/tg/Station 13

I very much dislike changeling myself, and I feel it's only gotten a lot worse in recent time with a line of buffs and new abilities. Once again we seem to get long dull murderboner rounds with lots of recalling. It's not rare to see changelings survive or thrive with impunity despite a well armed crew knowing who they are and where they are. Even when the crew get the upper hand over them, additions like headslugs and cuff-melting provide what feel like unnecessary and poorly balanced chances to start the whole mess all over again.

I don't find it much fun as a gamemode, and many if not the majority of people on OOC seem to quite dislike it as well. I've played for a fair while, and I don't think the general consensus on changeling has ever been that it's any good. I'm sure a few disagree, and I'm quite interested as to what the general consensus here on the forums is.

Would much really be lost by either removing (or strongly reducing) the chances of changeling or traitor-changeling gamemodes?

no
invincible machines of war that can instantly remove handcuffs, fleshmend faster than they can be killed, and are unstunnable are not a good gameplay mechanic.

metacide wrote:I very much dislike changeling myself, and I feel it's only gotten a lot worse in recent time with a line of buffs and new abilities. Once again we seem to get long dull murderboner rounds with lots of recalling. It's not rare to see changelings survive or thrive with impunity despite a well armed crew knowing who they are and where they are. Even when the crew get the upper hand over them, additions like headslugs and cuff-melting provide what feel like unnecessary and poorly balanced chances to start the whole mess all over again.

I don't find it much fun as a gamemode, and many if not the majority of people on OOC seem to quite dislike it as well. I've played for a fair while, and I don't think the general consensus on changeling has ever been that it's any good. I'm sure a few disagree, and I'm quite interested as to what the general consensus here on the forums is.

Would much really be lost by either removing (or strongly reducing) the chances of changeling or traitor-changeling gamemodes?

In its current state: no

But like I have said before, a progression based side-antag (don't really like that word because it implies that the threat is less powerful, which it shouldn't be) ling has real potential.


Imagine a gang war going on where people are also mysteriously disappearing, than suddenly you realise it was a ling that ate all those people and by doing so has become powerful enough to kick your butt.

It should be less of a brute wall of strength, and have to rely more on stealth and deception of who they are.

Oldling was terrible.
Newling was wimpy
Combatling is farcial.

Not-Dorsidarf wrote:Oldling was terrible.
Newling was wimpy
Combatling is farcial.

progression ling is the answer.

In dota or whatever a carry works because they have the pressure of a constant battle and the potential for his team losing/the enemy carry outpacing them. The enemy team also knows the carry exists where as you gotta meta hard to find and fight them in SS13.

There is no battle to occupy people while the carry fucks of for 40 minutes to "farm" in SS13 though, and when they finally show up to kill everyone its one sided and little fun. And instead of having a team to protect them while they progress, they have to hide. Just look at how boring old cult was.

I dunno of that comparision made any sense but basically the concept of a carry that relies on nobody knowing it exists is terrible.

The ling should be a side antag focusing in stealth and subtly. This combat-soloing a full security + ert is bullshit. lings were based on John Carpenter's 'The Thing', stop trying to make this Prototype.

Kor wrote:In dota or whatever a carry works because they have the pressure of a constant battle and the potential for his team losing/the enemy carry outpacing them. The enemy team also knows the carry exists where as you gotta meta hard to find and fight them in SS13.

There is no battle to occupy people while the carry fucks of for 40 minutes to "farm" in SS13 though, and when they finally show up to kill everyone its one sided and little fun. And instead of having a team to protect them while they progress, they have to hide. Just look at how boring old cult was.

I dunno of that comparision made any sense but basically the concept of a carry that relies on nobody knowing it exists is terrible.

Of course there would be shit going on. Thats the entire point of making ling a side antag. Eating people while the gangs shoot each other, or traitors are fucking up the station.

