CLONING REMOVAL FEEDBACK

[Timonk]

somehow this thread is even lower quality than the github pr

Silence, fruit

[Flatulent]

wow i sure love waiting 15 minutes to get revived after i die to killbaiter with 2 batons in his backpack

[oranges]

This post was deleted by oranges on Sat Jan 11, 2020 11:26 pm.

[Cade_Connelly_13]

somehow this thread is even lower quality than the github pr

Orangey, I've seen less drama in unban requests by pubbies caught griefing. Let alone something as massive as changing a fundamental mechanic that the game has relied upon for around at least a decade. A freaking DECADE. There games that sputter and die to complete obscurity in half that time. By contrast SS13 has grown with a codebase from the 90's originally named DUNG - often an apt description of what it's like to work with - and 2D graphics where the average sprite resolutions is the size of icons.

Is any of this resonating yet? An entire community has been growing and thriving on a game that looks like it escaped from a shareware bundle back when AOL was mailing out CD's because we have a formula that works. Then when dozens of legitimate concerns are raised by multiple people about something they genuinely care about, your pull a "Code French" - retreat and slam the Git thread behind you.

You are not being trolled, you are not being brigaded, you are experiencing the result of seriously proposing to upend the applecart. What, exactly, were you expecting?

[Timonk]

The above 2 players have never been seen once on tg but they still got some valid points

My point is that they haven't been seen on tg since at least 2016 or something when we started tracking logs

[Arathian]

somehow this thread is even lower quality than the github pr

Orangey, I've seen less drama in unban requests by pubbies caught griefing. Let alone something as massive as changing a fundamental mechanic that the game has relied upon for around at least a decade. A freaking DECADE. There games that sputter and die to complete obscurity in half that time. By contrast SS13 has grown with a codebase from the 90's originally named DUNG - often an apt description of what it's like to work with - and 2D graphics where the average sprite resolutions is the size of icons.

Is any of this resonating yet? An entire community has been growing and thriving on a game that looks like it escaped from a shareware bundle back when AOL was mailing out CD's because we have a formula that works. Then when dozens of legitimate concerns are raised by multiple people about something they genuinely care about, your pull a "Code French" - retreat and slam the Git thread behind you.

You are not being trolled, you are not being brigaded, you are experiencing the result of seriously proposing to upend the applecart. What, exactly, were you expecting?

Good take, but post it with your main.

Also, Oranges, if you can't take a bit of heat when changing fundamental mechanics, step down. I will add that part.

[Sylphet]

Yeah, cloning is overtuned. I do agree that it needs to go eventually, but are we ready for it? My concern is that removing cloning relies a lot on doctors knowing what they're doing - and they usually don't. It seems like this change puts the burden of getting players back into the round in the hands of competent medbay mains/players. If someone like that isn't there, then you're out of luck, no? Also, cloning let players know they were being returned to life. How will surgery do the same? What stops you from working on a destroyed corpse for 10 minutes, only to find the person is offline?

[nianjiilical]

i honestly do agree with the basic statement that "ss13 without cloning would be an improvement in the long run" but it's going to be a hard, long road to get there

if cloning does get cut not only is it going to have to be tested for a while, but medbay in general is going to have to be buffed significantly, because you can't make the assumption that experienced medbay players will be there every round

if an inexperienced doctor can't make reasonable steps to bring somebody back into a round then im worried medbay is going to fall into a death spiral where new doctors get shit on for honestly not knowing how to revive people, players who die will eventually stop expecting to be brought back into the round, and eventually the only people even playing medbay will be either people who already know the optimal way to revive someone or generally experienced greytiders breaking into medbay and healing themselves, while people who die just server hop or disconnect

also i said it on the pr but if the game reaches a state where its hard to be brought back into the round, people are not going to want the longer rounds that coderbus is pushing for because an unlucky run in with a traitor 20 minutes into a shift will lead to a possible hour of ghostsalt

now that im typing this id honestly like to see cloning removal be paired with a new push for improved/expanded ghostroles, more ways to let people actually play the game other than being revived as their original character

[cacogen]

somehow this thread is even lower quality than the github pr

you know what you must do

[kopoba]

Please leave cloning alone.
There was attempt to remove it and it was horrible and was reverted with speed of light.
If you want to remove cloning please add mechanic that is BETTER then cloning leave it for a while to players to get used to it.
When players will use new method of reviving more common than cloning at this point you can delete cloning without any problems.

