Major cult changes

Xhuis · Post by **Xhuis** » Wed Sep 16, 2015 10:09 pm #119178

Recently some pretty big changes to cult got added. Please state your opinions on the changes here.

Bluespace · Post by **Bluespace** » Wed Sep 16, 2015 10:25 pm #119179

So
so
good.
I don't like the name change to rite though. It feels unneeded. Cult has always used runes.

Amelius · Post by **Amelius** » Thu Sep 17, 2015 3:30 am #119226

Needs to be reverted stat. This shit is terrible in every way compared to oldcult. There are even nerfs despite a whole 26% cult winrate.

You can no longer make papers with blind, arm, reveal, or hide runes (there's probably more, this is based on the first round I played with newcult). The old naming system that was clear, concise, and told you what everything did specifically was thrown out for vague, somewhat nondescript flavor names. Rune research was thrown out, which is OK I guess, and not much of a buff since it's typically done in 5-10 minutes anyway. All the runes have had their old colours changed, which has been in since it's inception, for no reason. All the runes I've used damages you fairly severely now when used a single time, including the fucking imbue rune, resulting in bleeding if you're making more than a couple papers. EMP talismans were nerfed to half range. There's redundant rites and talismans (i.e. you have a stunpaper rite AND a stunpaper talisman in the list for some bizarro reason, and the latter tend to be nerfed versions for reasons).

Hell, even the objective of having 15 cultists escape was slashed to 7, basically you have enough to win at roundstart. Wow.

Then you have the 1-person-to-convert thing which doesn't even work, and really shouldn't exist because it will make cult rev with magic, and should instead just make runes require cultists within 3 tiles (the main problem being getting cultists NEXT to the rune, not near it).

Oh yeah, and all the rites start with 'R'. Good luck making any sort of papers or runes quickly, sucker! Who needs hotkeys if you're producing papers?

Also, nerfed objectives even (7 cultists, around as many as roundstart!)

There's probably more. Revert this PoS, don't even try to fix it. These changes broke an entire roundtype that was 'confusing, but really fun with mastery over magick' and was changed to 'horrible mess, suicide if you get this antag because it's not fun to play'.

Basically, the biggest thing is everything feels clunkier and less melded together as former cultmagick. It used to be that almost any rune could be made into a paperized form, with a health cost proportional to the power (i.e. armor/stun papers cost a good chunk of HP, but reveal/hide ones used very very little, if any). Now you can't. It's horrible, please revert this mess, don't even try to improve it, because it's a huge step down.

Xhuis · Post by **Xhuis** » Thu Sep 17, 2015 3:32 am #119227

There's already a thread for this.
https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=4688

Edit: This is quite buggy still and it will take some time to fix it. Most of the talismans you mentioned should exist, but are not working.

Amelius · Post by **Amelius** » Thu Sep 17, 2015 3:33 am #119228

Move my post there please, admins.

nsos · Post by **nsos** » Thu Sep 17, 2015 3:33 am #119229

i was a cultist in the round with the new cult and i have to say the convert rune thing is definitely bugged and not working

Xhuis · Post by **Xhuis** » Thu Sep 17, 2015 3:35 am #119230

nsos wrote:i was a cultist in the round with the new cult and i have to say the convert rune thing is definitely bugged and not working

What do you mean it isn't working?

Xhuis · Post by **Xhuis** » Thu Sep 17, 2015 3:38 am #119232

I had to give myself a minute before I replied because I was fuming with rage. While this post is here, I'll address your concerns. Just remember that I mentioned that everything in this refactor was subject to change. You are making it far more dramatic than it should be, as the only changes there are were code improvements, research removal, rune tweaks, and more information in the tome. The rest is either a bug or unintentional.

The old naming system that was clear, concise, and told you what everything did specifically was thrown out for vague, somewhat nondescript flavor names.
I can easily change this.

All the runes have had their old colours changed, which has been in since it's inception, for no reason.
This is my own fault, and I will change it as soon as possible.

Hell, even the objective of having 15 cultists escape was slashed to 7, basically you have enough to win at roundstart. Wow.
I didn't slash it in half - it now scales with the population. I will change this upward if it proves too bad.