And of course they shouldn't be unbeatable, they should be STRONG, but there are few things that can fight the whole station, even wizards have problems with it.

Meta, we would have two less modes though. And I doubt anyones gonna put any real effort into making yet another new gamemode to replace it.

Removing them as a solo gamemode? Nothing of value.

I still think they should show up randomly in low amounts for other gamemodes though.

A rare to appear side antag seems like the best fate for Changeling.

We're better off trying to refine Shadowling as a main game mode than trying to resuscitate Changeling, its dead and no amount of chemicals will convince it to come back to us.

CPTANT wrote:

metacide wrote:I very much dislike changeling myself, and I feel it's only gotten a lot worse in recent time with a line of buffs and new abilities. Once again we seem to get long dull murderboner rounds with lots of recalling. It's not rare to see changelings survive or thrive with impunity despite a well armed crew knowing who they are and where they are. Even when the crew get the upper hand over them, additions like headslugs and cuff-melting provide what feel like unnecessary and poorly balanced chances to start the whole mess all over again.

I don't find it much fun as a gamemode, and many if not the majority of people on OOC seem to quite dislike it as well. I've played for a fair while, and I don't think the general consensus on changeling has ever been that it's any good. I'm sure a few disagree, and I'm quite interested as to what the general consensus here on the forums is.

Would much really be lost by either removing (or strongly reducing) the chances of changeling or traitor-changeling gamemodes?

In its current state: no

But like I have said before, a progression based side-antag (don't really like that word because it implies that the threat is less powerful, which it shouldn't be) ling has real potential.


Imagine a gang war going on where people are also mysteriously disappearing, than suddenly you realise it was a ling that ate all those people and by doing so has become powerful enough to kick your butt.

That last bit doesn't happen. Meta.

asskek wrote:

CPTANT wrote:

metacide wrote:I very much dislike changeling myself, and I feel it's only gotten a lot worse in recent time with a line of buffs and new abilities. Once again we seem to get long dull murderboner rounds with lots of recalling. It's not rare to see changelings survive or thrive with impunity despite a well armed crew knowing who they are and where they are. Even when the crew get the upper hand over them, additions like headslugs and cuff-melting provide what feel like unnecessary and poorly balanced chances to start the whole mess all over again.

I don't find it much fun as a gamemode, and many if not the majority of people on OOC seem to quite dislike it as well. I've played for a fair while, and I don't think the general consensus on changeling has ever been that it's any good. I'm sure a few disagree, and I'm quite interested as to what the general consensus here on the forums is.

Would much really be lost by either removing (or strongly reducing) the chances of changeling or traitor-changeling gamemodes?

In its current state: no

But like I have said before, a progression based side-antag (don't really like that word because it implies that the threat is less powerful, which it shouldn't be) ling has real potential.


Imagine a gang war going on where people are also mysteriously disappearing, than suddenly you realise it was a ling that ate all those people and by doing so has become powerful enough to kick your butt.

That last bit doesn't happen. Meta.

People disappear all the time in gang, and even knowing that there is a ling is far away from finding it.

Honestly, I'm all for making lings into a side-antag that appear randomly in modes. Same for cult if we remove Stun Paper and conversion.

But for all of this, we need datum antags first.

firecage wrote:Meta, we would have two less modes though. And I doubt anyones gonna put any real effort into making yet another new gamemode to replace it.

black ops
hand of god

Asskek, thanks for volunteering all your time to help make said modes.

firecage wrote:Asskek, thanks for volunteering all your time to help make said modes.

good thing there are literally three modes on the github being actively worked on.

Plus, Black Ops is consuming goofball's coding time, as can be told from the immense lack of dramabus right now

Not-Dorsidarf wrote:

firecage wrote:Asskek, thanks for volunteering all your time to help make said modes.

good thing there are literally three modes on the github being actively worked on.

