Stun Combat Overhaul

[kevinz000]

https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/pull/33781
I'd like some comments that aren't immediately "CLOSE THIS FUCK YOU DONT EVEN BOTHER". Or that, I guess, if you really feel strongly about keeping the current system, but I feel like this would be interesting. All updates will be on the PR description, please check often if you're interested.

[Armhulen]

CLOSE THIS FUCK YOU DONT EVEN BOTHER

[kevinz000]

do people like .357 revolvers that much? jesus christ.

[Armhulen]

but like why

[kevinz000]

Before: One shot stun, vs two shot kill. Stun might as well be a kill unless the traitor has adrenals
Without revolver nerf: Two shot stun, vs two shot kill.
With revolver nerf: Two shot stun, vs three shot kill.

[ShadowDimentio]

Fucking with stuns is a recipe for catastrophic disaster, they're the central pillar that all of SS13's combat is built on.

The changes you're proposing are going to upset the whole game's balance as it stands, and at best we're looking at months of rebalancing issues, assuming the coders (read: you, since this is your project and thus your responsibility) don't just give up and revert it.

Worse still, you're tying this enormous change with a bunch of other nerfs to largely unrelated items under the umbrella of "ranged stuns", which is nigh on every ranged weapon on the game since stuns are, again, the pillar everything is built on.

This isn't going to end well. You're not likely to get this merged, and even if it does people are going to fucking hate it for how much it's going to upset everything.

[Armhulen]

correct.

[kevinz000]

I'm dropping the revolver nerf due to !popular! demand (apparently?) but I don't see how the others are unrelated considering they're also generally used for one hit ranged stuns.
I guess the bar chemicals are somewhat unrelated but over the past few months I've only seen them used in syringe guns.

[ShadowDimentio]

I'm dropping the revolver nerf due to !popular! demand (apparently?) but I don't see how the others are unrelated considering they're also generally used for one hit ranged stuns.
I guess the bar chemicals are somewhat unrelated but over the past few months I've only seen them used in syringe guns.

You're going to have a nightmarish time getting just your taser changes merged, not just because you're including with it a wildly unpopular idea (taser lasers) that was tried once and reverted because everyone hate it, but also because by you being the one that fucked with it in the first place you're responsible for the whole depth of balance issues that pop up because you fucked with tasers.

[Karp]

stun combat is one of the worst things in ss13 shadowdimentio

You're deranged if you think experimenting is worse than sticking with our current formula

like kevinz said the point is to make it so that tasers still technically edge out revolvers as they did before. The net change is negligable and non armored targets still are 2 shot. This only changes damage breakpoints on armored targets, and the hos/captain/ballistic armor already had high enough values to raise the breakpoint to 3-4 shots.

kevinz please dont listen to people who dont play the game on keeping things the good old way they're all chronically retarded and have no idea on what they're talking about

[kevinz000]

eh, i recalled the armor arguments we've had which is armor was becoming too much of an important item.
we'll see how revolvers pan out in the long run.
ebow rebalance is staying though, why would tasers be rebalanced if traitors still got infinite one hit stuns??
as for bar chems i'm on the edge but uhh syringe guns.
as for taser lasers i don't see how bad they can be, in the old system sec can already kill you easily if they get a one hit stun on you, what's different with light lasers?

[Xhuis]

Here are my issues with light lasers:

• They serve as ranged, lethal weaponry that every officer has on them at all times without needing to access the armory, and gives them a reason to have it and not be under suspicion.
• Lasers shoot through windows as well as do burn damage, which massively nerfs blobs because every officer has additional lasers on them at all times. It also makes xenos more susceptible to a degree.
• A lethal sidearm is undeniably more effective at killing anything but a regular human than stunning is; trying to say otherwise is shortsighted. You can gun down a giant spider with no risk to yourself with a light laser, but you can't tase it and then baton it with the same degree of safety.
• It increases the amount of lethal ranged weaponry on the station hugely, from roundstart.
• It puts tasing and lasing into a single item. It was awful with energy guns, and it'll be awful here!
• It encourages security lasering people into softcrit to pacify them instead of tasering and arresting them, doubly so because tasers take two shots now.
• It gives security officers lasers! Come on! Do you know how ridiculous that sounds? Security are not military police, they are mallcops, and have been fluffed and painted that way until Steelpoint came along and started arming them to the teeth. It honestly strikes me as just stroking a powerboner by giving them all laser sidearms when you are well known to be a security main.

