Moving Away from Stun and Done combat

[Screemonster]

Bottom post of the previous page:

I was considering something involving harm-intent clicking a tile would be taken as an intent to attack something on that tile, which would at least reduce the stupid shit with people shaving their heads to make their hitbox smaller.

[D&B]

The only thing that worries me is that this would increase lethality in lavaland a lot. You practically need to run to deal with the monsters there

[Steelpoint]

My concern with walking will be how sluggish it feels, with the current move speed it feels slightly fluid, whereas when you walk you notice how you keep stopping and starting with each tile you move.

[confused rock]

Hey ho steelio, didnt you do that rubber bullet thing once? I liked it in theory.
Lifeweb does walking neat, you got walks, jogs, and sprints. Walks are slow as shit but you arent gonna slip or anything, jogs are ok but you dont want to get jumped while tired, and sprinting is hella fast but you usually run into a wall. In general people moved slower when not sprintin, though, would work like ass with the current ranged stuns.

[Steelpoint]

The only rubber bullet thing I recall was my proposal to replace Security Officers Tasers with a handgun that comes pre-loaded with rubber bullets.

Here's the link to my old PR with the change: https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/pull/11672

The major critical difference is that it takes two hits to stun a unarmoured opponent, and the fact they are projectile guns, not tasers.

Lets not reopen old wounds.

E: That's a good point on having a walk, jog and sprint speeds. Might be worth investigating.

[confused rock]

I think all weps should have some chance of bein lethal, sure sec can baton you but if its petty dont resist cuz the shock from the baton MIIIIIGHT fuck you up like 2% the time, but do not force them to use anything ranged thats worse for ya dont go around slapping lizards with extinguishers unless you dont mind risking them getting severe brain damsge and trying to kill you

[ShadowDimentio]

Reminder this is going to be agonizing and destabilize our entire combat system over an ideal we'll never get to without months and months of testing during which the game will be trash.

[Remie Richards]

The only thing that worries me is that this would increase lethality in lavaland a lot. You practically need to run to deal with the monsters there

can just lower all mobs on lavaland down by 1 speed, until people have settled into new movespeed, and then up those ones that feel like they need it.

[Haevacht]

The only thing that worries me is that this would increase lethality in lavaland a lot. You practically need to run to deal with the monsters there

can just lower all mobs on lavaland down by 1 speed, until people have settled into new movespeed, and then up those ones that feel like they need it.

Would also need to increase the time to dodge fauna attacks, slower projectiles/longer time before grab on goliath.

[kevinz000]

Well If I'm doing it (hopefully this weekend), it'll be:

Definitely:

• Walking Only
• Sprint bar
• Stuns replaced entirely with Stamina

Maybe:

• Armour buffed (potentially to pre-kor levels?)
• Damage buffs

I'll try not to dripfeed it, and if I have to dripfeed it, then we can just hold off on merger until all parts are done (so dripfed PRs vs. dripfed in-game changes)

Do it

[IcePacks]

make it so that damage causes you to get up (and heals stamina damage if you're going to do nothing about the bullshit of disablers)

remove (or nerf) disablers (into line with tasers) because stamina damage is stuns on crack(we don't need ranged slowdowns nor do we need ranged variable/potentially endless length stuns)

make cablecuffs (not handcuffs) break when the mob is attacked too much

i won't deny stun and done is bullshit but actually fixing it will be tricky

Pax stop making so much sense you're scaring me man

nobody cares though so i guess we'll just slow everyone down so they're easier to stun with the disablers!

[Steelpoint]

Reminder this is going to be agonizing and destabilize our entire combat system over an ideal we'll never get to without months and months of testing during which the game will be trash.

In the past changes of this magnitude did not come in as a complete overhaul but a partial one.

I seem to recall that Paprikas changes had the intention of effecting multiple changes over several PRs, but this did not come to pass.

So long as any proposals are in a complete format I don't see a reason to investigate a proposed change.

We can do what we did in the pass and have the system run for several days and garner feedback.

[Xhuis]

I've always been in support of an overhaul of combat and stuns. I feel like the way to get there is long, grueling, and paved with salt and tears, but I'm glad that people are actually seeing eye to eye on the issue for once, even if opinions are still divided. I'm excited that Rem and others are finally making it happen, though, and that it's worth the inevitable fallout. We're all sick of a single stun baton hit meaning that you're dead immediately.

