/tg/Station 13

I was watching an old Crowbcat video, that was comparing the design philosophy of Bungie.

One of the takeaways from me, was how much effort Bungie put into making weapons fun to fire upon other people, and be fired upon.
Back in the old days, the combat was split very much into slips and stuns, and lethal damage.
Lasers and tasers were slow and dodgeable by robust players. Stuns like from a baton were not, and forced players to be paralyzed. Harm batoning would be able to potentially kill a player, but would also consume the baton's entire charge. This is why people would joke about Janitors or Clowns killing nuke ops, because often times they'd slip them, and another player would kill the operative with a fire extinguisher or something similar.

I noticed that the weapons police officers get in Families aren't very fun to fight against because of how quick they are. I hope that this changes.

I just want this thread to be constructive criticism on weapons that are currently in the game, and how to make them more fun to fight with, or fight against.

What I find fascinating is the existence of 1 tile chokepoints in pretty much every department.

So to illustrate my point, I'll use Metastations Cargo as an example.
So my first suggestion would be a water cooler, which with a single click gives you a cup full of water. When thrown, this will make a floortile wet, and anyone who runs over it will slip and fall. As a player, this is an improvised weapon that's fun to use, as it gives you single click long range potential stuns, but they have no ammunition, and you have to "reload" by getting more cups of water from the water cooler. As an antagonist, it's fun to fight against, as I just need to switch from running to walking to undo their "weapon".

As for an antagonist weapon. I'd recommend a tripmine.

Something that looked more like this (a visible red field around it that even if you've never seen it before can tell you it's bad news), and anyone but the person who set it will trip it off if they walk by. This will cause them to lose a leg, and open a hole to space where the mine is where the person who just lost their leg would get sucked into.
There would be 2 ways to "disarm" it.
1. Throwing something at it to detonate it.
2. Lay down, and crawl past it. You could even potentially disarm it if you had a screwdriver and wirecutter in your hands while you crawl next to it.
These are just hypothetical weapons, to illustrate what I mean by fun to fight with, and fight against.

unlike bungie we actually suck at our jobs though

oranges wrote:unlike bungie we actually suck at our jobs though

Yeah, but you actually care.
You quit because it's frustrating.
Then unquit, because you realized nobody else cares.

Helios wrote:Lasers and tasers were slow and dodgeable by robust players. Stuns like from a baton were not, and forced players to be paralyzed. Harm batoning would be able to potentially kill a player, but would also consume the baton's entire charge. This is why people would joke about Janitors or Clowns killing nuke ops, because often times they'd slip them, and another player would kill the operative with a fire extinguisher or something similar.

Right and wrong, pre-pixel projectiles bullets were weird as fuck and generally you could dodge them just by standing near a corner or wall diagonally from the player firing at you except for the very rare exception where some super-ultra-mega-turbo-autist would memorize every single possible projectile path and pattern (Mekhi Anderson) and could snipe you around blind corners. Harm batonning was stunhit -> turn off baton -> hit x3 -> turn on baton -> repeat and would take like 2 charges tops to kill a guy, 4 for the HoS in his armor if you got the timing down pat. Slips weren't a fucking joke, the clown could unironically sweep the nuke ops if they weren't careful (the game was more fun this way and you will never change my mind no matter how hard you shit/saltpost about it).

Stuns were very much fun to use (you shot a guy and they would actually be impacted by it) but very much not fun to be hit by (you get stunned and just die most of the time). Nowadays they're miserable to use (knock a dude over and he starts shooting at you from the ground?! wtf why isnt being prone a disadvantage??) and miserable to be hit by (oh shit i got hit and am now downed, not sure if im actually stunned tho so i need to start spam clicking from the ground and hope it works out!).

I agree, it was more fun
But, I think you're missing my point PKPenguin, things like turning on and off your stun baton between hits while killing someone, standing near corners or walls to avoid taser shots, all these things are "skill". They're not intuitive. They're things you've picked up over many years of playing, and getting fairly robust.
Most players are not that way. They can be next to tool storage, and have no idea what the best thing to break windows is. I suspect that you know off hand how much damage tools do relative to one another, or can do surgery without a guide. A lot of people can't.

And I never thought about it, but the uncertainty as to when people get up from their stun is pretty key to combat.

Helios wrote:

oranges wrote:unlike bungie we actually suck at our jobs though

Yeah, but you actually care.
You quit because it's frustrating.
Then unquit, because you realized nobody else cares.

no he doesn't

oranges wrote:unlike bungie we actually suck at our jobs though

somebody else can try, you don't have to do anything

actually you fucking moron, I have to be accountable for it.

PKPenguin321 wrote:except for the very rare exception where some super-ultra-mega-turbo-autist would memorize every single possible projectile path and pattern (Mekhi Anderson) and could snipe you around blind corners. Harm batonning was stunhit -> turn off baton -> hit x3 -> turn on baton -> repeat and would take like 2 charges tops to kill a guy, 4 for the HoS in his armor if you got the timing down pat. Slips weren't a fucking joke, the clown could unironically sweep the nuke ops if they weren't careful (the game was more fun this way and you will never change my mind no matter how hard you shit/saltpost about it).

I miss Mekhi.
When'd he stop playing?

