Umbrage: Shadowling Redux (delayed?)

[D&B]

Bottom post of the previous page:

Why not remove devil and add this instead then

devil would be the better choice since there is literally no way to be a devil right now but it's technically not conversion

>Sign this paper to become sin touched
>You get advantages for becoming sin touched
>Devil becomes stronger the more sin touched there are
>There's a way to un-sintouch people via lawyer

Hmmmmm

[Armhulen]

Why not remove devil and add this instead then

devil would be the better choice since there is literally no way to be a devil right now but it's technically not conversion

>Sign this paper to become sin touched
>You get advantages for becoming sin touched
>Devil becomes stronger the more sin touched there are
>There's a way to un-sintouch people via lawyer

Hmmmmm

you're confusing sin touching with signing the contract

[DemonFiren]

By that logic ayylmao anal probing is also conversion.

[Wyzack]

Removing devil literally does not change a god damned thing. Devil never comes up, so removing it will not decrease the prevalence of conversion antags at all

[Armhulen]

I don't want any gamemodes to go REEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

[ShadowDimentio]

Kor is the only one that does because he thinks players are totally retarded and can't juggle more than three conversion modes in their brain at once.

[Luke Cox]

The universe isn't going to explode because the balance is upset by one gamemode. Also, I think a distinction needs to be made between modes with no conversion (traitor, ling, ops, wizard), modes where all the antags can convert (blood cult, clock cult), and modes where one or a select few antags can convert (rev, shadowling). The second one requires every member of the team to have a complete knowledge of the mechanics, while in rev and shadowling, only the headrevs/shadowling need to worry about the mechanics behind it.

[Xhuis]

I agree with most of your points, but veils actually need to know stuff about the umbrage and some other mechanics that they'll get access to. Converted revs have no mechanics but clicking on a sprite until it becomes horizontal.

[Luke Cox]

It varies, but for the most part asymmetric antags have a leader that has access to all the mechanics, and minions that have simple tasks that require only a basic knowledge of mechanics. Symmetric antags like cultists on the other hand are all equal and require full knowledge of the mode.

[Armhulen]

veils should still have the same principal as the thralls: kidnap, and bring back to the umbrage. but yes, Luke has a good idea of it

[Luke Cox]

Ideally, veils should have very simple mechanics. Shadowling thralls had it simple too: cover face, kidnap people, bring them to shadowling.

[ShadowDimentio]

Reminder for my idea for a new shadowling thrall system. 10 thralls total, 3 can be promoted to min-shadowlings, only 1 proper shadowling. "Winning" is achieved by offering a trall's life to build a [THING], which everyone defends for X amount of time before the shadowling wins. The [THING] can be built at any time but converting more lowers the cooldown and adds more people to the defense.

[Armhulen]

Reminder for my idea for a new shadowling thrall system. 10 thralls total, 3 can be promoted to min-shadowlings, only 1 proper shadowling. "Winning" is achieved by offering a trall's life to build a [THING], which everyone defends for X amount of time before the shadowling wins. The [THING] can be built at any time but converting more lowers the cooldown and adds more people to the defense.

we don't need another defend X, I don't enjoy those at all and we already have like ten.

[Luke Cox]

Definite -1 on the "defend thing". Both the cults already have that. Umbrage should feel like a horror movie, with people vanishing and unsettling things happening, and slowly escalate into a bloodbath.

[Armhulen]

umbrages shouldn't have conversion bases because the whole point is that they move around but i completely support veils and/or upgraded veils placing black gunk once most of the station has either become thralls or is MIA


you know, like the goo in resident evil 7. no actual effect, but damn that would look sick

[Xhuis]

I might allow umbrages to "mark" a certain amount of veils and give them robust powers that drain from the umbrage's own psi. It would have to be restricted, because there will likely be more than one umbrage. Or maybe just one; I really don't know yet. I wouldn't make them vulnerable to light, though. That would make them less useful because they could never leave maintenance. They would certainly have a tell, though.

[Screemonster]

How about having the minions produce negative light for a period after using their abilities? One of them uses their powers, they'd better forget any kind of stealth for a while on account of the tiles around them being visibly darker from the spooky-ass shadow following them around.

(of course, this won't be quite such an obvious tell if they stick to areas that are already dark)

[Steelpoint]

Firstly I think this deserves a new thread or the OP is remade to get people up to speed on what's going on, instead of being forced to trawl through the long discussion to get up to speed.

