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Flawed content getting crutches
Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2016 11:21 am
by J_Madison
Discuss coders giving inherently flawed content, crutches or creating a duct taped fix to a problem.
Examples of this are the ridiculous amount of buffs and crutches many gamemodes and antags have gotten simply because how how inherently flawed the game mode is.
Remember these flaws must result in a crutch to be discussed about. Game modes like Hand of God was flawed, but never received crutches.
Clock Cult for example has gotten this barrage of content and crutches to the gamemode when it was inherently flawed in the first place. These constant buffs and crutches has made it difficult to play, understand, and ridiculously overpowered.
Gang implant breakers are the stupidest fix to a fast conversion gamemode. It was a crutch added in because people didn't want to do surgery. Best part is these implant breakers are rarely used. It's just a crutch to otherwise cripple an already crippled security team.
Another crutch I absolutely despise is zombies getting the ability to tear down doors. If it wasn't bad enough that we had zombies killing everyone, but there's no way to hole up or hide because some zombie players got mad that they couldn't get through a barricade.
Re: Flawed content getting crutches
Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2016 12:50 pm
by Bombadil
I've never seen zombies in play
Re: Flawed content getting crutches
Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2016 1:08 pm
by J_Madison
They used to be in xenobio, but it was found to be way too disruptive and was discontinued.
How did it disrupt you ask?
Players would purposely allow them to be infected and thus disrupt an otherwise green text or normal round in minutes.
However places like the Kitchen and the brig was safe because zombies couldn't tear down doors or walls.
So they gave zombies a crutch to tear down doors.
Re: Flawed content getting crutches
Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2016 1:47 pm
by Super Aggro Crag
Zombies are the worst cuz they could also float through space, and since they are played by players they would start floating around the outside of the station smashing into every isolated spot and chasing after jetpackers.
Re: Flawed content getting crutches
Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2016 2:35 pm
by Wyzack
Gotta eat dem valids. Airlock opening was a mistake
Re: Flawed content getting crutches
Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2016 5:31 pm
by onleavedontatme
Zombies were a mistake in general I'm sorry friends
Re: Flawed content getting crutches
Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2016 5:53 pm
by Wyzack
I mean honestly as a once in a while thing i kinda enjoyed it, hiding around in maint tunnels, fortifying an escape pod and listening to some poor fuck hopelessly bang on the door before the zombies eat his shit. It just got stale pretty quick
Re: Flawed content getting crutches
Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2016 6:35 pm
by ChangelingRain
J_Madison wrote:Clock Cult for example has gotten this barrage of content and crutches to the gamemode when it was inherently flawed in the first place. These constant buffs and crutches has made it difficult to play, understand, and ridiculously overpowered.
Isn't clock cult's issue that it has no crutches and is thus horrible to play if you don't understand what all your shit does?
I'd really point out normal, bog-standard cult as the one with all the crutches; stunpapers, shuttle curses, wall runes, blood boil, just to name the more obvious ones.
Re: Flawed content getting crutches
Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2016 6:39 pm
by ShadowDimentio
It's almost like ~every~ mode has been heavily modified to not be shit
Re: Flawed content getting crutches
Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2016 6:55 pm
by J_Madison
Anonus wrote:J_Madison wrote:Clock Cult for example has gotten this barrage of content and crutches to the gamemode when it was inherently flawed in the first place. These constant buffs and crutches has made it difficult to play, understand, and ridiculously overpowered.
Isn't clock cult's issue that it has no crutches and is thus horrible to play if you don't understand what all your shit does?
I'd really point out normal, bog-standard cult as the one with all the crutches; stunpapers, shuttle curses, wall runes, blood boil, just to name the more obvious ones.
There's so many "fixes" and "features" added onto Clockcult to solve it's weaknesses without addressing the biggest problem; it's too complicated.
Unfortunately for cult, I have to call "grandfather clause". It's a pathetic rebuttle I understand, but it falls under grandfather clause where it's so old and out of standard, even I can't describe it's special snowflake situation without sounding wrong.
