.
The only thing that got nerfed 4noraisen is eating with your face covered, seriously, that change makes no sense, form a FUN perspective, or form a REALISM standpoint (mime clown snowflakes), and essentially ruined a whole method of killing/fucking with people.

[Scott]

You call others powergamers but then you say being killed shouldn't be part of the game.

Parasting was fine, changeling was fine, now nobody likes changeling. Does anybody even try to play changeling beyond being a super traitor? Who the fuck is gonna bother to collect brains if they aren't a roboticist or a medic?

[Kuraudo]

Simple scenario: I'm a traitor assistant. You're the barman. I come up at the counter, draw a gun, double-tap you. Stuff you in your own locker. No witnesses. Game over. You're dead before you could put your finger on your arrowkeys to move away when you saw me drawing the revolver. Where's the fun for you ?
You were my target, that's bad luck. I could had another objective, steal some jetpack, some corgi meat, etc, but no. I had to kill someone and out of all the players, it fells on you. Your main problem in that i'm out for your blood, not the parapen, not the C4 or anything.
Out of all the times i've been killed by a traitor, in 5 years of gameplay, the parapen + C4 don't even count for 1 % of my deaths.
I've been killed countless times with countless different deaths, and being killed because i was some traitor target is the death that makes more sense to me.

You're not entitled to have fun in every round you play. You can't anticipate everything. If you're someone target they are gonna optimize the chances to get you killed and when the plan comes into motion, you won't know what hit you.
I was a wizard recently, i had to kill some random assistant, so i spawned guns. My bet was that an assistant with a gun would be a problem magnet, being a danger for everyone, and ultimately himself. He died one minute after the second amendment shitfest started.

Should i apologize for completing my objectives ? If i am an antag and you are my target, or in my way, i'm not here for your fun, and it also works the other way around.
SS13 is a game that never ends, you get killed ? Accept it. Accept death. Accept defeat. Accept that the round wasn't fun for you. Understand the fact that it won't always be like that. Better luck next time. Your demise is not permanent.

Changelings - Fucked up objectives and reduced incapacitating powers made the changeling a shadow of it's former self. One mistake and you're getting dragged to the incinerator.

Parapen - I said everything in the parapen topic

Ninja - A ninja is a rare occurence, a wizard on steroid with one major drawback: He must recharge constantly. This fact alone justify the fucked up powers.

Flashers - Nobody even use them anymore because of the nerf. They became inefficient.

Mining - What the hell are you talking about ? The low mining droprates is something pinpointed by pretty much everyone. Also, if i sign up to play as a miner, it's to mine. What the fuck are those monsters trying to kill me ? They weren't there before. I don't want any of this.

DA Nerf - I said everything in the DA nerf topic.

Rev Removal - I saw it.

Ghost chairs - You think dead people are gonna communicate in morse-rotating chair to spell the name of the traitor who killed them ? Give me a break, seriously.

You fail to understand that all those nerfs are a part of a larger tendancy to nerf everything that's efficient, especially if a player starts crying.
You start picking out my examples one by one, as if there is no logic behind it, or no possible extension of this nerfing logic.
What's next on the list ? The ebow's gonna get removed ?

Initiative is not 'walk past someone and press one button to win', using your initiative is reacting to things as they happen, you can't react to 'tiny prick - ded'.

No. This is reaction, not initiative.
You're not entitled to a glorious counter-attack or reaction to every shenanigan that comes your way. You can and will be taken by surprise and die; parapen, revolver, singularity, ebow, mini-bomb, take your pick.

[Scott]

It's not because a random player "starts crying", only those that code the nerfs themselves and submit them and they get accepted every time.

Like the "can't eat through mask" change, nobody wanted it, it got merged anyways. And only because one random cunt thought it was unrealistic and overpowered.

High standards of code.

[cedarbridge]

You're not entitled to a glorious counter-attack or reaction to every shenanigan that comes your way. You can and will be taken by surprise and die; parapen, revolver, singularity, ebow, mini-bomb, take your pick.

