Combat Overhaul Documentation

[WJohnston]

Combat in ss13, as everyone knows, is effectively clickspam movement spaz-out RNG, with a touch of equipment preparation to give you an edge (sunglasses to cancel flashes, shields to hopefully prevent a disarm attempt etc).

Rather shockingly, this is a pretty bad combat system. It's largely dependent on your connection (whether a click is registered or not) and RNG (disarm and punching I'm looking at you), and both made worse by insane button mash movement. Most of all, it's dependent on STUNS, the ultimate "you lose" mechanic that can end any fight instantly because of how powerful stunning is, and how easy it is to stunlock someone (just keep clicking on them). Personally I find that having an antagonist who relies on raw killing power to survive (wizard and nuke ops) that can be offed by one asshole assistant who gets a lucky disarm is very poor design.

Now I'm not making this post as a "i ded pls nerf" response to combat, it's something I've observed over years, and it's not exactly difficult to notice how flawed it is.

There's also several ways to "fix" combat and reduce or eliminate the RNG presence. I aim to both present a way to remove the RNG and to make combat less of a click button mash:



1. Movement
I'm sure you've experienced it yourself: Any time you get in a fistfight (with or without devolving to weapons) you've likely seen that combat is based on clicking as fast as possible on the other person's sprite while spazing the hell out and hoping your clicks actually connect. Standing still while your opponent moves tends to be complete suicide and syncing your movement gets you both hit. More rarely you can make good use of the more harmful intents to make yourself dense and able to push other players around, allowing you to score an easier hit. While on paper this sounds intense, in practice it's really just a dice toss on whether you win or not.

Here's how I propose it gets changed:
First, combat is changed such that your direction actually matters with both your ability to hit (or interact with) something and the ability to block incoming attacks (more on that later). You would be limited to the 3 tiles in front of you and the two to your sides, leaving the 3 at the back exposed. This is then followed by the introduction of 3 new CYCLE-ABLE movement states: Free, combat, and static.

[X][X][X]
[X][^][X]
[X][X][X]

Free mode is exactly like how we have it now, both your movement and your clicking changes your direction and it's best used for when you're not fighting anything (operating machines or whatever).
Combat mode makes it so you can only change the direction you face by clicking in a direction, moving around and being pushed around will not change it. This mode would be the most flexible for combat since it wouldn't impair your movements unless you directly try to click on someone or something (you'll need to click towards a direction to face it). To prevent people from using this mode literally all the time, you would receive a minor speed down when backpedaling, making it waste your time (and look like an idiot) while outside of a fight.
Static mode is the most rigid of all 3, preventing you from turning no matter what. Clicking, moving around, and being pushed by others will not change your direction whatsoever. This would be useful in the case of absolutely having to face one direction in the middle of a fight, where you cannot afford to be turning around and making yourself more vulnerable (this will be expanded on with shields and disarming).

What you are capable of hitting adjacent to you in any direction would be these:



2. Disarm, grab, and harm intents
Disarm and harm intent right now are both dictated entirely by RNG: Whether you disarm someone, whether you knock them down, and whether you miss completely is totally up to luck. Its effectiveness also isn't wavered by anything other than shields or a stun-immune state (hulks might still drop their items when disarmed, though). Harm intent is also a bizarre intent, dealing 0-9 damage in a punch and with the ability to weaken you for a very long time. At times, this is long enough to get another lucky stun on someone and you could in theory punch someone in riot armor to death this way if you're very consistently lucky (and stripping them). Finally, grabbing is a hideously outdated system used primarily for tabling people and then putting them in a chokehold that you literally cannot escape from no matter what (unbelievably shitty game design).

