Baton Rework

[wesoda25]

I didn't see a thread so heres one.

Anyways, I really like how new batons leave a window of opportunity to react, its much better than what they formerly were. I similarly like how it'll be a knockdown now (more on this later). I DON'T like pump up and how it encourages powergaming, but I've made that argument clear in the PRs and feel no need to elaborate here.

I just basically wanna ask, would it be ideal to have the knockdown applied instantly, or after a short delay?

[SkeletalElite]

Only thing I think would be better is if instead of a delayed stun it applies a status effect that did 10 stamina damage a second for 10 seconds and then up the stamina damage of the baton itself to 90. The status effect goes away twice as quickly when already in stamina crit.

1) Encourage use of multiple tools together getting 1 disabler shot in means that theyll go down instantly with a baton.
2) Fall down 3 seconds later otherwise.
3) The status effect of the baton can be used to extend how long someone in stam crit will be down more effectively as the status effect dealing stamina damage will pause your regen delay. Remeber that it goes away twice as quickly while you are in stam crit already so batoning someone in stam crit would put them down for 15 seconds and not 20.
4) The same status effect could be used to reintroduce tasers later on. The taser would do no stamina damage itself but would apply this status effect. Maybe the tasers would be shorter or do less damage than the baton's effect though.

Edit: To make pump up less power gamey as well you could just make pump up reduce either the time or damage from this status effect specifically. Rather than effecting the stun itself

[Akrilla]

I'll always defend that with the complete accessibility of pump-up (which is the entire point) it inherently makes the powergaming argument not really a thing.

Otherwise, I think the delay is needed because if it's instant they just lay on the floor, regrabbing their weapon near instantly and laying there like a crab with anyone coming close getting attacked. The numbers atm, with pump-up, lets the person *just* get up before the baton comes off cooldown, with 0.5s to counter (while having a slowdown, and confusion effect).

[CPTANT]

I don't mind a rework of the baton at all, but I do think security should be compensated in some way because it is a nerf to one of their primary weapons.

[Mickyan]

This kind of rock-paper-scissor approach to balance is a dead end, we're seeing it with flashes now where their increased protection availability means they're only effective against those that do not keep a checklist of items to get at roundstart

In other words the powergaming argument is alive and well because all you've done is adding pump-up to the checklist of items every powergamer will preemptively get a hold of and everyone else has to live with the consequences of not playing like a space hobo and/or assistant

[confused rock]

Theorem: remove stuns and make batons cause actual electrocution and break bones
Also mickyan is correct

[Denton]

I'm not a fan of pump up since it's yet another one-trick chem that only powergamers will use. We have plenty of other stun/stamina chems like meth or bath salts to begin with.

[John_Gobbel]

I like how the stun baton works now.

Only consideration I have with the pump up is it needs to be very scarce/hard to produce or not be as effective.

[oranges]

I'm not a fan of pump up since it's yet another one-trick chem that only powergamers will use. We have plenty of other stun/stamina chems like meth or bath salts to begin with.

nobody wants to touch existing chems because of the shouting and screaming, so most people make new ones instead.

[wesoda25]

Now that this has played out a bit, I still think pump up is a bad idea and should be removed (the knockdown opens up for a counter in and of itself, why tf do we need to coddle players and REWARD validhunters at the same time???). Delayed knockdown is wack too, and borg stun arms still aren't included.

[NecromancerAnne]

As much as it it's a hotbed to really talk about, maybe it's time to look toward bringing the martial arts into line and how they might be better implemented, as well cults...literal stun hands.

[Akrilla]

Unironically give everyone some type of nerfed martial art to make combat more interesting

[Recurracy]

The telescopic baton has been nerfed too hard, I feel. It took 3 whacks to down someone. I find that a little over the top, as a self-defence weapon.

[Timonk]

Massive cult buff. I've seen it too many times, officers stunning culties and them casually pulling out their stun hand and just fucking 1 hit stun them.

[Timonk]

Unironically give everyone some type of nerfed martial art to make combat more interesting

Make the martial art random from person to person

[Sandshark808]

Massive cult buff. I've seen it too many times, officers stunning culties and them casually pulling out their stun hand and just fucking 1 hit stun them.