[cacogen]

yeah removing cloning would be horrible and i don't understand this need to overhaul everything about the game
but this is the ultimate controversial pr, this is oranges' white whale

[skoglol]

somehow this thread is even lower quality than the github pr

You know what, I decided to see if Mr. Twitter Comebacks here had a pattern to his non-constructive shortposting, and looky look what I found, not 3 months ago!

Spoiler:

Sandshark called this bullshit 3 months ago.

Curbyourenthusiasm.mp4

oranges isn't the one removing cloning, I am. He didn't think we are ready yet, but I disagree. The stuff that needs sorting out are all fairly small things that we can solve before a merge. At the very least we are ready for some testmerging and evaluating this based on how the players work with it. That's when the real issues will be apparent, instead of theorizing and doomsaying about this for months and months.

[CandyClown]

-snip-

-snip-

oranges isn't the one removing cloning, I am. He didn't think we are ready yet, but I disagree. The stuff that needs sorting out are all fairly small things that we can solve before a merge. At the very least we are ready for some testmerging and evaluating this based on how the players work with it. That's when the real issues will be apparent, instead of theorizing and doomsaying about this for months and months.

I'm curious, after reading through all the feedback, both positive and negative, have you changed your mind at all? Do you still think removing cloning is a good idea? I'm not trying to be rude or troll, I'm just genuinely curious.

[Super Aggro Crag]

testmerging is the biggest pile of shit bullshit phrase ever invented.

"Oh, we're only TESTING it to see what happens"

when have you guys ever made a massively unpopular "test merge" and then reverted it?

[Noka]

oranges isn't the one removing cloning, I am. He didn't think we are ready yet, but I disagree. The stuff that needs sorting out are all fairly small things that we can solve before a merge. At the very least we are ready for some testmerging and evaluating this based on how the players work with it. That's when the real issues will be apparent, instead of theorizing and doomsaying about this for months and months.

Then I sure hope oranges disapproving of how discussion is mainly "this is terrible" with the same reasons regurgitated a thousand different ways is indicative of oranges not intending to merge it. Right now, the only reason your PR would be merged - just based on mass feedback - is either an incredible, amazing, mindblowing support after the testmerges, or someone muscling it through despite community opinion... which is why people are aggroing oranges, the maintainer well known for ignoring negative feedback and pushing removals through, who at the very least is trying to filter out the people handwringing about the change to get to the core of what people have to say.

As things stand, you are rushing a change to a mechanic that is fundamental to the game's meta because you think it's ready despite a large group of people disagreeing with you, even if there's the potential some of them are just shitstirring and don't play on /tg/.

Beyond that, this is a bad PR. You have no clear plan for what will replace cloning as a method of bringing people into rounds. You are removing cloning because you think it's too much, have openly acknowledged cloning is extremely powerful, but do not seem to realize the fact it is powerful means that removing it will change everything about how people play, if people even decide to stick with /tg/ if this is pushed through despite apparent disagreement. As people prioritize getting back in the round, you're just replacing the mentioned "oh get yelled at for not immediately cloning them" with "get yelled at for not having podpeople seeds", or if you remove those like you've been suggesting, "get yelled at for not immediately shipping their brain off to be borged and/or monkeyrevived".

Your idea requires further removals not because it is negative to the game, but because you are trying to move against the flow of years of development around getting people back into the game. If you remove this and the playerbase doesn't do what you want, you have to remove podpeople. If you do that and they still don't do what you want, maybe even the meta becomes literally mailing brains to Genetics and outfitting them with the tools to monkeyrevive people, what then - do you do a brain ownership check on resuscitation? Do you make defibbing monkeyhumans just fail? I'm not trying to make the slippery slope argument, I'm trying to ask you where you stop removing things and give up. Because I feel like you're a bit committed, considering this has been a bombshell PR and you do not seem to have changed your mind.

Let me bring this up now, because this bothers me.

Why It's Good For The Game
Cloning is a thorn in medbays side that we need to finally remove. Anything we try to do in medbay has to be balanced against this magical machine that makes everyone better in four button presses (or 0-1 presses if theres part upgrades installed) and a little bit of time. It enables anyone on the station to fully restore a dead person without commiting any significant amount of time or resources to the task, and it is stealing work from our hard(ly) working MD's. Dying should be undesireable, and with cloning available death is quite frankly just too cheap.
Another point well worth mentioning is that doctors quite literally get yelled at by angry patients for not immediately cloning them and instead opting to bring them back (some even fully agumented) through alternate means. Fixing people (and corpses) is supposed to be medbays job, but the ease of moonlighting cloning is making medbay boring and bad.