Instead, how about we do away with the abhorrent amount of RNG and insta-wins? Make punching do a guaranteed 3 damage with no stun chance. It really should remain as a last resort, not something that in many cases is better than an actual weapon. Disarm could make use of our new direction-dependent combat. For example, you would only be able to disarm someone at the back corner tiles, and would only be able to push them down from the very back (trying it from the front would be completely harmless). This would change disarming combat to revolve around getting behind someone to push them over, while the victim uses combat mode to turn constantly or to back up into a wall where they are safe from disarms). Finally, grabbing can be changed such that tabling someone stuns them for significantly less time and chokehold immobilizes the attacker and victim, and can be resisted out of after a few seconds if they're not restrained or stunned.

[X][X][X]
[X][^][X]
[X][X][X]



3. Stuns and stamina
Our stun system as of right now is simply broken. It so completely and totally outclasses the effectiveness of both melee and ranged combat that there's absolutely no point in trying to fight someone who has a ranged instant stun weapon (tasers). Notice I said the word INSTANT stun, disablers are fine (and should be buffed as a result of these changes), and flashbangs give you time to see it coming (and have various ways to protect yourself from them). Things like tasers and stun batons are capable of penetrating all armor for the full duration, and your only hope in hell is either that you're stun proof (a cyborg or hulk or in a mech etc), a lucky shield block, or you're full of stun-reduction chems/implants to mitigate the effects before your opponent reaches you.

Stamina damage is a marvelous system. It provides a unique form of damage that could effectively replace both our instant guaranteed stuns AND our RNG melee attacks. For example, instead of being randomly knocked down by a particularly powerful (or miserably weak) melee weapon, why not just have it deal stamina damage on the side? This would both increase the lethality and the fairness of melee combat. You would never be instantly knocked out, but it would take fewer hits to knock you down due to stamina damage (and both of these can be affected by armor!) Of course, to make this all sane, stamina damage should not be possible to pile on while you're resting or knocked down so when you get up you're fully prepared to take another barrage.

There are certain weapons, like tasers and stunbattons which are however intended to be instant wins to fights. This is because of how easy it is to overtake someone wielding either of these with a simple disarm click in our current system. The new proposed one would literally make that impossible as long as you're vigilant. Instead of being instant stun weapons we could do away with the yellow electrodes and change stun batons to do a very large amount of stamina damage (60-80). This would make it *feasible* to fight or try to run after being hit, and swarming an overzealous officer will be much more possible due to it taking two hits. Thanks to the new disarm and combat mechanics however, the officer will not feel so cheated if they are attacked by multiple people, as he can quite literally back up into a wall or corner to keep hold of his weapons (at which point it devolves into a sort of last stand beat-down).

Finally, I'd like to propose that melee combat actually COSTS the attacker stamina to use (and perhaps even moving around in combat and static movement modes to discourage their constant use even more). Right now if you're knocked down on the ground, your attacker can effectively melee you to oblivion without tiring. If you've both taken hits but you're able to heal at a sufficient rate or have good armor, your attacker may have to retreat and leave you alone, or risk collapsing from exhaustion. As stated above, being knocked down or resting should not allow you to take stamina damage, so while you may have been taking a lot of physical actual damage during your stamina-induced stun, your attacker will be relatively easy to knock over too from stamina too.



4. Armor

With kor's recent armor nerf, armor is now significantly weaker than it used to be. This was designed as a sort of bending-over-and-spreading-your-ass-cheeks-for-the-one-the-only-insta-stun-system-we-all-live-with problem that's going on right now because "armor basically just wasted the attacker's time once he inevitably won". With these changes, combat will no longer be about instant stunning, and will instead focus much more on piling on the hurt, stamina damage, and positioning.

Furthermore, with RemieRichard's new armor penetration mechanic it may be best to make armor actually tough and usable, as it is likely that certain items will gain armor piercing qualities in the future.

If it isn't already the case (though I'm sure it is) armor should also reduce stamina damage in equal proportions to regular (80% melee resist should reduce both 80% of incoming melee damage And 80% of that weapon's stamina damage).



5. Shields
Finally I want to cover shields. Shields as they are are completely riddled with RNG. Whether they block a bullet or an attempt to touch you or not is not an acceptable mechanic. Instead, we can again have protection based on our new direction combat. Shields could provide guaranteed protection for a few tiles in the front and to the side, depending on which hand you hold it with.