Old cult, seems to me is based around crutches entirely. Rather than a gamemode that was given crutches.
Re: Flawed content getting crutches
Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2016 7:16 pm
by ChangelingRain
J_Madison wrote:Anonus wrote:J_Madison wrote:Clock Cult for example has gotten this barrage of content and crutches to the gamemode when it was inherently flawed in the first place. These constant buffs and crutches has made it difficult to play, understand, and ridiculously overpowered.
Isn't clock cult's issue that it has no crutches and is thus horrible to play if you don't understand what all your shit does?
I'd really point out normal, bog-standard cult as the one with all the crutches; stunpapers, shuttle curses, wall runes, blood boil, just to name the more obvious ones.
There's so many "fixes" and "features" added onto Clockcult to solve it's weaknesses without addressing the biggest problem; it's too complicated.
Unfortunately for cult, I have to call "grandfather clause". It's a pathetic rebuttle I understand, but it falls under grandfather clause where it's so old and out of standard, even I can't describe it's special snowflake situation without sounding wrong.
Old cult, seems to me is based around crutches entirely. Rather than a gamemode that was given crutches.
I wouldn't call that crutches, though? It might be excessive features/options, but unless they actually prop the clock cult up they're not crutches.
If old cult is literally a pile of design crutches it probably needs something, you can't even say grandfather clause because the current state of it was produced this year.
Re: Flawed content getting crutches
Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2016 8:12 pm
by confused rock
ratvar gets buffed to fuck but 90% of what you said is a crutch isn't a fucking crutch
Re: Flawed content getting crutches
Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2016 8:41 pm
by J_Madison
The unloved rock wrote:ratvar gets buffed to fuck but 90% of what you said is a crutch isn't a fucking crutch
anything outside of release shadowling is a crutch
these buffs are crutching ratvar because it's the only thing remotely holding it up. ratvar wasn't coded on strong game structure.
Anonus wrote:
I wouldn't call that crutches, though? It might be excessive features/options, but unless they actually prop the clock cult up they're not crutches.
If old cult is literally a pile of design crutches it probably needs something, you can't even say grandfather clause because the current state of it was produced this year.
The concern is, you can literally base a gamemode around crutches only or minimal crutches.
But mixing them together in my opinion is a terrible idea.
A real life example would be Poker vs Chess. Poker is entirely RNG based. Chess has only one form of RNG (who starts first).
I think crutches should be minimised and ways to solve inherent weaknesses in content should come outside of giving it a hard fix (crutch).
Cult is inherently the weakest gamemode in my opinion because it has incredibly snowflaked everything (conversion, deconversion, mechanics), but makes up for the abysmal game structural strength by having so many of these crutches to solve it's weakness (instakill, stuns, instacrit AOE, armour and sword).
This doesn't make cult any better because it is still inherently weak in terms of gameplay. But here we have Clockcult which seems weak in gameplay, and given all these buffs and crutches that overcomplicate things.
Re: Flawed content getting crutches
Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2016 9:00 pm
by Oldman Robustin
Zombies are good, zombie events I run get overwhelming approval, I didn't like making it organ-based but zombos are ~fun~.
If a slower version of a crewmember that hits lighter than a spear is ruining you, I suggest gitting gud.
Re: Flawed content getting crutches
Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2016 9:21 pm
by oranges
I'm sorry but you're complaining that we're modifying gamemodes to make them playable for our player base???
Okay mate.
Re: Flawed content getting crutches
Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2016 9:58 pm
by Wyzack
In this context crutch seems to be a near meaningless buzzword referring to "any game mode balancing feature that I don't like"
Re: Flawed content getting crutches
Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2016 10:16 pm
by PKPenguin321
pretty much yeah
Re: Flawed content getting crutches
Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2016 10:32 pm
by J_Madison
Wyzack wrote:In this context crutch seems to be a near meaningless buzzword referring to "any game mode balancing feature that I don't like"
I'd say it's a buzzword for giving content something as a quick and blunt fix, which fixes that problem but offsets everything else.
