/tg/Station 13

This is starting to feel like one of my last posts here.

Taking breaks from SS13 is nothing new for me, but I feel like I've kinda seen everything this game can offer.

One change that I saw in a recent visit was very disappointing to me though. Hivemind was taken as a default Ling power and made into an optional "purchasable" power - thus tempting antags with loner tendencies to abandon the team and run solo for more powers... or just messing with newbies who might not understand or notice the change (the longer this change exists, the more likely new players will play ling without realizing they 'should' be able to speak in hivemind).

This also punishes lings who TRY to work as a team only to realize *HYUK* nobody else took hivemind and they have go absorb someone just to reset a shitty power they had no way of knowing would be shitty.

My view, and I'm confident that it's a sensible one, is that loner antag modes will always be inferior to team antag modes. When I reflect on my 4+ years of SS13 on here and Goon, the games that make me smile the most are always ones where I was banded together: Either with loyal crew against overwhelming odds or as an antag working with others to bring the station into chaos.


I never take much joy from "dunking random traitor who was roaming maintenance with an ebow" or "catching lone ling who was trying to armblade randos and drag them into maint". Even killing Wizards brings me joy, not because I'm bringing about the conclusion of an exciting and memorable conflict, but because I'm ending a tedious and boring round with a hit-and-run douchebag.

The point I'm making here is simple. Removing hivemind pushes changeling toward "supertraitor" mode - where you just make the tradeoff of having less "traitors" in return for making them more powerful.

Hivemind is what defined changeling mode, when I play crew I don't really give a shit about lone changelings - but I live in terror of what happens when a truly coordinated team of lings begins to infiltrate command or security positions. As a ling too, it was always the possibility of working through hivemind toward more spectacular goals is what kept the game interesting for me.


This change obviously doesn't remove hivemind, but it leaves it twitching half-dead on the side of the road. Hivemind was a great power because it was default. Having it optional will remove enough players that it loses potency for those who might already pick it, and thus tempt those people to no longer pick it either since talking with 1 other ling might not be as useful as cryosting or something. Just keep hivemind default, loners can still be loners... they just don't have to be rewarded for taking an interesting team mechanic and utterly ignoring it. It would be like giving cultists the option to forsake their tome (and working toward a mutual success with team communication) or nukeops the option to destroy their headset/pinpointer in exchange for a badass combat loadout. Why reward people for making choices that forsake teamwork in exchange for being a better lone wolf murderboner?

Good post.

While I think that hivemind removal was stupid, this post only supports the reason hivemind was removed in the first place.

The initial idea I think was to promote ling vs ling conflict.
However this was more common when all lings heard hivemind, as the conflicting ling could listen in to your information being given out and stalk you.

I made a topic about this:
http://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=1437

You have a point, but unfortunately, after pages and pages of debate, i suspect the coders to follow the Red Army motto "Not one step back !", basically meaning that even if you're right, we won't get to see the old hivemind.

This post puts it better than I could have myself. SS13 is fundamentally a social game, and removing social mechanics makes the game more stale. If lings were really too strong with default hivemind, then keep hivemind as a default power and reduce them to four optional powers if you really have to. If ling ops really are too dangerous, then there have got to be other changes that can be made to make changelings less robust in straight up combat. As things stand, this change discouraged changelings from pursuing the more interesting strategies available to them.

Wtf backstabbing lings or helping each other out was a risky integral part of ling robustin is right who the fuck removed this

OH LOOK IT WAS IKARRUS
https://github.com/tgstation/-tg-station/pull/4622

HE ALSO ADDED THE ANNOYING SIREN WHEN THE ALERT LEVEL CHANGES

LYNCH HE

This is such a literal 'omfg i ded plz nerf' because ikarrus died from a team of changelings that it isn't even funny. Welcome to changeling rounds being even more fucking boring and just being traitor with superpowers! Yay!!!!

This server really can't figured out what it wants out of lings. The round that motivated this change was a round where a team of lings took over the station in an orgy of armblade and carnage. "Its just too easy for lings to organize!" was the battle cry and lingchat turned into a power that was rarely taken again.

Ironically, a couple weeks after this we get several threads about how "weak" lings are.

Changelings are that thing we can't figure out, as noted.

I am honestly at a lost at exactly what we want to make Changelings. I think at this point we are just trying to make Changelings into Traitors but with a organic twist! We are clearly trying to move away from the source material and making it less about subterfuge and monsters and more about being a alternative traitor.

Yeah, we're going to need a defined direction from changeling before we can even start to work on it. Everyone has a different idea of how it's supposed to play out, and no developer is willing (and/or would even be permitted to) take ownership of the game mode, even just briefly, to give it the direction it needs.