For example, a shield held in your right hand would cover:
[X][X][X]
[X][^][X]
[X][X][X]

While a shield held in both hands would cover:
[X][X][X]
[X][^][X]
[X][X][X]

These seems excessively good for protection, but remember that for the former you're throwing away a hand, you're very easy to strike on the left, and for the latter you're left completely defenseless. While being cooped up against a wall in or in a very tight corner would make you effectively unkillable, your enemies would also be able to keep wailing on your shields.

And just to boot, shields should also drain a bit of stamina for every hit they block. So huddling in a corner or crevice will quickly have your stamina damage knock you over as everyone wails on you. If this still seems too good, remember that there are very few shields on the station, and that they should be at least capable of doing their jobs.

This is also where static movement comes into play. For the first example, if you were huddled up in a bottom left corner like this I_ then you would still be able to attack and shoot to your right, all without risking exposing your more vulnerable left side by clicking on someone or something like combat mode would do.



6. Extras
Making a combat system for every possible avenue of the game is next to impossible, as you might imagine. With the prevalence of things like augmentations, hulks, xenos, and simple animals I can't cover everything in this post while keeping it readable. I'm sure there's plenty of ways to balance those around the new combat system (and possibly offer them new functions) but that's beyond the scope of all this right now.



Let me know what you think or how you want this to be tweaked. Remember, the intent of all this is to do away with RNG, movement spazzing, instastuns, and to some extent clickspam while making it all more interesting to play with.

[WJohnston]

Also for anyone who is insane enough to actually want to do this if it's at all feasible: I'm willing to to contribute lots and lots of sprites for the UI elements (like the movement state cycling buttons) and whatever else may become necessary.

[Wyzack]

Whenever doing away with stuns is proposed, the biggest issue facing it is that sec needs to be able to reliably stun people for arrests, or else there job is essentially impossible

[WJohnston]

Yeah, and it won't be any harder to do that here. If anything it'd be safer, although a bit more time consuming. Getting the first hit on someone with a baton would slow them down dramatically, and they would have no chance of disarming you from the front whatsoever, whether or not you use a shield.

[Timbrewolf]

While on paper this sounds intense, in practice it's really just a dice toss on whether you win or not.

Then why do some people win more often than others?

It's not a random dice toss. The current system is goofy, but it has its nuances and people acclimate and git gud.
That you see it as a total RNG toss-up between people to come out on top says more about you than it does the combat system.

Making everything direction-based is interesting but our system doesn't control for that well. You can change facing without moving by clicking in different directions or holding ctrl and using the arrows.
It's kinda clunky. We avoid this being clunky by just not using/caring which direction people face in for the most part. There's no directional LOS or sneak attacks from behind.

...because forcing people to pay attention to their direction means floundering around on the keyboard more with combination button presses, or clicking around on the screen (potentially accidentally punching/shooting other people in the process).

Complicating the combat system more doesn't really add anything to the game. People are already beating the shit out of eachother, or effectively avoiding having the shit beaten out of themselves with the system we already have.

It's not just a total random dice roll. Git gud.

[Steelpoint]

A lot of it Anon comes down to your ping to the server.

Try out a local SS13 server on your own computer versus the online server, depending on where you are in the world that makes a massive difference. While there is some nuance to combat, most of this nuance is knowing the mechanics and knowing the delay on attacking someone as well as that person's ping to the server.

[invisty]

So would this defeat the ability to run away and clickspam to shoot at pursuers following you (AKA yakkedy saxxing)?

Personally, I'm against the addition of any more "intent" type options, and would prefer interaction behaviour to be based purely upon primary inputs (keysboard and mouse input). I find the help/disarm/grab/harm system very frustrating because all too often I leave it on the wrong setting and get an undesirable outcome. I would just prefer any such character-state options removed.