Plus, Black Ops is consuming goofball's coding time, as can be told from the immense lack of dramabus right now

wait, what's the third one?

asskek wrote:

Not-Dorsidarf wrote:

firecage wrote:Asskek, thanks for volunteering all your time to help make said modes.

good thing there are literally three modes on the github being actively worked on.

Plus, Black Ops is consuming goofball's coding time, as can be told from the immense lack of dramabus right now

wait, what's the third one?

Black ops, Hand of god, and that weird one which can be summed up as "WINTER IS COMING", right?

As much as I like to shit on changelings for being a shit antag, seeing them shifted off to the side rather than being a focus seems like the better option.

Traitorling is an okay mode, for instance.

Seeing 1 or 2 in the "big" rounds, Rev and Gang, would be perfect.

There's actual activity going on, instead of 9/10ths of the players playing Extended until the next guy goes missing and nobody notices anyway.

The thing I really hate about the current iteration of ling is how absorbing has been made irrelevant.

Lings gaining strength by absorbing people is one of the core principles of the whole ling concept.

Removing the ling gamemode and putting lings in other gamemodes is a good idea. I do think however that they should have the potential to become very dangerous opponents when they have absorbed a lot of people.

Perhaps the term co-antagonist would fit the concept better than side-antagonist. As they have the potential to come to the main stage.

So. CPTANT, do you mean something like this?

1. Remove ling mode.
2. Reduce amount of lings in Traitorchan.
3. Enable there to be a ling in most modes.
3. Remove teamling.
6. Change lings to be more like oldling, and make them have unlimited abilities again and gain points when absorbing again so they can buy more abilities again.
5. Behold as we have modes with 1-2 once-more powerful and deadly, but solo lings to keep things interesting.

firecage wrote:So. CPTANT, do you mean something like this?

1. Remove ling mode.
2. Reduce amount of lings in Traitorchan.
3. Enable there to be a ling in most modes.
3. Remove teamling.
6. Change lings to be more like oldling, and make them have unlimited abilities again and gain points when absorbing again so they can buy more abilities again.
5. Behold as we have modes with 1-2 once-more powerful and deadly, but solo lings to keep things interesting.

Basically yes. I think lings should start out weaker than the current ling and exceed them when they have absorbed a lot.

I would gate most abillities behind a minimum amount of absorbs required to increase the sense of progression.

It's also the perfect moment to introduce new ling abillities that can be unlocked with dna. High tier acid spits? Faster absorbing? greater form? Things like that can be balanced by their cost and minimum dna required.

Yes. They produce unique rounds and when robust lings team up and go loud you get some crazy, brutal fights that have absolutely no parallel compared to other conflicts we see on the station.

Compare that to malf (just like law 0 AI's but with more boring hoops to jump through), double agent, or even wizard (unique rounds but they almost never have any merit to them, you either get meme rounds... brutal station genocide with 0 hope for the crew... or 30 second self-immolating babywizards) and I see a lot more candidates for removal due to the fundamental flaws of those modes. Ling isn't fundamentally flawed, it's got potential, bring back a focus on absorption (seeing husks slowly building up outside genetics definitely made you feel paranoid), and force teamlings to operate under team rules (and fix their objectives too damnit.

People saying to make the side-antags just don't get it. Lings are at their best when working as a team. Solo-lings are just completely meaningless. I don't get paranoid about a single ling, I don't view it as a threat, unless it has a way to subvert the AI or access security gear, he can continue armblading assistants in maint till the round ends for all I care. Lings are only going to reach their potential when working as a group to make themselves an actual threat to the command and security personnel aboard the station.

Plus side-antag status opens the door to all kinds of stupid crap that nobody wants. Gangling? Revling? No thanks.

Maybe you could nerf their more overt combat abilities (or make them more costly, either in resources or other drawbacks). That way lings who "go loud" will have to commit. A greater emphasis on needing to husk people, combined with the heightened risk of trying to fight your way out of trouble, should encourage more stealth and misdirection and less blade-arming everything while stinging everything else.