Secondly I do support trying to rework Shadowling, or in this case the Umbrage, though I am biased since I was the one who heavily pushed, and am solely responsible, for the creation of a Shadowling game mode years ago. (in the sense that I really kept pushing for this game mode due to me seeing great potential in it)

I think the most critical components to get right with Shadowling 2.0 is to introduce a hard or soft cap with the amount of thralls the Shadowling/Umbrage can control, and that the Shadowling should not have short cool down evasion abilities, but that its evasion skills have a medium to long cool down period. In addition, and as Oldman wisely suggested, I think the Shadowling end game should be defending X for Y minutes.

The Shadowlings infinite Thralls and infinite ability to dodge the crew doomed it to failure. If these are fixed, then everything else is a simple balancing act.

[Xhuis]

I dislike having even more territory defense final goals, and the community seems overall sick of them save for a few - you and Robustin, for instance. I will try my hardest to give them something more interesting than that.
Cooldowns are being replaced with the psi system, as you have seen in previous posts.
Shadowlings' ascension threshold served as a cap, but I will likely rework how thralls/veils affect umbrages.

[Dagdammit]

Assuming too many conversion antag rounds are a problem: pulling an entire game mode seems like a real dumb/unnecessary solution. Decide what percentage of rounds should be conversion antag, e.g. 40%. Server decides whether gametype for next round will be conversion, then picks the game mode from whichever pool (conversion or non-conversion) was selected.

Some lore thoughts:

• It would be entirely in keeping with SS13's dumb retro sci-fi schtick for Sling lore to somehow involve dark matter.
• I like the idea that slings exist in the vast darkness between isolated stars, and only became aware of our existence when we passed through their territory (hell, through THEM) during that Orion Trail era of interstellar expansion. Other related ideas I like...
• That they only began to take humanoid shapes once they started feeding on our psionic essence. You are what you eat, after all.
• That the shadowlings appearing on space station 13 are in some ways the sling equivalent of shaft miners. They've traveled into a fairly hostile environment because they've discovered that valuable resources can be found there. In this case, the resource is the latent psi energy of the local extremophile fauna- an assortment of meat-based organisms that evolved to survive in close proximity to the hellish radiation they call "sunlight".

Mechanical thoughts:

• I really would love anything that amps up the "oh crap" factor of a sling bearing down on you (to do the pass-through thing). Maybe an effect whether the sling has a temporary aura of darkness- literally imposing a maximum limit on the light levels for the tiles around them. So you see the light getting dimmer up ahead and then realize the darkness is bearing down on you.
• It could be interesting if sling ascension was more like the level 5 biohazard announcement- a call to action where the entire crew has to fight the sling in their boss-monster form. (Idea- there's no actual announcement. Instead, the stars go out, and the station is now floating in a pure black void.)
• Maybe upon their ascension a sling becomes an immobile target the crew will try and hunt down, like a gang dominator which slowly heals itself. The sling becomes a disembodied force which rides upon the shoulders of its thralls and empowers them- it can't ASSUME DIRECT CONTROL, but it can toggle between them freely, heal or resurrect them, make decoy shadow copies, use powers to buff them or attack nearby targets... "Thrallname's shadow twists and lashes out at Jimmy Greytide!" "Jimmy Greytide's arm goes flying off in an arc!"

P.S: Xhuis, need any sprite work done for this?

[Xhuis]

Looks like my local repo has been corrupted. I lost a good bit of work but I thankfully back up to my remote constantly. Updates might be slow while I catch up.

Edit: Okay, file restoration is in progress. While I wait for that...

About your lore stuff:

Spoiler:

It would be entirely in keeping with SS13's dumb retro sci-fi schtick for Sling lore to somehow involve dark matter.

I suppose. Dark matter isn't really a physical form that can manifest if I'm not mistaken, but I could probably work it in. We have wizards, so realism is kind of out of the question.

I like the idea that slings exist in the vast darkness between isolated stars, and only became aware of our existence when we passed through their territory (hell, through THEM) during that Orion Trail era of interstellar expansion.

That's good, I like that. I generally left the reason they even came forward up to the players and figured that they were kind of just there, but I might actually make a real lore behind them.

That they only began to take humanoid shapes once they started feeding on our psionic essence. You are what you eat, after all.