Helios wrote:

PKPenguin321 wrote:except for the very rare exception where some super-ultra-mega-turbo-autist would memorize every single possible projectile path and pattern (Mekhi Anderson) and could snipe you around blind corners. Harm batonning was stunhit -> turn off baton -> hit x3 -> turn on baton -> repeat and would take like 2 charges tops to kill a guy, 4 for the HoS in his armor if you got the timing down pat. Slips weren't a fucking joke, the clown could unironically sweep the nuke ops if they weren't careful (the game was more fun this way and you will never change my mind no matter how hard you shit/saltpost about it).

I miss Mekhi.
When'd he stop playing?

i think he got admin on some other server and hangs around there now or something

Mekhi Anderson became Skylar Linemann but then skylar went to citadel with marisa so no more mekhi

You can still hit people behind walls. Bullets only stop if their sprite collides with the wall, so it is possible to edge projectiles around walls. Especially bullets, but the laser sprite is fat enough to catch people more easily.

I once slipped a sniper bullet through a pixels width gap of two diagonally open airlocks to put down a fleeing HoS. Just ask kevin.

It's up.

Again, I think there are a lot better solutions to the issue but at least right now I'd just like to open the issue and remove paralysis as an extremely broken stun. Alternates are probably better

NecromancerAnne wrote:You can still hit people behind walls. Bullets only stop if their sprite collides with the wall, so it is possible to edge projectiles around walls. Especially bullets, but the laser sprite is fat enough to catch people more easily.

I once slipped a sniper bullet through a pixels width gap of two diagonally open airlocks to put down a fleeing HoS. Just ask kevin.

you could literally bend bullets around walls with pre-pixel projectiles, my quip about being sniped around blind corners was not an exaggeration. you could go behind a wall where you couldnt even see mekhi and then a taser bolt would just hit you out of nowhere. scary shit

ATHATH has concerns about silicons not being able to stun anymore, despite being hit by stun combat entirely. should i give borgs a paralyze version of the flash?

No. Borgs shouldn't be combat enabled in any respect, and the fact they are combat capable is frankly ridiculous. They're an assistance robot, not a robocop with a day job. The only way they should be combat capable if the fuckers are emagged, and mostly just from the perspective of making them better at fighting and not stun combat.

NecromancerAnne wrote:No. Borgs shouldn't be combat enabled in any respect, and the fact they are combat capable is frankly ridiculous. They're an assistance robot, not a robocop with a day job. The only way they should be combat capable if the fuckers are emagged, and mostly just from the perspective of making them better at fighting and not stun combat.

Why? Sec-borgs were a thing. They even had old tasers. Wasn't a problem in 2014-2015

Seriously though, having things that are above the power curve are fine, so long as those things have drawbacks.
Cyborgs have all access, immune to the harmful effects of space, and have easier healing options, but also are slave to laws that can be remotely changed, can be remotely detonated, and stunned by flash.
Hulks can't be slipped, and knock people to the ground with a punch, but cannot use guns.

Helios wrote:

NecromancerAnne wrote:No. Borgs shouldn't be combat enabled in any respect, and the fact they are combat capable is frankly ridiculous. They're an assistance robot, not a robocop with a day job. The only way they should be combat capable if the fuckers are emagged, and mostly just from the perspective of making them better at fighting and not stun combat.

Why? Sec-borgs were a thing. They even had old tasers. Wasn't a problem in 2014-2015

Oh man it definitely was, I played with them in 2015 and re-enabled them for a week during my term in 2017 and let me tell you it was not pretty at all

Helios wrote:

NecromancerAnne wrote:No. Borgs shouldn't be combat enabled in any respect, and the fact they are combat capable is frankly ridiculous. They're an assistance robot, not a robocop with a day job. The only way they should be combat capable if the fuckers are emagged, and mostly just from the perspective of making them better at fighting and not stun combat.

Why? Sec-borgs were a thing. They even had old tasers. Wasn't a problem in 2014-2015

>secborgs weren't an issue
[youtube]QT13kk8HDDo[/youtube]

I'm the most pro sec buffs player ever but jesus christ secborgs were the worst shit thing ever
no fun allowed bot

Helios wrote:

NecromancerAnne wrote:No. Borgs shouldn't be combat enabled in any respect, and the fact they are combat capable is frankly ridiculous. They're an assistance robot, not a robocop with a day job. The only way they should be combat capable if the fuckers are emagged, and mostly just from the perspective of making them better at fighting and not stun combat.

Why? Sec-borgs were a thing. They even had old tasers. Wasn't a problem in 2014-2015

they singlehandedly crushed entire gamemodes and the sec meta was to make as many as possible and set them to valadin
whenever i got hijack objectives as traitor (or just whenever i felt like it) i would instantly get an EMP and an emag and subvert 1 (one) secborg and it worked almost every time, literally got two hijacks completed this way two rounds back to back once before because there was jack shit anyone could do to stop my murder robot

I seriously think less of your opinions on balancing the game simply because you would say something as completely outrageous as "Secborgs weren't a problem"

I clearly pushed the envelope too far. I recant my statement about secborgs. I was wrong. I guess I didn't notice how bad it was, because I was usually the roboticist, not the one being killed by secborgs.