[Oldman Robustin]

You can't do this without addressing slips.

Slips are still overtuned in my view and this PR would absolutely ruin any semblance of balance if stuns remains as is. You can't gut ranged stuns and then keep one of the most spammable and effective stuns in the game around.

[ShadowDimentio]

You can't do this without addressing slips.

Slips are still overtuned in my view and this PR would absolutely ruin any semblance of balance if stuns remains as is. You can't gut ranged stuns and then keep one of the most spammable and effective stuns in the game around.

Consider walking.

[kevinz000]

robustin is correct
also xhuis we have admins for a reason but whatever i'll see what kor says about em, i could replace em with normal disablers lol

[CPTANT]

https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/pull/33781
I'd like some comments that aren't immediately "CLOSE THIS FUCK YOU DONT EVEN BOTHER". Or that, I guess, if you really feel strongly about keeping the current system, but I feel like this would be interesting. All updates will be on the PR description, please check often if you're interested.

LOVE the 2 shot taser (wonder why).

I don't know if decoupling health and stamina is a good idea. Seems odd that you are just as resilliant at 10 health as on full health. I think the slowdown reduction for stamina damage is the change the system needs. Though I think the right value would be a slowdown of 2, because 1 is really minimal.

The changes to stamina should be implemented regardless of any other overhaul that might be rejected, a functioning stamina system is mandatory for any changes to how stuns work. I think the reduced slowdown is one of the last steps for that. Stamina is already in a way better place than it was before, I personally really like how the increased stamina regen on knockdown turned out.

Also why not just let tasers do 60 stamina damage or so? This prevents them from having special rules that are inconsistent with the way stamina damage works. Also I am not really sure what the effect of an increased clickdelay would be be, the old idea was to let the first taser shot disarm.

[Stickymayhem]

As someone who already finds it fairly easy to hike security all the time the lack of game over stun moments is going to make that even easier for shitters like me and immensely frustrating for the majority of officers who aren't as robust as you Kevinz.

We've tried this multiple times and a ranged instant stun option is the only thing that really works. SS13 has a deep enough combat system for what it needs to do

Also why would you change stamina in this way. I'd like to see some justifications for these new designs rather than just "Here's some changes". How does the game benefit.

[CPTANT]

You can't do this without addressing slips.

Slips are still overtuned in my view and this PR would absolutely ruin any semblance of balance if stuns remains as is. You can't gut ranged stuns and then keep one of the most spammable and effective stuns in the game around.

I do not think addressing stuns is a prerequisite for the overhaul suggested here. Might be a good idea, but it just don't think its necessary to include in the scope.

[CPTANT]

Here are my issues with light lasers:

• They serve as ranged, lethal weaponry that every officer has on them at all times without needing to access the armory, and gives them a reason to have it and not be under suspicion.
• Lasers shoot through windows as well as do burn damage, which massively nerfs blobs because every officer has additional lasers on them at all times. It also makes xenos more susceptible to a degree.
• A lethal sidearm is undeniably more effective at killing anything but a regular human than stunning is; trying to say otherwise is shortsighted. You can gun down a giant spider with no risk to yourself with a light laser, but you can't tase it and then baton it with the same degree of safety.
• It increases the amount of lethal ranged weaponry on the station hugely, from roundstart.
• It puts tasing and lasing into a single item. It was awful with energy guns, and it'll be awful here!
• It encourages security lasering people into softcrit to pacify them instead of tasering and arresting them, doubly so because tasers take two shots now.
• It gives security officers lasers! Come on! Do you know how ridiculous that sounds? Security are not military police, they are mallcops, and have been fluffed and painted that way until Steelpoint came along and started arming them to the teeth. It honestly strikes me as just stroking a powerboner by giving them all laser sidearms when you are well known to be a security main.

The light laser does 10 damage, you have to literally hit every shot on an unarmored target to even crit one person.

[Saegrimr]

The light laser does 10 damage, you have to literally hit every shot on an unarmored target to even crit one person.:roll:

Basically if stamina wont slow you, they're just going to lethal you until the HP loss slows you.

[Incomptinence]

If you want stuns to matter less make straight up damage better.