You can react to all of those actually. Well, all of them except one. Guess which one?

[Kuraudo]

It's not because a random player "starts crying", only those that code the nerfs themselves and submit them and they get accepted every time.

Yeah. There is a nerfing tendancy in the first place among the coders, but it gets strenghtened and legitimized by the tears of players pinpointing out any efficient item/feature because they got killed by it.
The next one making a topic about the e-bow will set a course of event that's gonna ultimately lead in that item being slaughtered.
I can already picture the arguments "It"s a murderboner item" "the combinaison with the esword is too op" "all it takes is a click, plus it's a silent ranged weapon that recharge itself and make no sound !"

You're not entitled to a glorious counter-attack or reaction to every shenanigan that comes your way. You can and will be taken by surprise and die; parapen, revolver, singularity, ebow, mini-bomb, take your pick.

You can react to all of those actually. Well, all of them except one. Guess which one?

MAGIC MISSILE !
EI NATH !

[Scott]

You're not entitled to a glorious counter-attack or reaction to every shenanigan that comes your way. You can and will be taken by surprise and die; parapen, revolver, singularity, ebow, mini-bomb, take your pick.

You can react to all of those actually. Well, all of them except one. Guess which one?

The point of the parapen was that you can't fight back. It cost 3TC, you could only buy 3, meaning you could only end the round of 3 people maximum. Gibbing was a problem fixed by not being able to gib with the C4.

There are other tools available for traitors that can be much more devastating. And they're not more or less fun than the parapen for the victims.

[cedarbridge]

It's not because a random player "starts crying", only those that code the nerfs themselves and submit them and they get accepted every time.

Yeah. There is a nerfing tendancy in the first place among the coders, but it gets strenghtened and legitimized by the tears of players pinpointing out any efficient item/feature because they got killed by it.
The next one making a topic about the e-bow will set a course of event that's gonna ultimately lead in that item being slaughtered.
I can already picture the arguments "It"s a murderboner item" "the combinaison with the esword is too op" "all it takes is a click, plus it's a silent ranged weapon that recharge itself and make no sound !"

You're not entitled to a glorious counter-attack or reaction to every shenanigan that comes your way. You can and will be taken by surprise and die; parapen, revolver, singularity, ebow, mini-bomb, take your pick.

You can react to all of those actually. Well, all of them except one. Guess which one?

MAGIC MISSILE !
EI NATH !

So what you're really trying to say is, this is an ironic counter whine then. Good to know.

[Miauw]

Ghost chairs - You think dead people are gonna communicate in morse-rotating chair to spell the name of the traitor who killed them ? Give me a break, seriously.

They did though. When it started it was just a single chaplain divining knowledge using adamantine runes, the admins were ok with that, it was original and took a decent amount of effort. But after a few days literally every single validhunter was having ghosts spin chairs literally every single day, and gl finding out what ghost spinned which chair.

Please stop saying "THERE ARE OP THINGS RIGHT NOW SO NOTHING SHOULD EVER BE NERFED", it's evident how retarded that is.
Yes, revolver is dumb, yes, ebow is dumb. Those will be nerfed sometime, cry harder.

If you had a few more brain cells, you may also have noticed that we only removed the unfun parts of things and tried to preserve the fun parts of things. Ninja can still teleport around and stun people with it, parapen was not removed but was made far less appealing as an instakill weapon, etc. Also, you're basically accusing the coders of removing rev when it's just a few people talking in the forums on how to improve rev on threads with a badly thought-out OP. In addition to that, you're already complaining about nerfs that haven't even happened yet and aren't even decided upon how they will happen. Which just suggests you're the internet equivalent of an old man talking about "DEM MUSLIN TERROREESTS" or "DEM GAYS", dismissing something based on only a single, unrepresentative aspect.