All of these points are great for saying that cloning is bad.

They do not offer any good reason for the removal of cloning.

Removal is a really big deal, and it is sort of a hack job to remove a major mechanic. You identified the problems with cloning; people have been doing nothing but offering constant opinions or ideas on how to adjust or fix cloning, and it really strikes me as fundamentally dishonest to act like removal is just The Answer here. People do not disagree with the information you are offering, they disagree with your fundamental conclusion. Nobody has sat here and said "Nah, cloning is balanced" and invested effort into a page telling you how it's balanced, most of the people trying to have these discussions with you DO AGREE that cloning is not currently balanced.

Right now, the clear answer is to nerf cloning and raise the skill floor more on MD work until people are more comfortable relying on MDs, because every point you've made about cloning at this point has gotten good responses.

Clones are free? Add a synthflesh cost.
Clones are too easy? Crank up either the defects or the cook time.
The scalability is too much? Make the materials needed to make a pod rarer.
It's too simple? Maybe add a whole process of entering information about the deceased and the more wrong it is the more garbage the clone is. That wouldn't be hard, we have all the pieces you'd need to make it.

People yell at you for not choosing cloning or an equivalent? As long as a fastest method to reenter the round exists, some people will always want that method, and you cannot change that.

Cloning was made fast and easy because, frankly, it was meant for a station environment where everyone was at least 50% murderhobo, and the nice people would fail if not for the ability to do it all solo or set it up and walk away without having to engage in zone defense and puzzle solving solo. We don't have to keep it easy any more, but it's in everyone's best interest right now to keep it. Even medical doctors. Nobody thinks of them as revival experts - if you get rid of the machine right now without weaning people off of it, there is a really damn good chance people are going to depend on the ideas most like the cloning machine until you have to delete those options too.

I get that being a MD right now is frustrating and I get that it could be better, but deleting cloning right now is too early and even if the testmerges seem quiet, you should probably take note of how many people swap to relying on botany and science rather than doing your intended goal of depending on medical. Just a thought.

[skoglol]

I'm curious, after reading through all the feedback, both positive and negative, have you changed your mind at all? Do you still think removing cloning is a good idea? I'm not trying to be rude or troll, I'm just genuinely curious.

I do, and I have read it all. If we discard the non-feedback, the ones who have missed the point completely, the ones who think we are removing revival (defib, surgery, podcloning, strange reagent) and the suggestions to do something else instead, we are left with fairly few actual issues to overcome. I track the ones I found to be of note on the PR, and in addition people are worried that murderboners or other crises might cause there to be more dead people. And there might be, but we need to put it to the test to be sure. Regardless, that can also be overcome without current day cloning if need be.

testmerging is the biggest pile of shit bullshit phrase ever invented.
"Oh, we're only TESTING it to see what happens"
when have you guys ever made a massively unpopular "test merge" and then reverted it?

You have been around long enough that you should know how test merging works, but in case you dont. It's not a full merge in the main git repo, it is a per server merge that lets us test if something is viable, or has issues that arent apparent in testing. It doesnt need reverting, as its not merged.

As things stand, you are rushing a change to a mechanic that is fundamental to the game's meta because you think it's ready despite a large group of people disagreeing with you, even if there's the potential some of them are just shitstirring and don't play on /tg/.

This is hardly rushed. Medbay has been getting an overhaul for the last half year, expanding on the tools needed to bring people back. The backbone is already there, and while cloning removal will make it harder in some cases that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Your idea requires further removals not because it is negative to the game, but because you are trying to move against the flow of years of development around getting people back into the game.

Correct. Putting 6 pod seeds in botany makes sense when cloning is available for free, but doesnt if cloning is removed. Its natural that a change of this magnitude will require adjustments in several similar or affected places.
That said, I will likely make podcloning require mutation and growing per one seed so any podclone means someone has to lay down some effort. That is what cloning removal is all about, requiring some actual effort for revival. If you do the prepwork, or even just the work, I am fine with that. Thats not to say I wont want to make further adjustments down the line if something needs it.

People yell at you for not choosing cloning or an equivalent? As long as a fastest method to reenter the round exists, some people will always want that method, and you cannot change that.