If coders looked into improving control input, perhaps more options would become available to you. Shift-clicking and Alt-clicking have proven very useful - can such meta-key combinations be applied to combat mechanics to determine your actions in a way that doesn't suck? ie, Ctrl+click for harm? What if your right hand punched for damage, and your left hand disarmed? (Yes, too obscure, but it's an example of how you might think out of the box to improve this). As it stands, meta-keys are hardly a great option, since primary UI interactions should be transparent in their nature.

[Falamazeer]

Prep work and good click form can take you pretty far past a simple ping battle, but if your opposite has also taken similar steps It really does just boil down to internet speed and address.

[WJohnston]

It doesn't necessarily have to have these movement intents as separate cycle-able options. Perhaps they could be tied in with our current intent system. We could do away with static mode (thinking about it now it seems to have very limited use) and instead make it so help intent is free movement while all the others are combat movement. It'll encourage more people to pass through eachother and it'll be more obvious who is ready to attack.

[Cik]

i'm not against a combat overhaul but it needs to be rolled out in stages and WELL TESTED

let's not have a repeat of goofchem ok? this could be the next megashitstorm if done wrong

[onleavedontatme]

i'm not against a combat overhaul but it needs to be rolled out in stages and WELL TESTED

let's not have a repeat of goofchem ok? this could be the next megashitstorm if done wrong

In stages would be terrible because we'd inevitably get stuck halfway like we did with the "stun overhaul."

Roll it out all at once, test it for some time/tweak it, and then revert to our old system if the new one isn't better.

[Cik]

well the stun overhaul wasn't so bad. it did improve combat i think

still please do a few things if you're going to vary combat

write it up so that people actually know how it functions, goofchem was a mess for this because until about a week or two after no one knew what anything fucking did or how to produce anything

think it through. i'm not too worried because the OP looks reasonable

ALLOW IT TO BE REVERTED

seriously the fucking cardinal sin of goofchem

Spoiler:

and other things many coders do

give it a trial period and make sure it's ACTUALLY A TRIAL PERIOD! not shit like fucking anon3 erp "trial period" which is a fucking joke. give it a few weeks. have some faith that people will realize when something is good and something is bad. make the polls and feedback VISIBLE and make sure there are links in the server login MOTD and other channels. make sure there is a changelog

[Timbrewolf]

A lot of it Anon comes down to your ping to the server.

Try out a local SS13 server on your own computer versus the online server, depending on where you are in the world that makes a massive difference. While there is some nuance to combat, most of this nuance is knowing the mechanics and knowing the delay on attacking someone as well as that person's ping to the server.

We were all beating the shit out of each other just fine in 2010 when the server ran like a hot bag of horse shit, when lag spikes were frequent and random.

The servers are located in France and yet we have robust players all over the planet. I don't think there's a single concentration of people who are all good and then everyone not from that area gets wrecked.

Are you serious in saying you stalk specific players based on what you know about their individual latency and then attack them appropriately? I don't believe that's true.

[Incomptinence]

Only way I can see this being meaningful is making changing direction/facing slower aka tank controls.

Or it could just be we want hordes to become even STRONGER since they can actually surround someone with ease, armour nerfs seem to suggest this. If +1 dudes combat is how we are going maybe we need more ample loyalty implants since sec really isn't design to compete on pure conversions in gang, rev and cult at present.

[Steelpoint]

If you wanted to go a extreme route, and spend 50 years making new sprites, you could have a system where if someone enters a 'combat' mode (shooting or melee) they slow down in their movement and their sprites changes to a directional sprite looking in the direction the user is looking with their fists/guns presented. This would try and make combat a more deliberate affair.

[Stickymayhem]

I live in the UK so I don't have great ping and I'm one of the most robust people on the server.

Ping is a fairly small part of robustness outside of thunderdome goat battles. It's more about being able to predict other people's movement and push them into making moves that benefit you.

Honestly I think the combat system is a lot more complex than people give it credit for.