[IcePacks]

Well If I'm doing it (hopefully this weekend), it'll be:

Definitely:

• Walking Only
• Sprint bar
• Stuns replaced entirely with Stamina

Maybe:

• Armour buffed (potentially to pre-kor levels?)
• Damage buffs

I'll try not to dripfeed it, and if I have to dripfeed it, then we can just hold off on merger until all parts are done (so dripfed PRs vs. dripfed in-game changes)

Don't.

I believe this kind of thing has been done in the past. If it hasn't, that's just as well. These ideas seem to be geared more towards making the game more "realistic," not more fun. I'll explain why in a few points:

Slow is not fun. We already have people popping full-body hardsuits on and off just to move faster through our large station designs. Why would you make everyone slower as a result? The speed of the game is what makes combat with other players thrilling; two (or more) people running around trying to get an attack in on each other, with successive blows slowing each other down. The part that seems to bother people the most is when this comes to an abrupt end when one player just stuns the other and beats them to death. What would slowing everyone down do to change that, besides making the encounters less intense?

Armor is fine There was a round where I was a nuke op. I purchased the spesnatz pyro kit, and then proceeded to try and attack the crew exclusively from space. I spent forever in a pissing match with the AI while my team was slaughtered, losing literally all of my weapons in the process. As the crew was escaping, I ran to escape in combat mode and saxxed around trying to disarm people. I managed to kill one guy with his shotgun and willingly stood in place to trade shotgun shots with crewmen because I knew I had better armor. I lasted for an extremely long time, finally succumbing to a taser shot, although I was unable to really kill anybody since most of the shotguns I acquired from disarming were empty. I was a nuke operative surrounded by about twenty crewmen with extremely powerful armor. It still took them awhile to kill me.

There's already a solid divide between armor classes; regular armor protects you in an okay-ish manner and buys you some time in trouble and allows you to maintain speed. Riot armor makes you extremely resistant to brute damage but slows you down significantly. Bulletproof and reflective vests give you protection against two different types of projectiles. These are already well-defined classes of armor, you should leave them as they are and focus on the actual problem here: stuns.

Most importantly, stamina sucks. Stamina is an addition to the stun system. Just about everything about stamina is annoying -- it's indistinguishable from health damage, it slows you to the point where you're a sitting duck, and it adds a stunning component to attacks that include damage, making stun done even worse. When you finally get up from a reasonably lengthy stun, you're still painfully slow, making most efforts to resist whatever your attacker has in mind futile.

Disablers make this even worse. Hybrid tasers can fire a whopping 20 disabler shots; at two shots the target is slowed down to the point where there's very little that they can do, both in terms of escape and fighting back. A third shot stuns them, and you can continually shoot them with whatever remains in your unnecessarily large ammo capacity to keep them stunned with very little fear of running out, unlike tasers. Since damage stacks with stamina damage, you will remain stunned up until your demise if your attacker decides to just beat you to death. Finally, couple this with a long range and the ability to shoot through glass (which there is an abundance of) and you have an utterly broken stunning tool. Disablers pretty clearly demonstrate everything that's wrong with stamina, why would you want to outright replace regular stuns with stamina stuns, which make getting attacked even more deadly and more stun-y?

I strongly urge we go with my idea, for the following reasons:

There should be a second chance if you're being killed. When you're stunned, that's usually it if someone wants to kill you, doubly so if you're restrained since you can't move. If a target begins taking damage when stunned, the damage should reduce the time that they're stunned. This would creative a divide between stuns and lethality, since simply stunning and handcuffing them would cause you to wait for the whole stun. A divide between stuns and lethality should be our ultimate goal, here.

Make non-security methods of restraint even less powerful. If someone decides to try and murder you, a really easy way to do this is to just knock you over, ziptie you, drag you off, and kill you. What I propose is that we give zipties a durability limit. When you take enough damage, your binds break, again creating a divide from stuns and lethality and preventing you from being helpless when restrained. For now I think we should keep the limit on zipties and cable restraints and keep it off of (or increase the limit on) handcuffs, which are harder to obtain and break out of.