Also, even though you may not expect it, we actually put thought into nerfs, as I just mentioned. We even, holy shit, DENY stupid nerfs! Who would've thought that the evil nerf-mad coders would deny a nerf?

[Lo6a4evskiy]

After all these rants I still don't understand why people shouldn't have fun while playing a video game which can take a lot of time, too.

I mean, I'm playing it to have fun. I very much want that to be the goal of all code changes. If you think otherwise, well, may be you shouldn't force your weird fetishes on others?

[Phalanx300]

Nerfing is indeed getting out of hand in this game. It is reaching rediculous proportions. Maybe consider buffing certain things to compensate for weaknesses, just once... Right now its just a complex of I die > This sucks, must nerf!

[cedarbridge]

Nerfing is indeed getting out of hand in this game. It is reaching rediculous proportions. Maybe consider buffing certain things to compensate for weaknesses, just once... Right now its just a complex of I die > This sucks, must nerf!

Except that things have been buffed. People don't generally celebrate buffs nearly as much as they whine about nerfs.

[Scott]

Ghost chairs - You think dead people are gonna communicate in morse-rotating chair to spell the name of the traitor who killed them ? Give me a break, seriously.

They did though. When it started it was just a single chaplain divining knowledge using adamantine runes, the admins were ok with that, it was original and took a decent amount of effort. But after a few days literally every single validhunter was having ghosts spin chairs literally every single day, and gl finding out what ghost spinned which chair.

Please stop saying "THERE ARE OP THINGS RIGHT NOW SO NOTHING SHOULD EVER BE NERFED", it's evident how retarded that is.
Yes, revolver is dumb, yes, ebow is dumb. Those will be nerfed sometime, cry harder.

If you had a few more brain cells, you may also have noticed that we only removed the unfun parts of things and tried to preserve the fun parts of things. Ninja can still teleport around and stun people with it, parapen was not removed but was made far less appealing as an instakill weapon, etc. Also, you're basically accusing the coders of removing rev when it's just a few people talking in the forums on how to improve rev on threads with a badly thought-out OP. In addition to that, you're already complaining about nerfs that haven't even happened yet and aren't even decided upon how they will happen. Which just suggests you're the internet equivalent of an old man talking about "DEM MUSLIN TERROREESTS" or "DEM GAYS", dismissing something based on only a single, unrepresentative aspect.

Also, even though you may not expect it, we actually put thought into nerfs, as I just mentioned. We even, holy shit, DENY stupid nerfs! Who would've thought that the evil nerf-mad coders would deny a nerf?

There needs to be direction and there is none, and that is the problem. You say you want to nerf even more things, but what are you giving the traitors for them to fulfill their role? You can't just nerf things because you're scared of dying or traitor will become extended 2.0 fast. Remember when changeling was remade and it sucked so much that it had to be merged with traitor so rounds wouldn't just be extended?

Stop nerfing antags. They're supposed to be powerful.

Related. http://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=1296

[Miauw]

Nerfing is indeed getting out of hand in this game. It is reaching rediculous proportions. Maybe consider buffing certain things to compensate for weaknesses, just once... Right now its just a complex of I die > This sucks, must nerf!

singulo got buffed, arm blades got added, etc
plenty of buffs going on.

also, the logic is not "i died pls nerf". you may not be able to comprehend the basics of game balance, but that does not mean everyone is as mentally deficient as you.

Ghost chairs - You think dead people are gonna communicate in morse-rotating chair to spell the name of the traitor who killed them ? Give me a break, seriously.

They did though. When it started it was just a single chaplain divining knowledge using adamantine runes, the admins were ok with that, it was original and took a decent amount of effort. But after a few days literally every single validhunter was having ghosts spin chairs literally every single day, and gl finding out what ghost spinned which chair.

Please stop saying "THERE ARE OP THINGS RIGHT NOW SO NOTHING SHOULD EVER BE NERFED", it's evident how retarded that is.
Yes, revolver is dumb, yes, ebow is dumb. Those will be nerfed sometime, cry harder.