See, now you're getting it.

Improve dont remove

Okay, I paraphrased this one.
The issue with most of these adjustments is that they arent really all that limiting. Even if you require a doctor to sit at the cloner solving puzzles the entire round, its going to suck ass for that one doctor. There is also something about replayability, and fixing corpses manually will offer much more variety than the cloner ever will.

if you get rid of the machine right now without weaning people off of it, there is a really damn good chance people are going to depend on the ideas most like the cloning machine until you have to delete those options too.

If you go observe a tg game server, hang around the cloner and count the amount of uses it gets during the average round. I think you'll be surprised how rarely it is used already all things considered. Expanding on the fix and defib revival route has done a good job of weaning the players off the cloner.

[Noka]

-snip-

You have been around long enough that you should know how test merging works, but in case you dont. It's not a full merge in the main git repo, it is a per server merge that lets us test if something is viable, or has issues that arent apparent in testing. It doesnt need reverting, as its not merged.

The thing they're suggesting is that once something is in the testmerge stages, it is incredibly rare that it fails, because usually maintainers decide it's worth whatever grief it gets.

This is hardly rushed. Medbay has been getting an overhaul for the last half year, expanding on the tools needed to bring people back. The backbone is already there, and while cloning removal will make it harder in some cases that's not necessarily a bad thing.

You've misunderstood the idea of what I mean by rushed.

A removal is a rush job. Period. You do not have any intention of doing the iterative design necessary to help ensure a smooth transition after getting rid of a major backbone of the game. Your entire focus is on the removal of cloning and anything that may end up deteriorating into being cloning 2.0. Be honest, dude.

Correct. Putting 6 pod seeds in botany makes sense when cloning is available for free, but doesnt if cloning is removed. Its natural that a change of this magnitude will require adjustments in several similar or affected places.
That said, I will likely make podcloning require mutation and growing per one seed so any podclone means someone has to lay down some effort. That is what cloning removal is all about, requiring some actual effort for revival. If you do the prepwork, or even just the work, I am fine with that. Thats not to say I wont want to make further adjustments down the line if something needs it.

And my point is that 'needs' in this scenario is entirely based on your perspective, not player perspective. Why is it so hard for you to justify removal over replacement?

See, now you're getting it.

I'm sorry, so your solution is that we have to get rid of the fastest method, and continue removing methods until revival works as you intend it? You really avoided answering my question about where you're drawing the line here, and I am going to call that out because you rebutted a different part of what I said with a condescending one-liner instead of bothering to explain where you, at the current moment, see a line in the sand.

Improve dont remove

Okay, I paraphrased this one.
The issue with most of these adjustments is that they arent really all that limiting. Even if you require a doctor to sit at the cloner solving puzzles the entire round, its going to suck ass for that one doctor. There is also something about replayability, and fixing corpses manually will offer much more variety than the cloner ever will.

Here, further paraphrasing: Removal is cheap. Justify it.

You haven't this entire time, and it's irritating.

Beyond that.

Yeah, it's gonna suck ass for that doctor, which is why no doctor is going to actually bother to do that unless it is something they personally enjoy. More likely? They'll do the easiest option, which is the point of imposing strict penalties on the people unfortunate enough to be cloned through the shit-for-brains method. It makes people look for alternatives both as the reviver (you'll be held responsible for a bad clone if the world hasn't gone to shit) and the revived (if your reviver is shit, you could end up PRETTY FUCKED). And sitting at the cloner isn't what would happen if you imposed rarity limitations on the scalability issue - it would mean that the cloner could get backed up and that bargain bin clones would almost definitely die if they were spawned early, so cloning then has a cost/benefit ratio: the line is long, so save who you can and only put the necessary cases in the cloner.

If you go observe a tg game server, hang around the cloner and count the amount of uses it gets during the average round. I think you'll be surprised how rarely it is used already all things considered. Expanding on the fix and defib revival route has done a good job of weaning the players off the cloner.

Okay, even if this is true - I don't have the data and am not going to do the legwork - the problem is that the expectation that there is always a method of revival that does not rely on people doing their fucking jobs is part of what keeps ghosts in the game. Nerfing the cloner won't turn a lot of heads, but removing it is going to feel like absolute garbage.