All the runes I've used damages you fairly severely now when used a single time, including the fucking imbue rune, resulting in bleeding if you're making more than a couple papers.
This is mostly untrue. The reason you're taking more damage is because runes now take 1 brute damage to scribe rather than 0.1. I will likely change this. Imbue runes do 5 brute damage. I will definitely be reverting this.

You can no longer make papers with blind, arm, reveal, or hide runes (there's probably more, this is based on the first round I played with newcult).
This is a bug. These talismans are all coded, and were possible to make in testing. I will fix this in the upcoming update.

EMP talismans were nerfed to half range. There's redundant rites and talismans (i.e. you have a stunpaper rite AND a stunpaper talisman in the list for some bizarro reason, and the latter tend to be nerfed versions for reasons).
EMP talismans were very powerful, resulting an EMP-grenade radius of blast instantly and with no delay. They are still powerful and EMP almost everything on your screen. As for the stunpaper rite, all talismans require runes to create first - the Rite of Disorientation is simply the old stun rune.

I chose to disregard the rest of your post due to its pessimistic nature and failure to acknowledge the fact that this is all experimental, as I have said multiple times.

Please play multiple rounds to get a feel for the new cult changes before going on the forums to make a rant thread after a single round.

Amelius · Post by **Amelius** » Thu Sep 17, 2015 3:39 am #119233

Xhuis wrote:
nsos wrote:i was a cultist in the round with the new cult and i have to say the convert rune thing is definitely bugged and not working
What do you mean it isn't working?

Basically, you can't convert with one person. Also, sacs are bugged apparently. But yeah, mind combatting some my posts from the other thread?

It was overall a very very very negative experience. Everything I tried to do from oldcult was either removed, nerfed or clunkier. This is coming from someone who was very very efficient at oldcult, and since newcult doesn't really do anything new other than remove features, make things clunkier, and change things for the sake of changing them (e.g. rune colours), I see zero reason to keep it in any way shape or form.

Absalom · Post by **Absalom** » Thu Sep 17, 2015 3:42 am #119235

Xhuis wrote:I had to give myself a minute before I replied because I was fuming with rage. While this post is here, I'll address your concerns. Just remember that I mentioned that everything in this refactor was subject to change. You are making it far more dramatic than it should be, as the only changes there are were code improvements, research removal, rune tweaks, and more information in the tome. The rest is either a bug or unintentional.

How is slashing the objective a code improvement, research removal, rune tweak, or more information? Doubt it's a bug or unintentional.

Xhuis · Post by **Xhuis** » Thu Sep 17, 2015 3:44 am #119236

Just edited the post, read it now.

Amelius · Post by **Amelius** » Thu Sep 17, 2015 3:46 am #119237

Xhuis wrote:Just remember that I mentioned that everything in this refactor was subject to change. You are making it far more dramatic than it should be, as the only changes there are were code improvements, research removal, rune tweaks, and more information in the tome. The rest is either a bug or unintentional.

Factually a lie. It even says in the information panel that the EMP talisman is half range from the rune counterpart. How is that a code improvement, research removal, rune tweak, or more information?

You have failed to combat a single point in my wall of text. You literally said 'oh, everything you complained about is a bug, not a design issue, honest!'.

Why are you taking the goofchem approach where you remove features, make a major part of the game horrible in every way, then try to 'improve it', taking a year or so before getting right back to where we started?

Also, the new Nar'sie sound is fuckawful. Why would you do that?

Xhuis · Post by **Xhuis** » Thu Sep 17, 2015 3:53 am #119239

Factually a lie. It even says in the information panel that the EMP talisman is half range from the rune counterpart. How is that a code improvement, research removal, rune tweak, or more information?
I stated multiple times before the PR was merged that the changes are subject to major tweaks. The talisman can be easily changed, and would be considered a rune tweak.

You have failed to combat a single point in my wall of text. You literally said 'oh, everything you complained about is a bug, not a design issue, honest!'.
That's because most of them are either oversights or legitimate bugs. You decided to disregard or skip over the other points.