I still stand by that the removal was a good move, and I think there's a PR up to make it cost a half point. It's not like it's never used, though, I still see changelings communicate and cooperate over lingchat. It's not a total shot in the dark to see if anyone else also bought it, changelings can still *sense* that others are using it.

I'm not going to freak out if you guys don't agree, though. If it gets reverted then I won't really be upset.

Steelpoint wrote:Changelings are that thing we can't figure out, as noted.

I am honestly at a lost at exactly what we want to make Changelings. I think at this point we are just trying to make Changelings into Traitors but with a organic twist! We are clearly trying to move away from the source material and making it less about subterfuge and monsters and more about being a alternative traitor.

Weren't you the one who likes murderbone because it's more fun than "nothing happening"? You should be in favor of these changes.

My position is that I would prefer murderboning over nothing happening for two hours, I never said I liked it.

On topic, somehow we need to hammer out what direction Changelings should go. While I will always have a place for the Shadowling, I personally think Changelings should be based around building up power slowly throughout the round, making them weak at first and stronger later on.

Maybe we can get something together, its still better than nothing.

Restore parasting, hivemind and progression. The more DNA you have, the more mutations you can handle.

You know, there's a design for lings based on building up power slowly throughout the round.

It's called oldling.

Just saying.

Scott wrote:Restore parasting

Get out

Then make it so the ling emp breaks PDAs.

I'm kind of in shock that because one bloody round ended well for lings someone knee-jerked right into the fucking code and ruined the core fucking uniqueness behind Changeling.

We can worry about big picture shit down the road, restore hivemind and balance around that... without hivemind it's just fucking "traitor 2.0".

I'm kinda disgusted that people actually reacted negatively to lings teaming up and wrecking the station. I'd pay to see that fucking round play out over "maintenance lurking murderboners round #34809384903".

Oldman Robustin wrote:I'm kind of in shock that because one bloody round ended well for lings someone knee-jerked right into the fucking code and ruined the core fucking uniqueness behind Changeling.

I'm kind of in shock that you're objecting to I DED, PLZ NERF.

I tend to despise ling rounds but I agree, this change is unnecessary and ought to be reverted.

In my experience, cooperative changelings are exceptionally rare, especially to the point of taking over a station. If they pull it off they honestly deserve it - there's plenty of time to notice people going missing, acting differently, discovering a husk nest in maintenance, or something to that effect. It allows for RP, tension, drama, subversion, betrayal and other elements of a great round.

Most isolated changelings just try to murderbone in maintenance or play extremely passively, eventually getting picked off one by one. It's very boring in comparison, at least for those that aren't actively hunting them.

I pretty much agree with everything Robustin is saying.

Can we just roll it back to oldling after it first got the new skill unlock thingy and then add all the good stuff like armblades from newling, AND THEN work on it from there, because at least there would be a strong antag that could reliably not be boring as piss.

After this change removed ling chat a ling buff https://github.com/tgstation/-tg-station/pull/4832 was merged a fairly big one. Increases in some genetic damage from mutations, decreases in some chemical costs and a price re-balancing similar (10 points most powers cost 2) to traitor but with only discounts being added.

Resonant/Dissonant Shriek, Lesser Form, Digital Camo, Mimic Voice, Organic Shield, Anatomic Panacena, Spread Infestation, Blind Sting, and Hallucination Sting now all cost 1 point

50% off on the mediocre to terrible powers! Hive mind still costs 20% of your points aka 2, can we spawn lings with Russian revolvers so they can neatly shoot themselves already?

Newlings are less common than traitors and worse than them at about every metric for treason and fear, not that we aren't working to make traitors just as bad.

Even oldlings were steaming garbage compared to traitors.

Steelpoint wrote:Changelings are that thing we can't figure out, as noted.

Something like this: http://mushpedia.com/wiki/Mush Where they can infect crewmembers and have to cause chaos, infecting crewmembers is limited by having to do multiple infections.

Or you know, make them like the actual thing which the Mush as above simulated far better. All issues with Changelings really are avoided if they are actually made like Things. Infecting rather then absorbing should be the thing.

Ling chat is great purely for the round where I didn't really feel like a long round, so asked in ling 'who wants to go for a walk?' and have 3-4 other lings put their hands up. We then all got spacesuits and armblades, before talking a stroll out of arrivals to the brig, and fucking some shit up. I think we all died, but it was hilarious as fuck.

I don't think this was a good change.

Aranclanos wrote:I don't think this was a good change.

You have the power to change it back, Aran!

Aranclanos wrote:I don't think this was a good change.

[youtube]AZKpByV5764[/youtube]

Incomptinence wrote:New-ling and Old-ling now filter to changeling sans hyphens, cute and obstructive.