Also, anecdotal evidence is easy to say and much, much harder to actually back - if you want to do that, then could I suggest you come up with some data-gathering code? Considering how much of a major change this is, I doubt anyone would complain about testmerging a simple bit of code to show the amount of times the cloner was used per round over a few days. That would be excellent hard evidence as to your theory and could work very well to prove your point, which would really help your credibility in talking about this PR.

But also, to emphasize a point here: you haven't justified why a removal is the correct choice. Maybe it's difficult for you to articulate, so here are my specific questions I would personally prefer you answer in full before I consider supporting this idea. No pithy one liners. No gesturing to other posts - if you feel they're relevant, copy and paste the parts you think are relevant and edit them to answer the question. Answer the questions to the best of your ability.

• What happens if we do not remove cloning, but nerf it or revise it to fix the problems you have?
• Why does this need to be done now, rather than continuing to develop medbay first?
• Why do you think oranges' evaluation of the best timeframe to implement this change is wrong? (You said oranges did not agree that now was the right time for this change - why do you disagree?)
• Why does the code edit require the complete removal of cloning code, rather than leaving it in and removing access to the cloners?
• What is the purpose of disabling relic cloners, when they have no impact on the round 99% of the time?
• If cloning is already not generally being used, why remove it?

Am I aware you've already, to some degree, answered these questions? I am.

But full responses to these questions would go a good ways to convincing me that this is a decision you have considered for a long time, considering you mentioned you've "wanted to do this for months" and, like you mentioned, medbay's only been brought up to being able to function without cloning at all over the past 3 months. I wouldn't have dreamed of this kind of removal without updates to medbay; I want you to convince me you aren't rushing some grand design in your head rather than approaching a major change to the code with the caution and care it really deserves. If cloning is obsolete, you do not have to rush to prove it with some overzealous removal - you can at least go about getting data to show the community you're not talking out of your ass first.

If removal is the most practical option as you view it as, and you really have given it serious thought, explicitly justifying to me - to us - why removal is the best option above any other should not be like pulling teeth.

[Super Aggro Crag]

Skoglol i just want you to know that just because i disagree with your code decision doesn't mean I hate you or think you are a bad person

[Noka]

Skoglol i just want you to know that just because i disagree with your code decision doesn't mean I hate you or think you are a bad person

I should probably say up front that I second this.

[Timonk]

I think the bodygrowing machine idea is better than just removing cloning. Also can we leave the experimental cloner in? Kinda fits the experimental theme of it. It doesn't clone the original owner anyways

[CandyClown]

One of my main problems is that a simple revival surgery is not always enough to bring someone back into the round. Without the proper knowledge, people won't be able to save their crewmates. Even if you know to attempt revival surgery, there could be plenty of things wrong that you don't know to fix.

Now I'm not saying there should be an easy fix, a quick and magic button to press that brings back the dead. But there needs to be something that anyone can do after only a small amount of playing. Cloning as it is now is too easy, but it does offer a solution to a problem. It's simple and can easily be explained in one or two sentences, which helps newer players. But it does needs a re-balance. Actually, I think most people are in favor of re-balancing it to be less of a win-button. It should not be a one-click wonder, but neither should it be removed.

[carshalash]

Blood is going to be a big issue.

[Grazyn]

I think the bodygrowing machine idea is better than just removing cloning. Also can we leave the experimental cloner in? Kinda fits the experimental theme of it. It doesn't clone the original owner anyways

Yeah the experimental cloner has nothing to do with cloning, why was it removed? If anything, the fact that cloning doesn't exist anymore makes the ruin even more fitting.

[Kryson]

Revival surgery only counters the heart defib timeout, which is currently at 15 minutes. It is strictly not a necessary surgery, and is almost completely made obsolete after the defib timer was increased when organ decay was added.

Revival surgery is useful for head transplant cases where you have a formaldehyde'd body instead of a catatonic and you haven't powergame'd strange reagent.

Blood is going to be a big issue.

Blood and blood replacements are easy to make. It won't be an issue if the doctors are competent.

You can make thousands of units of O- blood will a small and simple plumbing machine.

the problem is that the expectation that there is always a method of revival that does not rely on people doing their fucking jobs is part of what keeps ghosts in the game.

If no one in medbay is doing their jobs, shit should be fucked and you should NOT expect to be revived until the captain / CMO / HOP hires new doctors.

As a medical main, i think this is a great change, we have all the tools needed to do away with cloning.

Cloning must go, preferable without preemptively power creeping everything else.