Also, the new Nar'sie sound is fuckawful. Why would you do that?
That is your opinion, and I included it because the feedback on it was mostly positive.

I won't be posting on this thread again, because I don't want to start a shouting match and you're extremely worked up over this change. Consider this a trial period, the same way Steelpoint's ballistic security was trialed. If the feedback is still mostly negative by next Monday, I will revert this change and all the related fixes.

Post by **oranges** » Thu Sep 17, 2015 3:56 am #119242

Don't revert the change, there are a few unexpected changes, but the overall cleanup is important, this is unexpert sniping by people who don't understand the content of the changes correctly.

Xhuis · Post by **Xhuis** » Thu Sep 17, 2015 3:56 am #119243

Amelius wrote:
Xhuis wrote:
nsos wrote:i was a cultist in the round with the new cult and i have to say the convert rune thing is definitely bugged and not working
What do you mean it isn't working?
Basically, you can't convert with one person. Also, sacs are bugged apparently. But yeah, mind combatting some my posts from the other thread?

It was overall a very very very negative experience. Everything I tried to do from oldcult was either removed, nerfed or clunkier. This is coming from someone who was very very efficient at oldcult, and since newcult doesn't really do anything new other than remove features, make things clunkier, and change things for the sake of changing them (e.g. rune colours), I see zero reason to keep it in any way shape or form.

Single-person conversion works fine - I did it several times myself earlier today.
Sacrifices are no longer bugged. Around half an hour from the point I was made aware of the bug, a hotfix was merged.
I'm disregarding your other point as it doesn't offer any helpful insight other than the rune colors (which will be changed in the upcoming patch anyway).

iamgoofball · Post by **iamgoofball** » Thu Sep 17, 2015 4:08 am #119249

Why are you taking the goofchem approach where you remove features, make a major part of the game horrible in every way, then try to 'improve it', taking a year or so before getting right back to where we started?

We're going to break this quote down step by step.

Why are you taking the goofchem approach

This is most certainly not the approach I took with Goofchem intentionally. Shit happened with goofchem that went out of my control.

where you remove features,

Features were replaced with other features. There's a difference, you see.

make a major part of the game horrible in every way,

That's your opinion. And since you feel strongly about this being bad, and that literally every single feature of Cult is now not enjoyable and ruins the game experience, right down to the sprites, sounds, user interface, and the buttons you need to press if it is truly in every way, then why not work with Xhuis on a way to improve the gamemode without making it complete shit?

then try to 'improve it',

Their intent was to make cult a more enjoyable experience for players. They appear to have missed this mark. Why not work with them on the specific issues you have with this change?

taking a year or so before getting right back to where we started?

Now, this is the weirdest part of all especially with the "goofchem approach" accusation. As far as I can tell, we aren't "right back where we started" with chemistry as much as you'd like it to be so.

As far as I can tell, this(the cult redo) change has not been in the game for "a year". Are you perhaps a time traveler?

Before you reply to this post with some ad hom or strawmans or personal insults about me, goofchem, or how you're on your period today, answer this question:

Why not work with Xhuis on how to improve Cult as a whole?

If you don't answer that question, then why are you even here?

Scott · Post by **Scott** » Thu Sep 17, 2015 4:29 am #119262

You didn't need a new thread for this.

Amelius · Post by **Amelius** » Thu Sep 17, 2015 4:30 am #119263

Xhuis wrote: The old naming system that was clear, concise, and told you what everything did specifically was thrown out for vague, somewhat nondescript flavor names.
I can easily change this.

Do so. Remove all the talismans. Remove 'rite of'. Rename things to be less opaque and flavourful instead of informative and straightforward. You know, like it used to be.

Xhuis wrote: All the runes have had their old colours changed, which has been in since it's inception, for no reason.
This is my own fault, and I will change it as soon as possible.

Thank god.

Xhuis wrote: Hell, even the objective of having 15 cultists escape was slashed to 7, basically you have enough to win at roundstart. Wow.
I didn't slash it in half - it now scales with the population. I will change this upward if it proves too bad.

There were 59 people on and the objective was 7. Fairly sure we had more than 7 cultists at roundstart. Honestly, you should just make the requisite scaling double of whatever your starting numbers. Good though.