AS an aside, in my experience on other servers, (well, one server, goon) lings tend to just eat each other for more DNA rather than work together. They have a cap on their maximum identities here so I'm guessing that discourages infighting by making it rather pointless. In fact, one of my most memorable rounds as a ling involved impersonating a sec officer, saving another officer from a ling with my lube-filled fire extinguisher, and then husking them both.

I really dislike the trend towards rigid teams with no backstabbing. Ling vs ling vs sec is more interesting than ling vs sec.

Lings without any form of progression are either too much of a threat(what we have had recently) or literally extended, but with less admin involvement(which is what they more or less were before the buffs)
So no, removing what we have as ling isn't a bad idea.

Kor wrote:I really dislike the trend towards rigid teams with no backstabbing. Ling vs ling vs sec is more interesting than ling vs sec.

After all my thousands of rounds I've never seen ling backstabbing be "interesting".

I have seen it turn hundreds of potential rounds into extended.

Here's what ling backstabbing gets you:

1) Lings who team up with security, instantly ruining a ling round
2) Lings who punish other lings for actually trying to team up (and the chilling effect that results) because a ling happens to be another ling's target
3) Ling backstabbing that goes something like this: :g "Meet me in turbine Mr. Zeta and I'll give you a sec ID" - "ok", 2 minutes later the ling is slapped with a stunprod repeatedly and bladed/cuffed, absorbed, and spaced. Now instead of 2 antags conspiring against the crew, one is dead and the other hides in a locker for the rest of the shift because he finished his objective without even having to antagonize the crew. That's the best case scenario, next case is that one ling victim yells out on radio and both end up out'ing themselves trying to stay alive and get bumrushed by security.

Anonus wrote:Lings without any form of progression are either too much of a threat(what we have had recently) or literally extended, but with less admin involvement(which is what they more or less were before the buffs)
So no, removing what we have as ling isn't a bad idea.

Anyone who thinks currentling is "too much of a threat" is bonkers.

It's still only a fraction of the strength that paraling was and all its killing tends to be really loud, obvious, and leave cloneable corpses behind. You have to put in a lot of effort to succeed as a currentling compared to before where it was simply a matter of getting within a tile of your target, MUSCLES PAINFULLY TIGHTEN and then yaket'ing into maint. Grab the RD/HOS/CAP/HOP with that method and you're well on your way to a station-wide genocide.

Now lings MUST work as a team to pull off any kind of crazy ling takeover and even then it's a very challenging road if security musters any kind of effective response and if you're ever on camera with the AI watching then welcome to shocked + bolted doors with a panic syphon for good measure.

Oldman Robustin wrote:Yes. They produce unique rounds and when robust lings team up and go loud you get some crazy, brutal fights that have absolutely no parallel compared to other conflicts we see on the station.

Compare that to malf (just like law 0 AI's but with more boring hoops to jump through), double agent, or even wizard (unique rounds but they almost never have any merit to them, you either get meme rounds... brutal station genocide with 0 hope for the crew... or 30 second self-immolating babywizards) and I see a lot more candidates for removal due to the fundamental flaws of those modes. Ling isn't fundamentally flawed, it's got potential, bring back a focus on absorption (seeing husks slowly building up outside genetics definitely made you feel paranoid), and force teamlings to operate under team rules (and fix their objectives too damnit.

People saying to make the side-antags just don't get it. Lings are at their best when working as a team. Solo-lings are just completely meaningless. I don't get paranoid about a single ling, I don't view it as a threat, unless it has a way to subvert the AI or access security gear, he can continue armblading assistants in maint till the round ends for all I care. Lings are only going to reach their potential when working as a group to make themselves an actual threat to the command and security personnel aboard the station.

Plus side-antag status opens the door to all kinds of stupid crap that nobody wants. Gangling? Revling? No thanks.