If you had a few more brain cells, you may also have noticed that we only removed the unfun parts of things and tried to preserve the fun parts of things. Ninja can still teleport around and stun people with it, parapen was not removed but was made far less appealing as an instakill weapon, etc. Also, you're basically accusing the coders of removing rev when it's just a few people talking in the forums on how to improve rev on threads with a badly thought-out OP. In addition to that, you're already complaining about nerfs that haven't even happened yet and aren't even decided upon how they will happen. Which just suggests you're the internet equivalent of an old man talking about "DEM MUSLIN TERROREESTS" or "DEM GAYS", dismissing something based on only a single, unrepresentative aspect.

Also, even though you may not expect it, we actually put thought into nerfs, as I just mentioned. We even, holy shit, DENY stupid nerfs! Who would've thought that the evil nerf-mad coders would deny a nerf?

There needs to be direction and there is none, and that is the problem. You say you want to nerf even more things, but what are you giving the traitors for them to fulfill their role? You can't just nerf things because you're scared of dying or traitor will become extended 2.0 fast. Remember when changeling was remade and it sucked so much that it had to be merged with traitor so rounds wouldn't just be extended?

Stop nerfing antags. They're supposed to be powerful.

Related. http://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=1296

There is direction, as I just said in the post before. I said we were going to nerf them, and right after that I said "when somebody makes a thread or mentions it in irc".
Please stop making strawmans like "YOU ONLY NERF BECAUSE YOU NEED TO GIT GUD".

Try actually reading my post. And traitorling already existed before newling was a thing. Do you really need blatant lies to prove your point?

[Scott]

It existed as a different game mode, now all we get is traitorling. There is no solo changeling mode, so don't lie about that. Also the objectives are borked and are an obstacle for changeling cooperation, which is shit. Changelings now are nothing more than powered up traitors instead of being a different kind of game mode.

>there is direction

What is the direction?

[Lo6a4evskiy]

There is no solo changeling mode, so don't lie about that.

huh?

[Scott]

You really think that's reality? It's been like a year since ling was changed, I haven't played a single solo ling round since then. It's the same probability as blob and we see that all the time. Hell, we even see extended every now and then, but no solo ling.

[Lo6a4evskiy]

I'm pretty sure I played changeling rounds recently. I haven't seen malf for a while, does this mean it's gone from rotation?

I mean, you can look what it says in the round start probabilities.

What's your point, in any case?

[cedarbridge]

It existed as a different game mode, now all we get is traitorling. There is no solo changeling mode, so don't lie about that.

There is a changeling only mode. Its not a lie, you're just being obtuse.

[Scott]

If I don't see it I don't believe it.

My point still stands, the fact that traitorling is much more common means that solo ling is not a good game mode now.

[cedarbridge]

If I don't see it I don't believe it.

Amazing

[Lo6a4evskiy]

My point still stands, the fact that traitorling is much more common means that solo ling is not a good game mode now.

So?

Nukeopswizard would be better than wizard in my opinion. Does that mean that wizard sucks and needs buffs?

[Cheridan]

i'm nerfing this thread



For the record, there is no "nerf everything" mindset.
What does exist, is players with a "buff everything" or "no nerfs ever" mindset.

Things get nerfed.
Things get buffed.

Generally these changes happen due to consensus of the userbase itself. Nobody liked getting parapenned, so they were changed. Ninjas were just straight bullshit with antag-hunter vision that could instagib you while in stealth. Nobody liked old changelings, so they were changed -- this wasn't even intended as a nerf, they were given new powerful abilities in the update such as the one to remove all stuns. Some people even called it a buff!

But these changes happen, and any time the "no nerfs ever" players see this, the tears start flowing. They disregard things like how nuke ops and wizards are constantly getting buffs, and call the developers "hug boxing bayists" because they removed their favorite retarded method to dunk on people, like tabling or paraC4 or repeatedly throwing people at walls until they die.

also we never even had the barber on /tg/station.