Cult just needs a gigantic nerf. It's the single most powerful antag role you can get and there's no counterplay to most of their abilities (except shooting first an getting bwoinked if you're wrong).

[Timonk]

no counter

holy melons, null rods, holy explosions, explosions in general etc.

[Shadowflame909]

Massive cult buff. I've seen it too many times, officers stunning culties and them casually pulling out their stun hand and just fucking 1 hit stun them.

Cult just needs a gigantic nerf. It's the single most powerful antag role you can get and there's no counterplay to most of their abilities (except shooting first an getting bwoinked if you're wrong).

bro ling just keeps getting buffed and the crew keeps getting nerfed

lings are like a wizard but they come in 4 and with 8 traitors as well

Potentially 7 traitors and someone roundstart ends up with a combo of both.

Unless the ling just absorbs a tator tot not using their uplink. I've done it before

All in all. very very much the least of our antag fears.

Delayed Stuns also might be helpful to the nightmare.

[Super Aggro Crag]

"dude i lost"- som3 bung

[Sandshark808]

no counter

holy melons, null rods, holy explosions, explosions in general etc.

If you detonate a big bomb or plasmaflood and do not subsequently kill all the cultists and win the round, you'll be jobbanned and possibly tempbanned from everything. It's literally against the rules.

[Shadowflame909]

Cultists got an armor nerf. I wish they were fully glass cannon. But now they're just security jumpsuit fully geared up cannon.

So shoot em with a shotgun

[Sandshark808]

Cultists got an armor nerf. I wish they were fully glass cannon. But now they're just security jumpsuit fully geared up cannon.

So shoot em with a shotgun

The real sucky part here is the instant stun that lasts for ages. It seems like 30+ seconds if nobody is around to help you up. That's way more than enough time for a guy with a dagger to disembowel you or sacrifice you on an altar.

[Shadowflame909]

that dagger is robust

and they still have an instant stun

Maybe we need to bring back a shadowling lite feature and give them the ability to hypnotize non-cultists and ease them into the idea of joining a cult

thats how it works in reality, me thinks.

[Timonk]

It's neigh impossible to kill every cultist in a summoning with 1 explosion, except when the master summons and none of the cultists run away

[NecromancerAnne]

The irony of the antag freeze is that we're now kinda stuck in a situation where we can't have some fairly egregious examples of stuns until after the period is over. So we're in a weird state where cultists all have stuns and the crew don't, and so entering melee with a cultist to presumably bring them down nonlethally is obviously suicide, and being forced to buckshot cultists to death leave very few options for the crew to handle these antags. Not everyone is going to have a shotgun, even if improvised shotguns start getting handed out. This only exasperates their incredibly immense powerbase. The solution there would probably be as simple as having their stunhands apply a debuff that inflicts a lot of stamina damage over time and a knockdown or give them some kind of stamina baton (functionally, not literally a baton, more like touching people to weaken them like you would a baton but also like silencing them). It'd be the nerf cult has needed for a while honestly, though it may force cultists to just crit people more often. Who knows. Cult sucks anyway and this is all not even close to enough to fix the problem with cult.

As for lings, frankly, I think lings are a mess conceptually and them being stronger (???) since the baton rework is the least of the problems with lings. Any kind of balance done to lings is likely to be fix symptomatic problems and not the core issue with lings.

Lings are fucking shit execution wise as they're badly designed for what they're supposed to do (stealthy antag that kills and consume crew and take on their appearance to kill and consume more crew), and really good at things they're not REALLY supposed to do (being a near impervious murder machine with a nodrop esword and near infinite get out of jail free cards, so they can murderbone harder than a tot can with none of the associated risks). By the way, I don't believe the baton rework even remotely made lings stronger. If anything, the new batons were actually more powerful against lings than before. The new ling adrenals do however make them about par what they were before. Again, the core issue is not with the baton rework. It's that lings are not actually a well designed antag.

[Cobby]

i was never asked if removing stuns from cultists would be an acceptable bypass to the freeze (I would agree to stunpapers for sure)