Add more health complications for having taken damage, make bones break, make bleeding faster, make near crit people almost incapacitated. Pseudo bay med it and require surgery to fix said complications, or make surgery the fastest way and add slow fix chems so Mr Lone wolf can nurse his almost blown off arm very slowly regenerating it on slowly metabolised bone and skin mending chems clapping himself on the back for how independent he is.
Honestly don't get why self treatment must remain king the antags get the high damage stuff anyway.

You know what made the stun meta worse? Soft crit. Remove that and fuck you trying to replace stamina + lost health stunning and replace it with snowflake thresholds.

The wounded fearing the disabler was a great quality being hurt should make you worse in every way not make you a limbo champion after 100 damage.

You exchange a revolver shot with a taser bolt yeah you should be stunned but he should be essentially dying unless he gets medical attention and not piss poor slowly like current bleeding.

[kevinz000]

One of the complaints with CPTNT's attempt was that tasers still slowed after one shot so in reality they were getting buffed, which is why I was hesistant on the stamina damage.

[Incomptinence]

Make stamina not do slowdown and keep it otherwise the same then?

I mean I know you piss weak fools want a stun system gone with no intervening statuses to make events (oh their clickrate gonna be slowed a lil!) matter short of all shots hit perfect score but that should sort it out.

[kevinz000]

on light lasers: i'd like to hear kor's opinion of that (and the entire thing) before I continue, so I guess this is on hold for 16 hours or until he wakes up.

[CPTANT]

One of the complaints with CPTNT's attempt was that tasers still slowed after one shot so in reality they were getting buffed, which is why I was hesistant on the stamina damage.

Yeah but you are reducing the slowdown for all stamina damage anyway.

[bman]

kinda like this system and hope it works out, good luck my man.

[Steelpoint]

All for a stun overhaul but Robustin is correct in that slips need to be addressed as well.

[kevinz000]

right mirroring what i said on the pr: im going to just read and not update (codewise, discussion still goes on.) the pr until kor gets online to comment on it, as i'd like to know from him if this in general is even a remotely good direction to push sooo :shrug:

[Calibraptor]

I'm 50/50 on this. There's some aspects of it I really like, such as turning the taser into a two shot stun and stamina damage slowing down how fast you can attack stuff. Other aspects I despise, such as taser lasers and nerfing the bar chems.

[CPTANT]

I'm 50/50 on this. There's some aspects of it I really like, such as turning the taser into a two shot stun and stamina damage slowing down how fast you can attack stuff. Other aspects I despise, such as taser lasers and nerfing the bar chems.

What's the problem with the light taser? It's damage is so low that it basically only has a use against critters.

It is more a way of keeping the hybrid taser interesting.

[Calibraptor]

I'm 50/50 on this. There's some aspects of it I really like, such as turning the taser into a two shot stun and stamina damage slowing down how fast you can attack stuff. Other aspects I despise, such as taser lasers and nerfing the bar chems.

What's the problem with the light taser? It's damage is so low that it basically only has a use against critters.

It is more a way of keeping the hybrid taser interesting.

You underestimate the power of shitcurity. I strongly oppose giving security officers /any/ form of lethals at round-start.

[Stickymayhem]

TL;DR: I want combat to have more than "click them before they click you with a taser".

Why is this inherently bad for a game based on paranoia and the potential for quick deaths? How do you compensate for more call-outs? How does security capture the random obnoxious shitters effectively?

I want combat stuns to be relevant but not THE method of combat.

The defining attribute in SS13 combat is mobility. Reducing your opponent's mobility to 0 is always going to be the priority to secure damage. What are the alternatives? Chasing with a high force weapon is always going to be ineffective because every click is difficult. Lasering people is similarly difficult to rely on.

I want stamina to be a useful combat mechanic without being an immediate game over due to the slowdown it adds that makes you basically helpless.

The entire purpose of stamina damage is to get people through windows and stop people winning just by running in circles around you. The slowdown is a good mechanic and differentiates it from instant stuns as a longer range option for controlling mobility

Anyway I think "One-click and you're arrested/dead" is actually a decent system. It makes combat quick, deadly and stressful. Tasers already have ways to counter-act them. Windows, the long delay allowing disarm spam, limited ammo and short range, slow projectiles are all abusable.