Xhuis wrote: All the runes I've used damages you fairly severely now when used a single time, including the fucking imbue rune, resulting in bleeding if you're making more than a couple papers.
This is mostly untrue. The reason you're taking more damage is because runes now take 1 brute damage to scribe rather than 0.1. I will likely change this. Imbue runes do 5 brute damage. I will definitely be reverting this.

So imbue runes will be dealing 0 damage in the future like in the past? Why increase the rune damage from scribing anyways, it's still effectively does the same thing, act as an annoyance? It's just a very slight nerf. I will say, dealing 5 damage with an imbue is fucking horrible. Just revert both changes, there's no rhyme or reason for the changes in the first place.

Xhuis wrote: You can no longer make papers with blind, arm, reveal, or hide runes (there's probably more, this is based on the first round I played with newcult).
This is a bug. These talismans are all coded, and were possible to make in testing. I will fix this in the upcoming update.

Good.

Xhuis wrote: EMP talismans were nerfed to half range. There's redundant rites and talismans (i.e. you have a stunpaper rite AND a stunpaper talisman in the list for some bizarro reason, and the latter tend to be nerfed versions for reasons).
EMP talismans were very powerful, resulting an EMP-grenade radius of blast instantly and with no delay. They are still powerful and EMP almost everything on your screen. As for the stunpaper rite, all talismans require runes to create first - the Rite of Disorientation is simply the old stun rune.

These were NEVER a problem and NEVER complained about. Hell, I rarely even saw them used. But yes, there are both talismans AND rites on the list for some reason, which is redundant. I harshly disagree with you. Remember, cult had a whopping 26% winrate even with these 'horribly OP' EMPs. How can you justify nerfing a tool of an antag type that is vastly UP, just because it's theoretically OP if you had infinite supply and it didn't horribly blind you and all your fellow cultists who don't have HUDs/sunglasses?

EDIT: You can't even EMP the common mainframe through the wall with an EMP talisman, that's how weak it is. You're complaining about an item that has to be prepared in an obviously cultish fashion, and employed by quickly choosing from a billion other papers that look identical, and is obvious by any observer that the employer is a cultist. On top of that, it's single use. Contrast to, say, changelings, who get an infinte EMP shout with the same range as the pre-nerf EMP, and sometimes appear in teams (yes TEAMS) as large as the initial cult, while having generally, more robust implements apiece than 3 cultists combined ever could have.

Also, the blood boil rune really shouldn't explode (unless this was scrapped). I've seen it used once in the past year, it really doesn't need a nerf, even if it might be OP in THEORY.

Xhuis wrote: I chose to disregard the rest of your post due to its pessimistic nature and failure to acknowledge the fact that this is all experimental, as I have said multiple times.

I'm a pessimist, yes, and part of that is because I've seen so many shitty changes forced through and left untended/unfixed for months and months before being reverted or fixed into a lesser version of its former self. Being a pesimmist doesn't make my views unviable. You have not combatted the following points:

> The 1-person-to-convert thing which doesn't even work, and really shouldn't exist because it will make cult a slightly slower rev with magic, and should instead just make runes require cultists within 3 tiles (the main problem being getting cultists NEXT to the rune, not near it). ----- Obvious outcome. The cult will grow exponentially if one person can convert alone. This was the original problem we had with the original cult - it was literally rev with magic.

> Didn't respond to being unable to quickly create runes because everything starts with 'rite of / talisman of', which is redundant as hell on top of preventing hotkeying.

Xhuis wrote: Please play multiple rounds to get a feel for the new cult changes before going on the forums to make a rant thread after a single round.

[/quote]

It's broken in every sense. How do I need to play more rounds to be able to tell it's broken? Would you tell someone in the original inception of goofchem to 'play a few more rounds and get a better feel for it!' when it was broken in every way?