Well, another interesting thing about multiple lings is that you can have them take over departments, not like how the objective tells you to, but actually take them over. The idea you are a lone officer, notice one of the officers isn't implanted, go taser him, then all the other officers appear and start armblading you is just neat.
Gang Ling/Rev Ling can be interesting if they have objectives to kill both gang/rev leaders and heads of staff. Neither side can trust them.

i agree in that lings as they are really are not fun 99% of the time, even when i play one i wish i find myself thinking "aw man not tator." i personally vote to have a huge thread where we yell at each other over what needs to be fixed and implement something before we say it sucks again.

Oldman Robustin wrote:Anyone who thinks currentling is "too much of a threat" is bonkers.

It's still only a fraction of the strength that paraling was and all its killing tends to be really loud, obvious, and leave cloneable corpses behind. You have to put in a lot of effort to succeed as a currentling compared to before where it was simply a matter of getting within a tile of your target, MUSCLES PAINFULLY TIGHTEN and then yaket'ing into maint. Grab the RD/HOS/CAP/HOP with that method and you're well on your way to a station-wide genocide.

Now lings MUST work as a team to pull off any kind of crazy ling takeover and even then it's a very challenging road if security musters any kind of effective response and if you're ever on camera with the AI watching then welcome to shocked + bolted doors with a panic syphon for good measure.

I don't follow your argument here at all. Just because changeling was once even worse doesn't somehow stop it being significantly overpowered at the moment. It was awful then and is awful now too.

I have to disagree about teamwork too. Lings don't have work as teams, and often don't - while still managing to kill a lot of people, even fighting large groups of them. On the occasions where they do team up, you tend to get an unstoppable team of changelings boring everyone witless for ages while they recall endlessly so they can gradually murderbone the entire crew. I've seen this happen a few times and that doesn't seem much fun either.

I also think infighting among the changelings is to be encouraged because excess teamwork usually leads to the above situation, given how overpowered changelings are at present.

Every time I get ling I just go loud after 5 minutes and kill everything.
Other lings helping is optional, but you can basically just walk straight to the armoury and load up on all the guns, murdering as you go, then murdering after.
(flamthrowers are pretty funny as ling)

Most lings still play it as though it's some shitty stealth atang, when it really isn't.
That's the only reason why some people think it's UP and keep buffing it.

Oldman Robustin wrote:

Anonus wrote:Lings without any form of progression are either too much of a threat(what we have had recently) or literally extended, but with less admin involvement(which is what they more or less were before the buffs)
So no, removing what we have as ling isn't a bad idea.

Anyone who thinks currentling is "too much of a threat" is bonkers.

It's still only a fraction of the strength that paraling was and all its killing tends to be really loud, obvious, and leave cloneable corpses behind. You have to put in a lot of effort to succeed as a currentling compared to before where it was simply a matter of getting within a tile of your target, MUSCLES PAINFULLY TIGHTEN and then yaket'ing into maint. Grab the RD/HOS/CAP/HOP with that method and you're well on your way to a station-wide genocide.

Now lings MUST work as a team to pull off any kind of crazy ling takeover and even then it's a very challenging road if security musters any kind of effective response and if you're ever on camera with the AI watching then welcome to shocked + bolted doors with a panic syphon for good measure.

I dunno what ling you're playing but I'm playing the kind that can shrug off almost any attack and just mindlessly click people to death no matter how many times they shoot/stun you.

If you get a jetpack you're more or less immortal since you can just unstun and fly off if you ever start running low on chems and just keep spacing people.

Paralings couldn't leap up from stuns and start murdering people with an armblade, and, while dangerous, had TONS OF TROUBLE dealing with multiple people compared to current ling, which has much less trouble and is honestly absurdly powerful.

Anonus wrote:Paralings couldn't leap up from stuns and start murdering people with an armblade, and, while dangerous, had TONS OF TROUBLE dealing with multiple people compared to current ling, which has much less trouble and is honestly absurdly powerful.