Damage should heal stamina damage. Damage stun chains with stamina are the most obnoxious shit ever. They make an already annoying mechanic that much more deadly. What I propose is that we remove the stacking and reverse it so that just unloading a few disablers and switching to lasers doesn't kill a guy instantly. Preserving the divide, et cetera.

Also, space can stunlock you to your death if you take stamina damage. True facts!

Nerf those fucking disablers. I'll let you figure this one out. I honestly think we should just remove them, but that's just me.

[Remie Richards]

>Danno says it's too fast
>Icepacks says it's too slow

WHO DO I BELIEVE.

[Steelpoint]

Remove disablers and rework tasers to be less of a one hit wonder. Disablers are, as pointed out by Icepacks, simply a weapon that exacerbates the worse qualities of Tasers but cloaks itself under the idea it's not a one shot stun.

I can't offer any good alternatives but I actually am coming around to Icepacks suggestion of making damage cancel stuns. This forces stun weapons into a more non-lethal role and less relied on as the main method of combat.

Also perhaps look at making cable cuffs be able to be resisted out of even if you are being moved around and pushed, as well as being removed if you take damage. This would make cable cuffs good for short term abduction but you need to act fast before the person breaks free, or steal some proper cuffs from security, you could then buff it so the cable cuffs take longer to break out off.

[ShadowDimentio]

I'm reluctantly okay with damage reducing stuns, it'd just mean when it's time to kill someone as HoS I cuff them between the taser hitting and me lasering them to death.

[Xhuis]

Damage reducing stun time is solid. I'd also support a removal of chain stuns, I.e. once you hit someone with a baton, they'll get up after six ticks regardless of how many times you whack them.

[Screemonster]

Damage should heal stamina damage. Damage stun chains with stamina are the most obnoxious shit ever. They make an already annoying mechanic that much more deadly. What I propose is that we remove the stacking and reverse it so that just unloading a few disablers and switching to lasers doesn't kill a guy instantly. Preserving the divide, et cetera.

Hooowsabout tracking stamina damage separately from normal damage and only the greater of the two counts, at the very least?
If you're slow as fuck from staminaloss then at least you'll tank a few brute hits before they get "worse", rather than being disabled down to 10 health and then stunlocked by a single hit from a fire extinguisher.

[Steelpoint]

Stamina damage was a mistake, born out of a heated conflict during a unchanged feature proposal that was never finished properly. I'm half certain stamina damage is still bugged with projectile weapons.

The common theme I'm getting here is this.

• Remove Disablers and Disable settings from all weapons.
• Any stun weapon, Taser or Baton, do not stack or reset stun time when applied after someone is already stunned.
• Taking damage will cancel the effect of stuns. Likely it'll be a damage threshold so being accidently hit by a pen won't get you up.
• Nerf non-security related method of restraing. Such as making cable cuffs break when damage is taken to the victim.
• MAYBE buff some lethal ranged weapons to deal more damage???
• Movement speeds remain the same

This seems to want to aim to create a system where stun weapons are for capturing and restraining people, whereas if you want to kill someone your better off sticking to your energy guns lethal setting.

[IcePacks]

While I do believe diminishing returns for stuns would be a healthy idea, you have to consider the time it takes to handcuff. If you make it so that a stun isn't stacking and you, say, stun a criminal in a busy hallway where people keep running into you, you're gonna have a bad time if it's just a 6s stun every time.

Damage should heal stamina damage. Damage stun chains with stamina are the most obnoxious shit ever. They make an already annoying mechanic that much more deadly. What I propose is that we remove the stacking and reverse it so that just unloading a few disablers and switching to lasers doesn't kill a guy instantly. Preserving the divide, et cetera.

Hooowsabout tracking stamina damage separately from normal damage and only the greater of the two counts, at the very least?
If you're slow as fuck from staminaloss then at least you'll tank a few brute hits before they get "worse", rather than being disabled down to 10 health and then stunlocked by a single hit from a fire extinguisher.

You'd still be pretty slow when you get back up, but as far as stamina ideas go, it'd be okay, I guess? I really just don't like stamina.