Nice. It'd explain why they look vaguely like humans, too, but still have strange features, i.e. lack of facial features, crescent-shaped eyes, and sigils on the body.

That the shadowlings appearing on space station 13 are in some ways the sling equivalent of shaft miners. They've traveled into a fairly hostile environment because they've discovered that valuable resources can be found there. In this case, the resource is the latent psi energy of the local extremophile fauna- an assortment of meat-based organisms that evolved to survive in close proximity to the hellish radiation they call "sunlight".

They're definitely vulnerable to light because they come from a place with very little starlight. Headcanon says that there's just an anomaly of space gas and detritus that prevents any light getting in, meaning they don't see using light but rather some other form. Because nothing else exists, they feed from the errant signals sent out long ago, and eventually that grows into a hunger for thoughts. When the source finally comes by - the first interstellar expansion - they eventually transition to psi. Canonical explanation for abilities would need some bending, though.

About your mechanics stuff:

Spoiler:

I really would love anything that amps up the "oh crap" factor of a sling bearing down on you (to do the pass-through thing). Maybe an effect whether the sling has a temporary aura of darkness- literally imposing a maximum limit on the light levels for the tiles around them. So you see the light getting dimmer up ahead and then realize the darkness is bearing down on you.

That's actually one of the ideas I had! I think with our current lighting system, though, that "negative" light is very hard to accomplish, but assuming there's an easier or less intensive way to accomplish it I'd probably use it heavily.

It could be interesting if sling ascension was more like the level 5 biohazard announcement- a call to action where the entire crew has to fight the sling in their boss-monster form. (Idea- there's no actual announcement. Instead, the stars go out, and the station is now floating in a pure black void.)

Probably no announcement, but the stars fading out is an awesome idea. They wouldn't actually put the stars out, of course, but they'd certainly be powerful enough psionically by that point to create an illusion that encircled the entire station.

Maybe upon their ascension a sling becomes an immobile target the crew will try and hunt down, like a gang dominator which slowly heals itself. The sling becomes a disembodied force which rides upon the shoulders of its thralls and empowers them- it can't ASSUME DIRECT CONTROL, but it can toggle between them freely, heal or resurrect them, make decoy shadow copies, use powers to buff them or attack nearby targets... "Thrallname's shadow twists and lashes out at Jimmy Greytide!" "Jimmy Greytide's arm goes flying off in an arc!"

Not sure. The last five minutes of a shadowling round were great as people tried to escape to pods and the shuttle and prayed not to encounter the ascendant. Probably not; I still want ascendants (now called progenitors) to be a very powerful force that can casually walk around the station. They will certainly be killable now, though, and won't have no-cooldown instagibs like last time.

I don't need spritework from you, and I'll never get upset for not doing anything, but having someone able to sprite for me would be great. I'm all right with small-scale sprites - ability icons I'm happy with - but making anything from scratch is hard for me. I'll post if I need anything from you, and thanks!

[Armhulen]

I am also 200% willing to sprite for this, even though I am looking into the swarm core right now.

lore wise: I actually do like the idea that they're coming here because they're addicted to brain juices, or something else in this realm. that is some untouched lore that you could cash out on xhius

[Dagdammit]

I didn't see it like an addiction, something that you pursue out of irrational hunger- more that it's a resource, like plasma or petroleum. Something they can use to prosper and expand.

[Xhuis]

I always figured that they weren't addicted like to a drug - psi is just their food. They need it to survive. Then again, maybe it is just a resource. Something they use to make them stronger, maybe like a kind of steroid? Maybe I could include umbrage rivalry, where consuming another one makes you much, much more powerful, and only one umbrage could become a progenitor in the end. Lots of potential here!

[Xhuis]

After my computer failed to boot, and lots of frustration and failed solutions, I'm formatting my computer. Don't expect updates for a good while.

[PKPenguin321]

After my computer failed to boot, and lots of frustration and failed solutions, I'm formatting my computer. Don't expect updates for a good while.

can you not offload all your files onto another hard drive before reformatting

[Luke Cox]

After my computer failed to boot, and lots of frustration and failed solutions, I'm formatting my computer. Don't expect updates for a good while.

can you not offload all your files onto another hard drive before reformatting

You can, just get the proper cables and hook it up to an eSATA port. 0/10 git gud Xhuis

[Xhuis]

After my computer failed to boot, and lots of frustration and failed solutions, I'm formatting my computer. Don't expect updates for a good while.

can you not offload all your files onto another hard drive before reformatting

No need to in this case. It took me around five minutes to reinstall everything, and I didn't lose a single line of code thanks to it being stored on my repository. Realistically I could continue developing right now, but I'm tired and need sleep so I can worry about that tomorrow.