Don't forget when you finally catch it it has multiple get out of jail free cards (including one that stuns/confuses anyone near you!) to fuck off into a vent and start the chase over.

Ling is fun if you don't follow your objectives and just play it as an excuse to dunk people who annoy you without the consequences of death. Hence why it would be good as a side antag

Well, there'd be clever play with stuff like Transform sting, which took time to research so you could disable
But
>Transform sting doesn't transfer all disabilities
>Transform sting disables you from using any abilties for 3-4 minutes
Can't have creative changelings that don't murder people, and instead turn half the station into clowns, gotta nerf that

Combat abilities aside they are still objectives incompetent. It is like the antag and the objectives were designed by two people who never met each other which makes it weirder when I know they weren't since they are given the new objectives with each overhaul.

Anonus wrote:Paralings couldn't leap up from stuns and start murdering people with an armblade, and, while dangerous, had TONS OF TROUBLE dealing with multiple people compared to current ling, which has much less trouble and is honestly absurdly powerful.

They could leap up from stuns, and instead of the loud/obvious/easy to avoid armblade, someone would pop up and with no warning/noise/telegraphing you'd be on the ground long enough for them to punch you to death if they felt inclined.

Yes survivability is up but I always felt that was a fair trade-off for being an antag with:

1) No inherent means of stunning
2) No ranged abilities

In a game of stuns, where ranged stuns reign supreme, your offensive capability is basically being a traitor with an EMP kit and Esword... and that would be laughable in most situations. In exchange for having less antags with less offensive power than the average traitor, who are also valid to the AI/borgs, you get survivability. It's not excessive and heavy melee weapons can give regular crew a fighting chance (landing a knockout blow with a spear/axe will beat the average ling 90% of the time) and stun weaponry flat out gives you the advantage (they need 4 hits to crit you, you need 3 stuns to exhaust their chems). It only gets nutty when the lings have acquired their own guns (removing their key weakness) or abuse lube (aka massive invisible AOE stun trap that the ling can adrenal out of and kill everyone who was chasing them).

Somewhat a side note:I don't think we need a new gamemode to replace changeling, I'd rather work on improving the ones we have, and having one less is no big loss.

Weekly reminder that virtually everyone thinks it's awful, and though the chance appears to have been brought down a little it still happens plenty on lowpop.

Remov changeling 2k15 it's cancer and bizarre it's been in this long.

Agreed. Removing changeling will benefit the game.

The easiest and quickest way of doing this is asking MSO, or whoever has access to the server files, to simply bring the Changeling/Traitor+Ling game mode weighted odds down to zero for the time being.

d-datum antags... s-soon, right?

Datum Antags would solve most problems we are facing at the moment (though what problems will it create?) but for the moment we have to do without Datum Antags. We may never even get them.

As much as I hate to say it, yes. Ling needs a rework desperately, and right now it's guaranteed minimal fun for all parties involved. It should be removed from round selection until it's made decent.

Remove lings 9/11

I think it would be cool but probably useless if the changeling had more transform options. Like you could disguise yourself as a corgi or a slime like you can with a monkey.

I tried murderboning ling yesterday.

My arsenal consisted of Monkey, EMP, Armblade, Armor & Shield, & Fleshmend

What I did not know however is that with the new transform monkey mumbo-jumbo I cannot use the armor if I'm transforming into something in the jacket slot. Go figure.

So, my 'failsafe' combo was Monkey > Ventcrawl > EMP > Pop Out of Vent > Human > Armblade > Win.

Get Stunned? Monkey. Get Lasered? Fleshmend and try to ventcrawl.

My worst fear in the round was not people, but from dying of oxydep while ventcrawling.

Maybe you guys are playing ling as 'super secrit stealth deathmachine' when you should just play them as 'deathmachine'. I actually enjoyed my time running around in the vents watching as people scream ling over radio. I only died from a bomb I didn't expect.