I think as usual, people will debate on the forums and github, you'll make the changes thinking it has some support and then the less-vocal majority of actual players will throw a shitfit until it's reverted. We've been through this before.

[Xhuis]

The light laser does 10 damage, you have to literally hit every shot on an unarmored target to even crit one person.

I think it's important to note that it's very easy to just carry around two tasers as a security officer. I already see people do it so that dual-wielding them in disable mode allows you to spray down a hallway, and I can see it being the same with light lasers. Any kind of ranged, rechargeable lethals are very powerful even if they were to do maybe 5 damage per shot.

[Limski]

Taser quickdraw duels are fun in their own right, just saying.

[CPTANT]

The light laser does 10 damage, you have to literally hit every shot on an unarmored target to even crit one person.

I think it's important to note that it's very easy to just carry around two tasers as a security officer. I already see people do it so that dual-wielding them in disable mode allows you to spray down a hallway, and I can see it being the same with light lasers. Any kind of ranged, rechargeable lethals are very powerful even if they were to do maybe 5 damage per shot.

But to get an extra taser you need to get into the armory and if you have access to the armory I have no idea why you don't just grab a laser gun instead.

I don't think you can call a 10 damage 10 shot lethal powerful when disablers knock you out in 3 shots and have twice as many shots.

[CPTANT]

Taser quickdraw duels are fun in their own right, just saying.

But why wouldn't they be with a 2 shot taser? It lengthens the engagement a bit, meaning a slightly longer time of high intensity shooting.

[D&B]

Problem I see with it is that confusion only furthers the way you can dodge further shots and the slowdown won't be enough for officers to land following shots.

Would be better if it worked like Hippie or /vg/ where being taser shot makes you drop the items on your person and gives you a brief time of movement before having the stun itself kick in.

[John_Oxford]

>people who have been here less than two years suddenly proclaiming that stun combat is by far the worst thing to have ever blessed the god forsaken metal death trap of space station 13

stun combat has been more or less the same since the game came out, the games combat system has been built around it, changing it now is changing the games entire combat system.

im 100% positive none of you arm chair coders have the dedication or time to completely rewrite the game's -entire- combat system.

so let's stop being dense and stop trying to fuck with stuns

[Denton]

You'll have to rework slips, stun chems and some other stamina/sleep chems as well. Absolute madman.

[kevinz000]

>people who have been here less than two years suddenly proclaiming that stun combat is by far the worst thing to have ever blessed the god forsaken metal death trap of space station 13

stun combat has been more or less the same since the game came out, the games combat system has been built around it, changing it now is changing the games entire combat system.

im 100% positive none of you arm chair coders have the dedication or time to completely rewrite the game's -entire- combat system.

so let's stop being dense and stop trying to fuck with stuns

3 and when's the last time you played? :^)

[Stickymayhem]

CAN YOU FUCKING PLEASE ACTUALLY MAKE SOME JUSTIFICATIONS OR COUNTERPOINTS OR SOMETHING INSTEAD OF JUST RANDOMLY FIDDLING WITH IT LIKE THE LAST 5 CODERS THANKS PLS

[RedRaijiin]

Just last month before being banned, if I remember correctly

[BeeSting12]

>people who have been here less than two years suddenly proclaiming that stun combat is by far the worst thing to have ever blessed the god forsaken metal death trap of space station 13

stun combat has been more or less the same since the game came out, the games combat system has been built around it, changing it now is changing the games entire combat system.

im 100% positive none of you arm chair coders have the dedication or time to completely rewrite the game's -entire- combat system.

so let's stop being dense and stop trying to fuck with stuns

3 and when's the last time you played? :^)

I saw him on the server last night.

[RedRaijiin]

>people who have been here less than two years suddenly proclaiming that stun combat is by far the worst thing to have ever blessed the god forsaken metal death trap of space station 13

stun combat has been more or less the same since the game came out, the games combat system has been built around it, changing it now is changing the games entire combat system.

im 100% positive none of you arm chair coders have the dedication or time to completely rewrite the game's -entire- combat system.

so let's stop being dense and stop trying to fuck with stuns

3 and when's the last time you played? :^)

I saw him on the server last night.

Wasnt he perma banned and his appeal denied?

[kevinz000]

TL;DR: I want combat to have more than "click them before they click you with a taser".