[Armhulen]

well, i'm glad that didn't delay the project that much.

[Xhuis]

Um, about that. Bad news. Somewhere along the line, the branch got deleted. That means I've lost all progress for this gamemode in every tangible form.
Oh well. I'll start it up again when I make time. No use crying over spilt milk.

[Armhulen]

[ChangelingRain]

Xhuis I'm pretty sure your branch is still somewhat existent; https://github.com/Xhuis/tgfork/commits ... ling_redux

[Xhuis]

Oh shit, it wasn't showing up. You're a lifesaver, thank you!!

[onleavedontatme]

Daily reminder this isn't getting merged until we either axe cult/clockcult/rev or we get occlusion cones for vision so stealth is actually fun (I'd prefer the latter)

[PKPenguin321]

Daily reminder this isn't getting merged until we either axe cult/clockcult/rev or we get occlusion cones for vision so stealth is actually fun (I'd prefer the latter)

this is stupid. arbitrary limit on how many gamemodes we have is like cutting off an arm because hey we already have three other limbs what's the point of a fourth?

[Steelpoint]

Having more conversion based game modes is fine ONLY if the addition of additional conversion based game modes does not increase the chances of a conversion game mode occurring.

Meaning, for example, if cult/rev/clock have overall a 20% chance of occuring, then if we add Umbrage to it the % chance for the four game modes to occur should stay at 20%.

The problem in the past was that it seemed like almost half of the rounds picked were conversion based, and this lead to a lot of exhaustion from command and security staff for obvious reasons.

[onleavedontatme]

Daily reminder this isn't getting merged until we either axe cult/clockcult/rev or we get occlusion cones for vision so stealth is actually fun (I'd prefer the latter)

this is stupid. arbitrary limit on how many gamemodes we have is like cutting off an arm because hey we already have three other limbs what's the point of a fourth?

It's not arbitrary. We only have so many rounds in a day. Adding new modes means we play less of other modes, for better or worse.

In the case of adding more conversion hivemind theworldendswhenenoughpeoplegetconverted modes, I think it's for the worse.

If someone did the hard work of making actual stealth mechanics (you can't see directly behind you) then I'd be willing to give this a try, rather than having another "time to red alert and leave or walk out an airlock" mode for security and silicons.

[PKPenguin321]

Daily reminder this isn't getting merged until we either axe cult/clockcult/rev or we get occlusion cones for vision so stealth is actually fun (I'd prefer the latter)

this is stupid. arbitrary limit on how many gamemodes we have is like cutting off an arm because hey we already have three other limbs what's the point of a fourth?

It's not arbitrary. We only have so many rounds in a day. Adding new modes means we play less of other modes, for better or worse.

just scale down the game mode odds of all the similar modes so that there's no net effect on how much of certain game types we see in a day or whatever then. you'd still play the same amount of "spooky conversion until world ends" rounds on average but there's more variety each time you do play one.

[oranges]

prove you can make a gamemode worth keeping and it will be kept instead of just rotting like rev, cult, shadowling, blob and gang

[ShadowDimentio]

prove you can make a gamemode worth keeping and it will be kept instead of just rotting like rev, cult, shadowling, blob and gang

Are you retarded, not all gamemodes require constant maintenance. Shadowling was the only one on that list that needed it, and that was because all of its abilities were weird and gimmicky.

Rev is literally a TDM, it's perfectly fine as long as the conversions are never broken by new code.
Cult went through heavy changes that were almost all bad but I'd be fine with the current iteration of cult forever. It's perfect.
Shadowling got broken a lot but was fine gameplay wise, it was removed because like three bitchy people wanted it gone.
Blob is only a problem because it's so fucking rare that 9/10 times the blob(s) are unrobust and get dunked easily. If the odds were bumped up it'd be much better recieved.
Gang was shit because success was decided at roundstart if you started in a department with no other gangheads. If you did, you won. Period. That was cancer and I'm glad it's gone.

[Gun Hog]

I would be much happier if exactly half of our round types were something other than Traitor (DA and TatorChan are still Traitor). I certainly weclcome another conversion mode over this. And this does not even HAVE to be a full conversion mode like the rest!