Hint, when a relatively old revamp is so unpopular and indefensible you feel the need to obfuscate its very name it probably was probably not worth keeping.

My thread title was changed too.

This really feels like a shitshow from the powers that be...

Someone please restore my faith in /tg/station.

Hivemind chat should be returned as a default power. While I rarely play as a antag, I do know that having a good method of communication with other antags, and having no actual requirement to help them thus allowing for backstabbing and uncertainty, can be enticing.

I may not be a big fan of the current implementation of Changeling, but their ability to communicate with one another easily was one of the, personally, good parts of it.

PAPRIKA'S NEW PLAN FOR CHANGELING:

1) REINSTATE LING CHAT AS A DEFAULT POWER THAT YOU DON'T HAVE TO PAY FOR (TRAITORS DON'T HAVE TO BUY CODE WORDS, DO THEY?)
2) TELL SEC WHO GET OWNED BY LINGS TO GIT FUCKING GUD
3) HOLD A 'LING FREEZE' UNTIL THE END OF THE YEAR -- NO CHANGES BESIDES GAME-BREAKING HOTFIXES WILL BE MADE TO CHANGELING UNTIL JANUARY OR UNTIL WE CAN FIGURE OUT WHAT THE FUCK WE WANT TO EVEN DO WITH IT AND HAVE AN ACTUAL NEW REFORMED VERSION OF LING THAT DOESN'T OBJECTIVELY SUCK BALLS FOR BOTH NON-LINGS AND LING PLAYERS

PROFIT

Either way, it would be a solid move for the community to actually figure out what we want out of changeling.

Many of the new ling abilities are simply just organic reskins of traitor equipment, like the space suit and arm blade. That does not present a lot of options and it only keeps moving Changeling towards being a organic twist on traitor.

lumipharon wrote:Ling chat is great purely for the round where I didn't really feel like a long round, so asked in ling 'who wants to go for a walk?' and have 3-4 other lings put their hands up. We then all got spacesuits and armblades, before talking a stroll out of arrivals to the brig, and fucking some shit up. I think we all died, but it was hilarious as fuck.

I was one of the lings and i can confirm we all died. That was fun as hell, but ineffective as you can be. That sums up what the ling actually became.

I have two quick things to say about how ling should go, with one power suggestion
1. Ling should probably be focused around stealth, but with bursts of robustness to take down targets that have the downside of making it extremely obvious that there's a ling. To that end, maybe lings could get some sort of power that covers their entire sprite, disguises them as unknown, and hides what they actually have equipped on examinations, to stop ';HALP CLOWN EATING ME IN ROBOTICS' from being as effective.
2. If ling progression through eating people is brought back, it should probably be limited to only getting the "stealth" powers, to discourage people from just eating everyone, recalling the shuttle repeatedly, and just generally murderboning to max everything out. I know admins can take care of it, but it's probably best to try to make it not as effective from the start.

Every post about non-hivemind ling issues is a reduction in the chance we're ever going to get this awful change reverted.

Mods are already cracking down all over this thread, filtering words, changing titles, and deleting any post offensive to them.

Please no more tangents about other ling powers. The priority in this thread is building a consensus that hivemind needs to come back as a default power.


To Coders: Why the fuck do you always push through these major changes without consulting the playerbase, while bragging on Github "LOL WE SHOULD RUSH THIS THROUGH IT LITERALLY TAKES 0 EFFORT TO REVERT" and then after backlash in the community you dig in your heels and refuse to communicate or compromise with the community.

No one likes it coders. Just revert it back or give good reasons why it should stay the way it is while ignoring the community.

As it is now it is a waste of points when you can get something more useful.

Oldman Robustin wrote: To Coders: Why the fuck do you always push through these major changes without consulting the playerbase, while bragging on Github "LOL WE SHOULD RUSH THIS THROUGH IT LITERALLY TAKES 0 EFFORT TO REVERT" and then after backlash in the community you dig in your heels and refuse to communicate or compromise with the community.

Because the ability to go back on something and acknowledge you were wrong is exclusive to only some rational personality types.
Other people faced with valid argument and evidence proving them that what they did was wrong and they need to scrap it, will whine, whine and whine... shout at you, censor you, call you a faggot or exercise exceptional bad faith. They'll try to desperately set their logic into a reality that doesn't fit it. Like some toddler trying to force a square shaped figure into a circular slot.
For people in a position of power, it's even worse since they think that going back on a decision is a stain on their image and authority, and decrease the level of confidence people put on them.

That's why we'll never ever go back on old-ling, that's why feedback and pointing out negative changes is mostly useless, and that's why you have zero chances of getting a ban lifted if you call out bullshit on the ban and don't validate it by apologizing for your behavior etc...