[Timonk]

we should disregard sybillite opinions just because of the post above

[skoglol]

Just because you dont agree with my justifications doesnt mean I havent made any. But let me sum it up for you:
Cloning is antithetical to medical content, both existing and future.

[Taraiph]

Just because you dont(sic) agree with my justifications doesnt(sic) mean I havent(sic) made any. But let me sum it up for you:
Cloning is antithetical to medical content, both existing and future.

Because medical isn't fun.

[Timonk]

Just because you dont agree with my justifications doesnt mean I havent made any. But let me sum it up for you:
Cloning is antithetical to medical content, both existing and future.

What do you think about bodygrowing?

[4dplanner]

Is the experimental cloner antithetical to medical content? I thought it was quite cool.

[Mickyan]

Medbay could use a couple more stasis beds to make triage a bit easier, we haven't really changed the sleeper room other than swapping out the sleepers for stasis beds

[skoglol]

What do you think about bodygrowing?

Potential, but I'm not convinced its needed. Possible alternative to monkey transplanting, which is already a bit of an edge case. It would need a real cost, and I am at this point not quite sure what that would have to be.

Is the experimental cloner antithetical to medical content? I thought it was quite cool.

The experimental cloner relies on all the normal cloners code to work. If someone wants to bring a more simplistic version with some limitations back later, I wouldnt be against that.
There are some balance concerns, although minor.

Medbay could use a couple more stasis beds to make triage a bit easier, we haven't really changed the sleeper room other than swapping out the sleepers for stasis beds

Yeah, you may be right.

[wesoda25]

I get its hard work to sort through all the code and figure out what must go and what will stay, I certainly don’t want to do it, but honestly removing the defective cloner ruin to lessen the load of the PR seems a little lazy and disingenuous. Should it not be your job to recode it in a simpler way if you are the one pushing for its removal?

[Ziiro]

I don't agree with this at all, but you should remove it like sleepers were removed: still in the code but cannot be created by crew and removed from maps.

To delete perfectly good code and an interesting ruin is wasteful.

[Critawakets]

Empty cloning should stay in as it is both an interesting feature and is also useful for the revival of crewmembers. If you just make the cloning machine be empty cloning you honestly have fixed the entire problem you were looking to crea- i mean fix.

Also experimental cloner needs to stay in. Its a good feature.

[Noka]

Just because you dont agree with my justifications doesnt mean I havent made any. But let me sum it up for you:
Cloning is antithetical to medical content, both existing and future.

All of your justifications are for the premise that "current cloning has issues that effect the game". Which I have acknowledged and continue to acknowledge are justifications that you are making.

You have made no justifications as far as I can tell for why removal is better than changes/nerfs to bring cloning in line with other content. I am not sure you understand the distinction, because I put significant effort into asking you to justify removal over other methods, and you chose to reply like this despite me saying that no, alluding to previous unspecified justifications does not actually validate your point. You have to re-present them in a context where you make it clear that's what you're saying, because nobody is about to read the entire Git PR and I personally only read your bit, your linked series of replies, and then skimmed the rest. I did not notice you justifying removal over other options.

Even the justification you just gave is a reason that cloning needs to be changed or removed, not a specific reason that cloning needs to be removed. You need to be justifying removal over changing, because that is the point people are going to argue with you about. You have pretty much convinced a sizeable number of people that cloning needs to change, but you just haven't done a good job explaining why your version of a fix is the best possible fix. By trying to continue saying "cloning bad" 100 different ways, you've ignored the fact a lot of people agree that cloning is bad but want better justification for your course of action.

The questions I asked you were specifically meant to help you provide reasons removal is better than changing and better justify your actions to players. I was hoping you'd reply to them so that people at least better understood your PR, but if you don't want to, I can only either assume you feel you can't defend your PR by answering those questions or you don't care enough about it to invest the effort in answering those questions.

If you don't care about this PR enough to bother to justify removal over other options despite being asked directly about it, then just close the PR. I am confident there will be other people who want to fix cloning and will try and nerf it, and then if that doesn't work, there will be talks of actually removing it. At that point, most people would have better context and data for a decision like this, and whoever makes that change then will get far less pushback.

[Flatulent]

if you are 100% going through with this PR, can you please make brain replacement not be complete fucking ass to do?

in ideal conditions you can remove brains from both bodies at once, but this is time consuming and really boring. it'd be great if you made brain replacement it's own surgery, even if it required some techs. or make a machine that does it, i guess?