Also @ Goof. I'm worked up, generally speaking, because I had such a negative first impression of it, it felt like someone took a shit in one of my favourite gamemodes, second to only gang. I was prepped to do some fun gimmicky shit after having no antag rounds for a day or so, then I had to deal with all this stuff that was changed to a buggy, lesser version of itself for no apparent reason, with missing features or changed interfaces/names on things that I wanted to use on top of nerfed talismans that I wanted to use. I was expecting the same thing with research removed and scaling conversion. What I received was anything but that.

You have to understand, my anger comes not from hatred, but from love for the 2013~ish /tg/station. It's moving backward, not forward, and I've progressively become more and more reactive and scathing as time has passed because no one on these forums or github seems to give a single fuck about anyone's opinions except Ikkarus (god-tier coder, by the way; turned gang from the abject worst gamemode into the most-liked gamemode, implemented feedback, and was open to having his own opinions challenged, and debated). After nuke op implant removal for half a year+, slowspace (still here partially!) and so forth, despite onesided arguments against them being merged and not reverting them or only partially doing so after the fact, all I have left is vitrol for coderbus.

Post by **lumipharon** » Thu Sep 17, 2015 4:39 am #119265

Please revert back to old naming conventions. They were functional and useful. New names are just useless fluff names.

Emp's are weak as all fuck,
Even with pre-nerf emp talismans, unless they were close to you, or you spammed multiple talismans, it won;t even drain an energy weapon fully.

Not-Dorsidarf · Thu Sep 17, 2015 9:45 am

iamgoofball wrote:
Why are you taking the goofchem approach where you remove features, make a major part of the game horrible in every way, then try to 'improve it', taking a year or so before getting right back to where we started?
We're going to break this quote down step by step.

Why are you taking the goofchem approach
This is most certainly not the approach I took with Goofchem intentionally. Shit happened with goofchem that went out of my control.
where you remove features,
Features were replaced with other features. There's a difference, you see.
make a major part of the game horrible in every way,
That's your opinion. And since you feel strongly about this being bad, and that literally every single feature of Cult is now not enjoyable and ruins the game experience, right down to the sprites, sounds, user interface, and the buttons you need to press if it is truly in every way, then why not work with Xhuis on a way to improve the gamemode without making it complete shit?
then try to 'improve it',
Their intent was to make cult a more enjoyable experience for players. They appear to have missed this mark. Why not work with them on the specific issues you have with this change?
taking a year or so before getting right back to where we started?
Now, this is the weirdest part of all especially with the "goofchem approach" accusation. As far as I can tell, we aren't "right back where we started" with chemistry as much as you'd like it to be so.

As far as I can tell, this(the cult redo) change has not been in the game for "a year". Are you perhaps a time traveler?

Before you reply to this post with some ad hom or strawmans or personal insults about me, goofchem, or how you're on your period today, answer this question:

Why not work with Xhuis on how to improve Cult as a whole?

If you don't answer that question, then why are you even here?

Despite what you think, it's not actually mandatory for all major shakeups to be instantly fixed in place, subject only to tweaking. If people think that an overhaul is immensely shitty, trying to shut them down with BIG RED MATURE SHOUTING TEXT because they hurt your feelings isn't helping anyone.

Wyzack · Post by **Wyzack** » Thu Sep 17, 2015 12:11 pm #119327

Xhuis please ignore Amelius, he has chronic incurable asspain that causes him to complain loudly about any and all changes to the game. Keep coding gud stuff.

Tunder · Post by **Tunder** » Thu Sep 17, 2015 12:15 pm #119330

i feel like this was a poor excuse to change cult lore to your personal tastes.

Please stop fucking with established lore and names. They're runes, not rites.

Xhuis · Post by **Xhuis** » Thu Sep 17, 2015 12:19 pm #119331

So the rest of the overhauls were pointless and I shouldn't have cleaned up the outdated code? Please. I've said a few times now I'm changing the names back, so don't be a dick.

Xhuis · Post by **Xhuis** » Thu Sep 17, 2015 9:28 pm #119471

I'm making some updates and tweaks to the things I changed. You can find information here.

Zilenan91 · Post by **Zilenan91** » Thu Sep 17, 2015 11:47 pm #119494

Can we please remove 1-person converting though? Amelius is actually right when he says it's rev with magic.