[Steelpoint]

Perhaps make it that a ranged stun only lasts for a few seconds, say three seconds, or scale it based on the range the taser hit, but a point blank stun from a Taser or Stun Baton will stun for a very long duration, say eight or so seconds.

Just remove disablers while we are at it.

E: On that note, if you made the stun duration scale based on the range the tase projectile has traveld, this can do two things. Firstly you can remove the hard cap range on Tasers so they get back their unlimited range, but secondly it would mean getting shot off screen or at seven tiles won't stun you for ten seconds, but perhaps one or two seconds at the most.

[Remie Richards]

Oh so you now all don't want what I said.
Ok sure I guess I'm not doing it then.

[danno]

>Danno says it's too fast
>Icepacks says it's too slow

WHO DO I BELIEVE.

He might have better judgement than me, I dunno. Maybe what I want for the game is simply not the right way to go about it.
I'm starting to feel like even though I see Lifeweb as the dream for engaging combat in 2D byond games, it just might not be what our iteration of SS13 needs.
But I'm sure there must be some way to go about it that can bring us to a better place combat wise.

[Cik]

Oh so you now all don't want what I said.
Ok sure I guess I'm not doing it then.

REEEE REMIE FIX GAME

[onleavedontatme]

Moving any slower would make normal civilian life on the station a godamn nightmare for our giant maps

[IcePacks]

Perhaps make it that a ranged stun only lasts for a few seconds, say three seconds, or scale it based on the range the taser hit, but a point blank stun from a Taser or Stun Baton will stun for a very long duration, say eight or so seconds.

Just remove disablers while we are at it.

E: On that note, if you made the stun duration scale based on the range the tase projectile has traveld, this can do two things. Firstly you can remove the hard cap range on Tasers so they get back their unlimited range, but secondly it would mean getting shot off screen or at seven tiles won't stun you for ten seconds, but perhaps one or two seconds at the most.

This is a good idea

[Fiz Bump]

Well If I'm doing it (hopefully this weekend), it'll be:

Definitely:

• Walking Only
• Sprint bar
• Stuns replaced entirely with Stamina

Maybe:

• Armour buffed (potentially to pre-kor levels?)
• Damage buffs

I'll try not to dripfeed it, and if I have to dripfeed it, then we can just hold off on merger until all parts are done (so dripfed PRs vs. dripfed in-game changes)

I honestly think combat is fine the way it is, and that it's mostly player choices driving the high use of stuns. Merging so drastic a change without more than a day or two of discussion is not going to be popular with the playerbase, especially since you're planning on severely nerfing movement speed.

[danno]

"player choices driving the high use of stuns"
what you're describing is meta
our meta.
that's what happens when people figure out the best way to play and do nothing but that

[Screemonster]

"player choices driving the high use of stuns"
what you're describing is meta
our meta.
that's what happens when people figure out the best way to play and do nothing but that

reminds me of an article I read earlier.

tl;dr: AI is put in a simple game with the objective to grab as many "apples" as it can, but it also has the option to spend its turn to fire a stun beam at the other AI that is also trying to gather apples, which knocks them out for a time. Researchers were like "whoa, AI is ruthless and immediately takes the option to fuck over the other player so it can get the most apples"

Comments summed it up as "You make a game where the optimal strategy is to hit the other player, drop an AI in it, the AI finds the optimal strategy. This says more about the game than the AI."

[IcePacks]

you should balance the game around the way players play it

i'm at work and can't argue with you right now can you read me and Steelpoint's posts

[ShadowDimentio]

Well If I'm doing it (hopefully this weekend), it'll be:

Definitely:

• Walking Only
• Sprint bar
• Stuns replaced entirely with Stamina

Maybe:

• Armour buffed (potentially to pre-kor levels?)
• Damage buffs

I'll try not to dripfeed it, and if I have to dripfeed it, then we can just hold off on merger until all parts are done (so dripfed PRs vs. dripfed in-game changes)

I honestly think combat is fine the way it is, and that it's mostly player choices driving the high use of stuns. Merging so drastic a change without more than a day or two of discussion is not going to be popular with the playerbase, especially since you're planning on severely nerfing movement speed.

This. There's zero chance that the servers will get a good feel for the preference of one over the others in just a few days in a way that isn't just "I liked/hated the old system so I want it back/gone"

Also why the fuck do you want to molest movespeed? That sounds god awful.