[skoglol]

You can already remove brain then insert new in the same round of organ manipulation. Besides, brain swap will be an edge case when there is nothing to be done for the rest of the body.

[oranges]

Also, Oranges, if you can't take a bit of heat when changing fundamental mechanics, step down. I will add that part.

I am not going to listen to you, who rage quit the entire server after I prevented you from posting in coding-general, lecture me about taking heat.

I am perfectly happy to take heat, I'll take it all day long, that's the job, but I do not have to listen to people spouting nonsense and trying to shout others down.

[oranges]

To delete perfectly good code and an interesting ruin is wasteful.

this isn't really an argument for anything by the way, everything in the code had zero cost other than time people were already willing to throw away on their hobby.

[Agux909]

I still stand on the opinion that it should only be roundstart removal. Make it an unlockable you gotta work your ass to research. Like, really hard. Also, make it so only one cloner can ever exist in the map, and set the sensors of all suits to maximum as default.

Cloning should be treated as a luxury/privilege. Not just as a default feature

[oranges]

One of my main problems is that a simple revival surgery is not always enough to bring someone back into the round. Without the proper knowledge, people won't be able to save their crewmates. Even if you know to attempt revival surgery, there could be plenty of things wrong that you don't know to fix.

Now I'm not saying there should be an easy fix, a quick and magic button to press that brings back the dead. But there needs to be something that anyone can do after only a small amount of playing. Cloning as it is now is too easy, but it does offer a solution to a problem. It's simple and can easily be explained in one or two sentences, which helps newer players. But it does needs a re-balance. Actually, I think most people are in favor of re-balancing it to be less of a win-button. It should not be a one-click wonder, but neither should it be removed.

people not being skilled enough is not an argument, and it speaks very poorly of players who say this that this is *your* opinion of the people you are playing this game with.

[Timonk]

Also, Oranges, if you can't take a bit of heat when changing fundamental mechanics, step down. I will add that part.

I am not going to listen to you, who rage quit the entire server after I prevented you from posting in coding-general, lecture me about taking heat.

I am perfectly happy to take heat, I'll take it all day long, that's the job, but I do not have to listen to people spouting nonsense and trying to shout others down.

Wow I can't believe arathian just fucking died

[Armhulen]

One of my main problems is that a simple revival surgery is not always enough to bring someone back into the round. Without the proper knowledge, people won't be able to save their crewmates. Even if you know to attempt revival surgery, there could be plenty of things wrong that you don't know to fix.

Now I'm not saying there should be an easy fix, a quick and magic button to press that brings back the dead. But there needs to be something that anyone can do after only a small amount of playing. Cloning as it is now is too easy, but it does offer a solution to a problem. It's simple and can easily be explained in one or two sentences, which helps newer players. But it does needs a re-balance. Actually, I think most people are in favor of re-balancing it to be less of a win-button. It should not be a one-click wonder, but neither should it be removed.

people not being skilled enough is not an argument, and it speaks very poorly of players who say this that this is *your* opinion of the people you are playing this game with.

And players will adapt to the environment we give them. The whole "doctors suck" meme only became a thing because sleepers let doctors heal people up with one button, leading to doctors going full retard when that one machine is taken away (antagging, power loss, other events). But doctors have significantly improved from the sleeper days, so what's to say they won't adapt to this as well?

[BadSS13Player]

this isn't really an argument for anything by the way, everything in the code had zero cost other than time people were already willing to throw away on their hobby.

coder time spent is valuable, and it speaks very poorly of coders who say this that this is *your* opinion of the time spent by people you are coding this game with.

[Arathian]

Also, Oranges, if you can't take a bit of heat when changing fundamental mechanics, step down. I will add that part.

I am not going to listen to you, who rage quit the entire server after I prevented you from posting in coding-general, lecture me about taking heat.

I am perfectly happy to take heat, I'll take it all day long, that's the job, but I do not have to listen to people spouting nonsense and trying to shout others down.

Yeah, you are so good at taking heat, that you keep locking discussions and banning people and spamming accounts whenever you can. Give me admin powers to shut up whomever I want and "I can take the heat" too.

I did step down when I was angry (at you, good job! Be proud of yourself). I am not entirely sure why you think my suggestion is bad. Step down.

Skoglol actually engages with people and discusses, he doesn't just call everyone an idiot, then bans them and locks the thread.