Tunder · Post by **Tunder** » Thu Sep 17, 2015 11:49 pm #119495

Zilenan91 wrote:Can we please remove 1-person converting though? Amelius is actually right when he says it's rev with magic.

This, old 1-person conversion was removed for a reason and three was like herding cats.

Make it two man conversion/sac, three man blood boil/manifest.

Xhuis · Post by **Xhuis** » Fri Sep 18, 2015 12:31 am #119509

Tunder wrote:
Zilenan91 wrote:Can we please remove 1-person converting though? Amelius is actually right when he says it's rev with magic.
This, old 1-person conversion was removed for a reason and three was like herding cats.

Make it two man conversion/sac, three man blood boil/manifest.

I'll change the conversion to two people, but I'm leaving the manifest and sac runes as they are. Manifest is extremely useful when your teammates don't want to help, and sacrifice runes require three people to destroy sacrifice targets anyway.

Post by **lumipharon** » Fri Sep 18, 2015 1:16 am #119519

Manifest is the most utterly broken rune in the game.
Why does it still exist?

Literally 1 guy can complete all cult objectives by abusin this rune with enough helpful ghosts.
Manifest rune next to a sac rune to sac your target.
Manifest rune by nar-sie rune to summon nar-sie.
Manifest rune on the shuttle to escape with X cultists.

It should just be called the greetext rune.

Xhuis · Post by **Xhuis** » Fri Sep 18, 2015 2:24 am #119537

lumipharon wrote:Manifest is the most utterly broken rune in the game.
Why does it still exist?

Literally 1 guy can complete all cult objectives by abusin this rune with enough helpful ghosts.
Manifest rune next to a sac rune to sac your target.
Manifest rune by nar-sie rune to summon nar-sie.
Manifest rune on the shuttle to escape with X cultists.

It should just be called the greetext rune.

Because it's hard to get people to cooperate. Getting cultists together is hard when people don't want to listen, and manifest allows you to be to some degree self-sufficient.

Post by **lumipharon** » Fri Sep 18, 2015 3:35 am #119547

Which defeats the point of objectives and items that require multiple people to begin with!

What I would suggest, and has been suggested before, is increase the radius in which people need to be to trigger runes (like convert).
So for example rather then a 3x3 area to convert a pleb, they might only need to be in a 5x5 area.

Also greetext rune still seriously trivialises cult objectives, it's really dumb.

Xhuis · Post by **Xhuis** » Fri Sep 18, 2015 12:01 pm #119607

Which wouldn't solve the problem. I've seen cult rounds fail because only 4 or 5 cultists will rally for the Nar-Sie rune while everyone else complains over comms that they can't find it despite its location being told multiple times.

Post by **lumipharon** » Fri Sep 18, 2015 12:09 pm #119612

If you got at least 3 people you can SUMMON the rest of the cult using a (who would guess) summon cultist rune.
I've had to do that more then once when cultists have been retarded/brain dead/lost.

Tunder · Post by **Tunder** » Fri Sep 18, 2015 5:19 pm #119666

lumipharon wrote:If you got at least 3 people you can SUMMON the rest of the cult using a (who would guess) summon cultist rune.
I've had to do that more then once when cultists have been retarded/brain dead/lost.

This. We have summon cultists.

Manifest is only really used in a powergamey manner to get greentext on the shuttle. It's one of the most powerful abilities, and it should take a couple cultists to activate.

Fri Sep 18, 2015 10:56 pm

Tunder wrote:
lumipharon wrote:If you got at least 3 people you can SUMMON the rest of the cult using a (who would guess) summon cultist rune.
I've had to do that more then once when cultists have been retarded/brain dead/lost.
This. We have summon cultists.

Manifest is only really used in a powergamey manner to get greentext on the shuttle. It's one of the most powerful abilities, and it should take a couple cultists to activate.

i dont even see how that would work considering if you move at all while using manifest the manifested people die instantly
not to mention, basically every single time i roll cultist there is generally only one (yes, one) other competent cultist, and without manifest i wouldn't be able to use convert runes at all. would you rather be dead because the cult doesn't have enough people to convert you, or get a license to be an antag?

regardless, i like the cult changes a lot (except the runes -> rites thing but it's really not that big of a deal)

Xhuis · Post by **Xhuis** » Fri Sep 18, 2015 11:08 pm #119698

PKPenguin321 wrote:(except the runes -> rites thing but it's really not that big of a deal)

That's getting reverted, too.