Why is this inherently bad for a game based on paranoia and the potential for quick deaths? How do you compensate for more call-outs? How does security capture the random obnoxious shitters effectively?
getting the drop on someone is still extremely lethal as you will get the first hit in before they do but it makes combat not an immediate game over because you didn't quickdraw before they did which is even easier when we have QUICKDRAW HOTKEYS COUGH COUGH NINJANOMNOM but that's off topic. you could call out before anyways, tasers don't mute you. security uses a taser per usual as they have more shots.

I want combat stuns to be relevant but not THE method of combat.

The defining attribute in SS13 combat is mobility. Reducing your opponent's mobility to 0 is always going to be the priority to secure damage. What are the alternatives? Chasing with a high force weapon is always going to be ineffective because every click is difficult. Lasering people is similarly difficult to rely on.
old tasers didn't do anything about mobility but disablers did. if ranged stuns are nerfed having a higher clickdelay actually means something far more in non-melee combat so stamina damage still does alot without being an instant win.
i'm going to do something about per limb targetting and see if i can make targetting different areas more useful and stuff.

I want stamina to be a useful combat mechanic without being an immediate game over due to the slowdown it adds that makes you basically helpless.

The entire purpose of stamina damage is to get people through windows and stop people winning just by running in circles around you. The slowdown is a good mechanic and differentiates it from instant stuns as a longer range option for controlling mobility
we didn't have disablers commonplace until long after i came to tg. back before that we had 50 tile instastuns. this isn't something that has been around forever, and i don't think being slowed to uselessness within two shots that takes like a full minute to recover is fun just like one hit stuns.

Anyway I think "One-click and you're arrested/dead" is actually a decent system. It makes combat quick, deadly and stressful. Tasers already have ways to counter-act them. Windows, the long delay allowing disarm spam, limited ammo and short range, slow projectiles are all abusable.
what long delay? it was removed. its projectiles are as fast as any other projectile. short range is a thing and the new ones will have a longer range. combat is still stressful as you will still get stunned and therefore killed it just takes more than a single hit.
I think as usual, people will debate on the forums and github, you'll make the changes thinking it has some support and then the less-vocal majority of actual players will throw a shitfit until it's reverted. We've been through this before.
which is why we're likely to have a server poll if testmerges are successful before it's considered for merging right? :^)

[PKPenguin321]

about to read the PR, inb4 it's stamina damage bullshit

[CPTANT]

about to read the PR, inb4 it's stamina damage bullshit

Whats still bullshit about stamina damage?

[PKPenguin321]

>it actually nerfs stamina damage
ok not bad

as for deciding against unlinking health and stamina damage, i think it should go all the way and be unlinked especially with the light lasers thing (since if they're already damaged then you can just use the light laser to dispatch them more quickly and they're still at a disadvantage). stamina damage stacking with regular damage and still applying stuns means you can still knock somebody over with a disabler, then chainstun them with brute weapons which is the easiest and most lethal chainstun in the game (literally just bash them with a stick and they're chainstunned and being killed at the same time)

i really really like the slowdown nerf for disablers, that was always a massive point to their strength. click cooldown changes seem to put emphasis on running from a guy with a disabler rather than fighting back which seems appropriate, can't be sure if it's a good thing though.

only thing i really dislike is the ebow change, i get that keeping a damaging ranged infinite ammo stun sounds stupid in concept but i think this is too much in the other direction, like it's way too weak for how much it costs now.

additional thoughts:
would like if kev could expand on what neurotoxin's "other effects" are since he says it no longer instantly stuns but doesn't really explain
leave the temp gun be, thot

overall it's probably one of the least awful stun overhauls in a while mainly because it doesn't rely on the current shitty broken implementation of disablers/stamina damage. worth at least trying, even if i'm not crazy about overhauling combat in the first place.

[CPTANT]

Honestly if you can bash a person with 100 stamina damage with a toolbox than you can also apply just another disabler hit or any other form of stun while you kill him anyway.

I think reaching 100 stamina damage should reflect a state in which you have lost the engagement, just like getting 100 regular damage is.

[Incomptinence]

The typical user of disablers is security the gear of which includes a stunning baton to beat you to death with anyway.

Also if we are afraid of the big bad chain stun (WEAKLING) just make stamina stuns have a fixed cool down.