[danno]

because it worked in a better game so it's not unreasonable for people to think "Could it work for us?"

[IcePacks]

it hasn't worked before and it won't work now, there's plenty of viable options in the thread that aren't contradictory to the game

[danno]

that's fair I'm just explaining why the question was brought up

[cedarbridge]

I was considering something involving harm-intent clicking a tile would be taken as an intent to attack something on that tile, which would at least reduce the stupid shit with people shaving their heads to make their hitbox smaller.

Bad interactions with multiple mobs on a tile.

[ShadowDimentio]

>Stupid shit like shaving their head to make their hitbox smaller

Reduces air resistance, makes you move faster. REALISM.

[John_Oxford]

what i was trying to say was that if you are removing normal stuns then you need to heavily buff damage.

we aren't making it harder to die, we are just making it require more than one well placed click.

[IcePacks]

why would a damage buff be necessary if you're dividing stuns and lethals

there's tools made for killing, while i do think the "anything is a weapon" idea is part of ss13's appeal i don't think "everything is a LETHAL weapon" would be an improvement

[Munchlax]

It's a "lets move away from stun combat but lmao I don't have any ideas how to do it" thread episode again

[danno]

he said in the thread full of people posting their ideas on how to do it
are you people braindead irl?

[CPTANT]

I already tried this:

https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic ... 70#p154970

[CPTANT]

riot armor slowdown was removed ages ago.

[Nabski]

I already tried this:

https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic ... 70#p154970

Did it ever move past that thread?

[oranges]

Oh so you now all don't want what I said.
Ok sure I guess I'm not doing it then.

I tried to warn you

[Lumbermancer]

I already tried this:

https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic ... 70#p154970

Did it ever move past that thread?

I'm pretty sure it was tested on servers for at least a day.

[Iatots]

Add combat intent.
Combat intent puts you in lifeweb's fixed eye mode.
You can change the way you face by pressing LMB/MMB around the screen. Pressing MMB on mobs will lock your view on them.
Then depending on where you click on your screen your attacks will follow a certain path, refer to graph:

Having the sections rotate with your mob would be swell, probably.
Attacks sweeping multiple tiles will of course run through tiles individually and last X ticks on each.
Different weapons could have bonuses on their attack pattern, spears being good for poking and blunt objects good for swinging. Shields could bash. Swinging something long excessively could have it catch onto something and disarm you.

Ideally you can lock on multiple, and rotate towards the closest. Sec officers could lock automatically on wanted people if they are wearing HUDglasses. If they leave your FoV, you stop rotating, but they stay locked in for X seconds. Changing appearance significantly outside FoV could drop lock in.

Sidestepping could be slower, as would be retreating, maybe holding down shift while moving could have you make small quick hops.

[cedarbridge]

Add combat intent.
Combat intent puts you in lifeweb's fixed eye mode.
You can change the way you face by pressing LMB/MMB around the screen. Pressing MMB on mobs will lock your view on them.
Then depending on where you click on your screen your attacks will follow a certain path, refer to graph:

combat overhaul.png

Having the sections rotate with your mob would be swell, probably.
Attacks sweeping multiple tiles will of course run through tiles individually and last X ticks on each.
Different weapons could have bonuses on their attack pattern, spears being good for poking and blunt objects good for swinging. Shields could bash. Swinging something long excessively could have it catch onto something and disarm you.

Ideally you can lock on multiple, and rotate towards the closest. Sec officers could lock automatically on wanted people if they are wearing HUDglasses. If they leave your FoV, you stop rotating, but they stay locked in for X seconds. Changing appearance significantly outside FoV could drop lock in.

Sidestepping could be slower, as would be retreating, maybe holding down shift while moving could have you make small quick hops.

>lock on targeting
No

[Screemonster]

Hey! Listen!
Remember to use Z-targeting!

[Iatots]

You like the rest?

I'm for lock on mainly to speed up the fight, as opposed to having click MMB to rotate yourself and then re-position your cursor for the attack you actually want, which could create clunky fights like we currently have.

[IcePacks]

another "viable solution and related discussion goes ignored on page 2" thread

oh boy