As for the Manifest reason, I'm keeping it for reasons outlined in the above post and reasons I've outlined above. Many team-antagonist members aren't competent, which is one of the reason that people have misguided hatred of shadowling.

Sat Sep 19, 2015 2:40 am

Xhuis wrote:
PKPenguin321 wrote:snip
As for the Manifest reason, I'm keeping it for reasons outlined in the above post and reasons I've outlined above. Many team-antagonist members aren't competent, which is one of the reason that people have misguided hatred of shadowling.

exactly what i'm trying to say
plus it's good for converting people when you're the only cultist that's not dead

onleavedontatme · Sat Sep 19, 2015 2:25 pm

There's not really need to convert much anymore (you get enough cultists to finish either objective).

And there's no need to research.

So you're left with 8 guys armed with parapens who have a single kill target and then they spawn a singularity and the round is over.

Without researching there is really no round. But the research portion is terrible anyway.

So to be clear, I'm not blaming you for ruining cult or anything, but I think you've proven the core of the mode more or less unsalvageable. There are some cool items and cool fluff but cult has never really worked quite right.

Xhuis · Post by **Xhuis** » Sat Sep 19, 2015 11:38 pm #119840

I'm probably going to do a structure and area-control based cult in a long time, once I get the time and my other PRs are merged.

Not-Dorsidarf · Sun Sep 20, 2015 8:23 pm

Kor wrote:There's not really need to convert much anymore (you get enough cultists to finish either objective).

And there's no need to research.

So you're left with 8 guys armed with parapens who have a single kill target and then they spawn a singularity and the round is over.

Without researching there is really no round. But the research portion is terrible anyway.

So to be clear, I'm not blaming you for ruining cult or anything, but I think you've proven the core of the mode more or less unsalvageable. There are some cool items and cool fluff but cult has never really worked quite right.

Cultists already start with super-parapens, a single kill target, and all the words to summon narnars.

Zilenan91 · Post by **Zilenan91** » Mon Sep 21, 2015 2:14 am #120046

We could always just do Lifeweb cult and make there be 1 or 2 cultists in EVERY round instead of it being its own mode. Though yeah I've been saying it for a while, cult is fucking shit and it needs/would need a rework even if we did it the Lifeweb way. Stun Paper is literally parasting/old parapen but slightly worse and easier to get.

Going into this idea further, we could sprinkle in a small amount of ALL antagonists into some rounds. We could have traitors in Nuke Ops (whose personal objective could be to help them out to blow up the station while completing their default objectives, or even to STOP these fluffed "rogue" operatives who are trying to jeopardize syndicate operations on-station), lings during Blob who could use their freaky Alien powers to help or hinder the crew whilst also gaining sufficient greens, or even something as fucking insane as revs with 1 or 2 lings/traitors sprinkled in with their own, separate objectives. Wizard would probably stay as just the wizard who totally won't get KO'd first hit with a toolbox because those rounds are crazy enough as it is.

Going off on a tangent for a moment, I've been playing a lot of Lifeweb recently, and it's taught me a lot about game balance and interactions between players in the very short time that I've been playing. It's surprising, actually, how much my opinions on the state of /tg/ have changed since I started playing it, and I feel if more coders played it too they'd really learn a thing or two about game design.

Wyzack · Post by **Wyzack** » Mon Sep 21, 2015 3:18 pm #120172

^^^ wasnt this more or less the goal of datum based antags? Being able to smash the meta and make rounds more interesting by blending antag types?

Tornadium · Post by **Tornadium** » Mon Sep 21, 2015 3:55 pm #120179

I'd love to see cult included more, I very rarely if ever see cult or rev rounds.

Just fucking Traitor, Traitor Ling or Wizard.

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Mon Sep 21, 2015 4:02 pm #120180

Wyzack wrote:^^^ wasnt this more or less the goal of datum based antags? Being able to smash the meta and make rounds more interesting by blending antag types?