Post scriptum: Writing this, i discovered that the word "old-ling" without the indent, comes out as "changeling". A way to maliciously erase the past and convey us the message that there is no going back. A comical yet worrying example of what I just talked about.

BACK ON TOPIC:

Suggestions maybe? How about making it so lings can always hear the chat, but transmission is what requires a cost? Maybe making it so not everything costs about the same so there can be more flexibility in pricing?

I would like to see Hivemind become a default ability again. It is truly one of the only unique abilities a Changeling has, just to list off their abilities in comparison to others.

• Digital Camouflage - Agent ID Card
• Epinephrine Overdose - Adrenal Implant
• Fleshmend - Unique ability or just use a Medkit
• Lesser Form - A Genetics ability and its own antag (Monkey Mode)
• Mimic Voice - Voice Changer Gas Mask
• Arm Blade - Energy Sword
• Organic Space Suit - Syndicate Space Suit
• Anatomic Panacea - Unique ability or just get a Medkit/bother chemistry
• Resonant Shriek - Unique ability
• Dissonant Shriek - EMP Implant
• Spread Infestation - Unique ability
• Transformation Sting - A Genetics ability
• Mute Sting - Parapen
• Blind Sting - Stab them in the eye
• Hallucination & Cyro Sting - Unique Ability

Of the 16 Changeling abilties (Barring the starting set), only 6 of them are unique to the Changeling, and even then two of them (Hall and Cyro Sting) can be easily replicated, and a simple medikit replaces about two of the abilities.

Changeling is becoming more and more a organic reskin of a Traitor.

MrStonedOne wrote:BACK ON TOPIC:

Suggestions maybe? How about making it so lings can always hear the chat, but transmission is what requires a cost? Maybe making it so not everything costs about the same so there can be more flexibility in pricing?

Between having to buy it and this I choose this.

But it's still stupid. Like what, you make it so lings that can talk with each other have 4 abilities instead of 5 (yeah costs got shifted a bit but you get the idea). That doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It's just a very weird way of doing things.

Just revert it to what it was. One round where lings were good is not a reason to nerf lings. This ain't league of legends.

Reversion is still the smartest choice I see here.

Listening but no talking is still a half measure that still bears many of the problems I mentioned.

I still haven't heard a good argument for why this needed to happen in the first place. Lings are outnumbered by traitors and don't get any inherent stuns or ranged weaponry, hivemind is what allows them to transcend "shitty traitor" status and work together and do something more remarkable than spamming LSD stings.

Reverting this would be a good idea. Hivemind had a chance to make rounds less boring, and now it's just a full on snooze fest.

If the theme of evolution is part of what is supposed to make changelings unique, then why not arrange their powers into a "tech tree" of sorts? Use DNA-sting-extracted genomes as the advancement point along the tree (I wouldn't support using fully absorbed people as the advancement points because it puts too much pressure on lings to remove people from the round). The branches are assassination, survival, and infiltration. If hivemind chat were one of the first possible powers, then at the very most it's a small required investment, and it's quite possible that someone who wants to do that sort of playstyle would have to pick it up anyway. On the other end of the spectrum, changelings could get some stronger lategame powers to make them more unique without allowing them to dominate the round from square one.

Steelpoint wrote:

• Hallucination & Cyro Sting - Unique Ability

Cryosting can be replicated with a syringe gun and a slime extract.

Reverting hive mind toll would be as pointless as reverting to old-ling. I am pretty sure there was almost no stage where changeling met its design goals and made the server population or coders happy.

The dissatisfaction changeling has created for players and coders is pretty consistent. I say just remove it totally.

Or just replace Changeling with the Shadowling. It is the only incarnation of Changeling that actually received near universal praise from the server.

That comes from the encouragement of the Shadowling to absorb people which bring them back into the round as a UnderShadowling.

Steelpoint wrote:I would like to see Hivemind become a default ability again. It is truly one of the only unique abilities a Changeling has, just to list off their abilities in comparison to others.

Not really.

Hivemind Chat - Traitor Code Words.

Traitors don't have to pay for code words, though.

But traitors never use code words. And even if they did, it wouldn't even be comparable to a private antag chat like lings have.

>hivemind chat
>unique
lol

>binary
>cult communication talismans/runes
>nuke op channel
ETC

Hivemind is still completely unique

You can use it while stunned/muzzled/whatever without any radios or items. It's completely stealthy and effective, nothing else works like hivemind does.

The ability to use such effective and discrete communication is what allows lings to work together, without it, as we've all pointed out, it's just another shitty variety of traitor/DA.