[ShadowDimentio]

Seconded. Traitor takes up entirely too many of our rounds, it's getting stale.

[Luke Cox]

As long as it's 50% conversion 50% non-conversion in terms of spawn chance (assuming we don't differentiate between symmetrical and asymmetrical conversion, which we fucking should), there is no problem. Cults can be difficult for new players, but I don't think that this will.

If you're going to get fucking triggered over too many conversion modes, axe rev or something.

Daily reminder this isn't getting merged until we either axe cult/clockcult/rev or we get occlusion cones for vision so stealth is actually fun (I'd prefer the latter)

this is stupid. arbitrary limit on how many gamemodes we have is like cutting off an arm because hey we already have three other limbs what's the point of a fourth?

[Dagdammit]

Daily reminder this isn't getting merged until we either axe cult/clockcult/rev or we get occlusion cones for vision so stealth is actually fun (I'd prefer the latter)

this is stupid. arbitrary limit on how many gamemodes we have is like cutting off an arm because hey we already have three other limbs what's the point of a fourth?

It's not arbitrary. We only have so many rounds in a day. Adding new modes means we play less of other modes, for better or worse.

In the case of adding more conversion hivemind theworldendswhenenoughpeoplegetconverted modes, I think it's for the worse.

If someone did the hard work of making actual stealth mechanics (you can't see directly behind you) then I'd be willing to give this a try, rather than having another "time to red alert and leave or walk out an airlock" mode for security and silicons.

Kor, if you don't want more conversion antag rounds then make all conversion antag modes less frequent upon adding this one.

[onleavedontatme]

Seconded. Traitor takes up entirely too many of our rounds, it's getting stale.

Maybe you feel it's getting stale because you've played over three thousand rounds. If you've gotten to the point that you're bored by "core" SS13 and only desire endless BYOND combat you should consider taking a break from the game.

Conversion modes, and shadowling especially, are often very one dimensional. You have a tool kit the coders provided you on how you're "supposed" to play. You know who your allies are and have private communication with them. There is no time for building or doing some stupid gimmick. Both sides have to be focusing on powergaming the other from minute one or they're gonna get rolled.

Every single shadowling round I played, it went exactly the same, because there was no other way for it to go. They had their set of powers, they used them how Xhuis envisioned them being used (or they didn't, and they got cornered by people using flares). There was no diplomacy, backstabbing, creative interaction with systems, goofing around. It was just an assembly line of click on guy with power, channel another power, rinse and repeat. (Blob is bad for the same reasons. It pops in one of two spots, you go hit it with welding tools until RD is finished, and that is the round).

Narrowly focused modes with no room for creativity and antag tests/team huds are anathema to what makes SS13 stand out as a game*

*I still love Rev because the violence is fun, but that doesn't mean we need to duplicate that at varying levels of quality until it's half the game

[Xhuis]

Thank you, Kor. What you just said is the exact reason that I make feedback threads. For every whiny asshole that comes along and begs for a knee jerk removal, you have someone actually taking the time to type out a well thought-out post explaining why, and you were that person. Thank you. I'm going to keep all of this in mind when I continue working on this tonight. I don't want samey rounds like shadowling had. I want diversity and memorable stories that don't result from following a railroad track.

To everyone else, follow that example.

[Nabski]

What if to fight the "mass rolling conversion train" each new recruit made them weaker in some way. The group as a whole would remain just as strong, it's just split up more.

The simplest example I could think of would be a spell cooldown. With 1 person it has a 10 second cooldown. Two 20, 3 30, ect. The spell is still averaging one cast per 10 seconds.

Would it be better to enthrall an entire department, or one person in each department?

[Armhulen]

clock tried the convert cooldown thing, and everyone is voting it to be axed. maybe every new convert spreads the goo, which will be an obvious tell that there is a shadowling?

[ShadowDimentio]

>Longer casting time with more converts

Haha yeah man it sure does sound fun to spend a minute standing still mindraping a guy.

[Armhulen]

>Longer casting time with more converts

Haha yeah man it sure does sound fun to spend a minute standing still mindraping a guy.

>they resist out of the cuffs

whew l a d

[Xhuis]

>Longer casting time with more converts

Haha yeah man it sure does sound fun to spend a minute standing still mindraping a guy.

drawing it out makes it more fun ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)