Correct, the point of datum antags (that I remember) was that the round is given a set amount of points that it spends on sending in antagonists. So it could spend most of its points to trigger a Nuke Op team, but it might only send in a lighter variant of the Nuke Ops and add in some Cultists to the round as well, maybe even throw in a traitor. In addition, I think, the round would slowly generate more points that would eventually allow the game to send in more antagonists if the game lasts long enough.

The point being that it would remove the concept of round antagonists as each round could easily feature many different antagonists at varying degree's of power.

Again, you might get a Rev that is just a few people who can't convert anyone alongside a Wizard apprentice that can only pick three spells. Or a minor cult slowly building up a modicum of power in its own part of the station while Nuke Ops attempt to steal something on the other side.

Or it could just be a full Wizard round, with maybe a few Traitors appearing 30 minutes into the round.

Zilenan91 · Post by **Zilenan91** » Tue Sep 22, 2015 4:48 am #120329

Why is this not #1 priority? This would singlehandedly fix the majority of the problems with the game as a whole.

Post by **oranges** » Tue Sep 22, 2015 5:42 am #120337

being an open source project tg doesn't have "priorities" as such, people are free to pick up and work on whatever they think is important or interesting. As such we don't have a way to push forward specific work other than either someone in the community getting stuck in and getting it done, or some kind of financial or other incentive being offered to another person to get them to finish it.

Zilenan91 · Post by **Zilenan91** » Tue Sep 22, 2015 5:44 am #120338

Anyways, back on topic, can we please remove cult from rotation? This mode is such a joke. It's not fun to watch or to play for anyone involved. The thought process involved here is :

"Oh shit, there's 2 dudes sitting close together in maint being shifty as fuck, do I attack them or go around them? If I attack them will I get banned? Yeah, I'll get banned, I'll just walk aro-" You get stun papered, cuffed, and your headset removed. GG. This is shit. This is partly somewhat restrictive server rules, but mostly because there is no easy way to identify cultists Ala thrall examine text.

As an example, if I started attacking/throwing shit at every extremely shifty fuck in maint I saw, I'd get banned instantly despite suspicion of antagonist status, and that's really shit from an RP perspective because, "If I do this thing, will people think less of me because of my actions? Nah, my soul will get instantly evaporated by space gods."

It's literally the reverse blob-bombing situation. Playing against them is unfun because there is nothing you can do against uncounterable parapens that they can shit out at a stupid rate.

Post by **lumipharon** » Tue Sep 22, 2015 6:03 am #120340

Just be like tore and murder anyone who does anything that could remotely be connected to cultists :^)

Xhuis · Post by **Xhuis** » Tue Sep 22, 2015 12:05 pm #120388

Zilenan91 wrote:snip

This has always been the case with cult, and the overhaul actually reduced the time the stunpapers take you out. I really can't do anything about it, and the same effect can be reproduced with a stunprod and perfluorodecalin anyway.

Amelius · Post by **Amelius** » Tue Sep 22, 2015 9:02 pm #120514

A few remarks:

It's SO much better than it was when the major cult changes were initially pulled through. You can make tallies of most things again, excluding blind papers, which hopefully are in the works. Everything is named succinctly and clearly now.

Not quite sure on how two-people-to-convert is affecting cult, it'll take a while for me to pass judgement on it. I do, however, notice much more people taking advantage of magic than before, especially the veil/reveal runes. If two-to-convert proves to be too much in the long run, then three to convert over a 4x4-5x5~ area would be a fair compromise that would help remove the frustration of getting people adjacent to a rune.

The escape objectives ask for ridiculously few people, asking for 6 cultists to escape when we started with at least 8. It really should be simply double the number of cultists the round starts with, with a hard cap of like 20.

Janiborgs are still the bane of my existence. Curse you janiborg!

Regardless, I had alot of fun with today's cult round.

Post by **lumipharon** » Tue Sep 22, 2015 9:06 pm #120515

Names went back to runes, but a lot still have wierd names that don't really tell me what they actually do.
practicality>fluff