[oranges]

I only ban idiots, unfortunately there's a lot of them

this isn't really an argument for anything by the way, everything in the code had zero cost other than time people were already willing to throw away on their hobby.

coder time spent is valuable, and it speaks very poorly of coders who say this that this is *your* opinion of the time spent by people you are coding this game with.

coder time spent isn't valuable, the time they're currently willing *too* spend is

[The_Silver_Nuke]

Maybe it's difficult for you to articulate

I lmao'd. Chuckles aside, if I had to summarize what I've seen from both the Git and this forum, is that skoglol feels that he justified his position, despite there being a significant lack of evidence to support this. Additionally, judging by the kind of responses he's given to this forum it gives the impression that he hasn't been convinced by what others have had to say despite the overwhelming negative and well thought out responses.

Now if we summarize the feedback given by players and observers alike, filtering out all the flame and non contributing feedback, there have been the following suggestions:

1. Make cloning longer.
2. Make cloning locked at round start and unlockable via techweb.
3. Have cloning require a cost of some sort, preferably synthflesh.
4. Make cloning a person require management through some form of simple interaction.
5. Have cloning pods require a rare resources cost to reduce scaleability.
6. Ensure that if a person is husked you cannot clone despite debraining.
7. Remove cloning but keep the experimental cloner.
*8. Delay removal until medical is better equipped or antags have been nerfed to be less murderbone capable.
*9. Add more rules to crack down on murderboning.
10. Add a transition period where content is removed piecemeal instead of all at once.
11. Add cloning memory loss.
*12. Add a respawn system that triggers after a set period of time, ideally 30 minutes.
13. Make cloning skill based
*14. Hold an official poll.

*Noted Sections:
8. There have been several suggestions on this point including adding a corpse processor, round start organs, changing the damage system away from brute and burn and instead replacing it with surface level and organ damage, decreasing health decay when in crit, body growing vats that require a brain transplant or mind transfer, etc. Not bad.
9. This is an admin solution to a player problem and is a very poorly thought out idea that can't be enforced when there are no admins.
12. Is this COD now?
14. I like polls but there have been complaints in the past regarding rigged polls or people spoofing IP's to get more votes in.

I know of course that I'm forgetting some even though I dived back into the git despite the absolute unit it's become to try to give useful feedback (which was a pain in the ass). Like Noka said it isn't that people disagree that cloning is imbalanced and that it does require change but that it shouldn't be removed in its entirety. I do have to commend them for responding to players in a meaningful manner however. We've beaten this subject into the ground and the only thing I have left to offer is condemnation for what I feel is a general disregard for the community requesting information on why it actually requires removal. After Noka's statement I went through the PR to see if skog justified his PR and why removal instead of reworking it was necessary and I found no such excuses.

[oranges]

none of them really twist my nips I have to say

[The_Silver_Nuke]

none of them really twist my nips I have to say

I'm not sure what you mean by this. In particular isn't this something you supported?

*8. Delay removal until medical is better equipped...

Have you changed your stance officially on the subject then? That cloning needs an immediate and brutal amputation from the rest of the codebase? Personally despite the constant grief you get as a headcoder I do support many of the decisions you make, but in order to properly do things we have to maintain consistency. I do think that medical is headed in the right direction even if many players don't think so, but logical and transparent decisions with proper laid out reasoning is severely needed.

[wesoda25]

How is it not logical and clearly laid out? This is exactly what coders have been working for from the start, even if some people weren't aware of it. Change medbay so that doctors are actually useful to the station. Sleepers were removed and surgery methods added so that doctors actually had some work to do. Chem system was reworked so that people couldn't just slap a bruise patch on and forget about getting hit with a toolbox 10 times. It made surgery a much more preferable and safe method, making doctors an actually necessary part of the station. Now we're removing cloning which makes doctors 100% necessary for bringing people back into a round, which is their job.

This removal isn't immediate or brutal whatsoever. The past ~6 months all the groundwork has been put into place. A PR was made a little while ago (https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/pull/46222), but coders decided it was too early. I wouldn't argue that this is the perfect time for cloning to be removed perhaps, but the pre-reqs are definitely in place.

I do agree though that adding a very weak form of cloning locked behind late-game techwebs would be nice if it was merged for a few months to help ween players off the current system, but it looks to me as if that won't be happening. (ill make a pr tho if a maintainer asks)