Re: Flawed content getting crutches
Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2016 10:51 pm
by ChangelingRain
It is not being used as what I think it means, which is "any instance of something that the related whatever could do without,I feel bad typing that but whatever but is disproportionately relied on by that whatever"
Re: Flawed content getting crutches
Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2016 12:18 am
by J_Madison
Anonus wrote:It is not being used as what I think it means, which is "any instance of something that the related whatever could do without,I feel bad typing that but whatever but is disproportionately relied on by that whatever"
well it seems to me a lot of the "crutches" given to the content could do without, but was added because the content had to rely on it or fall flat on it's face.
See Shadowling and Thrall stun.
It seems whilst it's acceptable for a cult gamemode to have several things it relies on, I don't like how some features are handed to Clockcult simply because the gamemode seems to fall flat on itself due to the complexity.
Re: Flawed content getting crutches
Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2016 4:30 am
by callanrockslol
J_Madison wrote:Gang implant breakers are the stupidest fix to a fast conversion gamemode. It was a crutch added in because people didn't want to do surgery. Best part is these implant breakers are rarely used. It's just a crutch to otherwise cripple an already crippled security team.
Implant breakers are fine, if you aren't a shitter they also happen to be the most important tool for a gang boss. Surgery takes too long to be useful in a gamemode when every second you don't convert someone is a second someone else does.
Without them you literally just have to butcher and clone everyone before you implant.
Re: Flawed content getting crutches
Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2016 5:39 am
by ShadowDimentio
ShadowDimentio wrote:It's almost like ~every~ mode has been heavily modified to not be shit
Re: Flawed content getting crutches
Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2016 5:42 am
by Luke Cox
>Balancing gamemodes is bad
What the actual fuck
Re: Flawed content getting crutches
Posted: Thu Aug 04, 2016 1:29 am
by MrStonedOne
Wyzack wrote:In this context crutch seems to be a near meaningless buzzword referring to "any game mode balancing feature that I don't like"
More like a buzzword for "balancing change that isn't what i would do so it's a 'lazy fix' to an 'issue'"
His thought process is that fixing an issue keeps the issue, you have to remove the issue.
Such as say if the singulo is op, a lazy fix would be to slow down it's consume rate, raise the energy levels for each level, etc. a proper fix in his mind would be to remove the singulo.
With that in mind, re-read his posts, and they both make more and less sense, you'll see what I mean.
Re: Flawed content getting crutches
Posted: Thu Aug 04, 2016 2:10 am
by J_Madison
That's a little extreme. Think of it in the prime example of crutches; Shadowling. Did it need the ridiculous stun on the thralls and the shadowling?
Definitely not.
Did it solve the problem of Shadowling being too difficult to complete objectives?
Yes, in a way.
Did it unbalance everything and get disabled because of that?
Yep.
The issue is, if it's flawed in the first place, plugging it up with such a direct response is a duct tape fix.
A bigger picture here is not to flaw it in the first place, but we're not perfect. However fixing these flaws shouldn't need something that makes it flawed by being flawless.
Re: Flawed content getting crutches
Posted: Thu Aug 04, 2016 4:16 am
by ShadowDimentio
What are you even talking about
Shadowling got removed
Why are you complaining about something that got removeds balance?
Re: Flawed content getting crutches
Posted: Thu Aug 04, 2016 7:10 am
by PKPenguin321
J_Memeison
Re: Flawed content getting crutches
Posted: Wed Aug 10, 2016 1:01 am
by JJRcop
The term crutch fix is derived from a literal crutch: a device to help you stand when your leg is broken. Or, the issue is still there, we just fixed it by using something else, like a new feature. This means that if that crutch is taken away, or the new feature is not present in a given situation, the leg is still broken, or the issue is still there in its full glory. Where a non crutch fix would be directly addressing the issue, or fixing the leg itself, so you don't need a crutch, and can walk on your own just fine.
That is the true definition of a crutch fix, parallel with a literal crutch.