That said, a misunderstanding about the current system doesn't invalidate ideas for a new one, and this overhaul does look pretty neat. One think I'd suggest is making the top corner of the opposite side the shield is on also be vulnerable to attack, forcing shielders to really stick to a corner or constantly maintain their protection by rotating to face their attackers.

I think some of these changes could benefit the game even on their own, like the shield ones.

[Cheimon]

I'm not disputing a lot of the points here. Some of the ideas are quite interesting.

But I do think you're nerfing security more than you think. Have you tried playing security with only a disabler? It's quite easy to turn what would be a straightforward arrest with a taser into a prolonged run around the station. Stamina damage doesn't really slow that much until it's close to stopping you entirely, and disabler shots are entirely possible to dodge. Security cyborgs have this, and it's been an effective nerf to them.

Meanwhile, your proposed solution seems to be sneaking up to someone, whipping out a baton, and slapping them with it twice before they know what's what. That's also not that easy, especially because people tend to sidle away from officers. If they think you're chasing them, a good proportion of the playerbase will think 'okay, chases are fun' and run away for the hell of it. It's all very well saying that the first baton strike will give 70 stamina damage, but that really relies on you being able to get that in.

So what's the solution? For security, there becomes one reliable one. Until it gets nerfed, anyway. More flashbanging! Is that definitely what you want?

Also, I'm hesitant about ideas of armour piercing, mostly because at the moment (or at least before the nerf) armour was only ever really important against the most powerful weapons, at which point it could actually reduce a significant amount of damage. If you remove the usefulness of armour against the most deadly weapons (I'm sure something like an esword would be made armour piercing) then armour just becomes useful for the middle ground, ie not that useful at all.

[TheNightingale]

Stamina damage should slow you down significantly (at the moment, as Cheimon said, it's not much) when they hit you. Aside from that, I love this idea.

Question, though: If you have a shield in your right hand, can you still attack to your right? We know it blocks anything coming from your right (is that including electrodes?), but does it limit your offensive capabilities?

[Shaps-cloud]

How do you apply stamina damage anyway? I know that boxing gloves do a fair amount, and disablers obviously work off it (and people will start to slow to a crawl after eating a few beams), but how else can you deal it?

[DemonFiren]

Tirezene is the only other way I know.

[Incomptinence]

A use of stamina that would make sense would be making pushing and punching deal stamina damage with a threshold about total knock down for disarming on disarm, actually do that for all melee weapons too lucky knock outs are devastating and probably the goofiest aspect of high end melee weapons like the esword. Oh you could take 4 hits to crit a guy or he could just randomly be knocked out in the first blow and totally at your mercy, good grief.

[Saegrimr]

The prep work and "nuances" that anon and fala are talking about are just little shit like targetting the mouth/groin for easier knockouts, eyes for eyestabbing, head for higher damage cap and negating body armor.

That's fine and all I guess, but you seriously cannot tell me theres a secret monkey technique involved in two people pushing disarm at eachother. There's no targetable difference between them and either one guy does nothing but shove the other like a playground bully, and the other guy gets a knockdown on first click. The only "git gud" aspect here is to take a toolbox to guy 2's head and skip the RNG- OH WAIT, he just knocked you down first click and took your toolbox.

Now i'm not really for or against these proposed changes, they're interesting but seem a little too complex. Puts more focus on the character sprite part when people already barely focus on the text box for muh RP.

[Timbrewolf]

The prep work and "nuances" that anon and fala are talking about are just little shit like targetting the mouth/groin for easier knockouts, eyes for eyestabbing, head for higher damage cap and negating body armor.

That's fine and all I guess, but you seriously cannot tell me theres a secret monkey technique involved in two people pushing disarm at eachother. There's no targetable difference between them and either one guy does nothing but shove the other like a playground bully, and the other guy gets a knockdown on first click. The only "git gud" aspect here is to take a toolbox to guy 2's head and skip the RNG- OH WAIT, he just knocked you down first click and took your toolbox.

Now i'm not really for or against these proposed changes, they're interesting but seem a little too complex. Puts more focus on the character sprite part when people already barely focus on the text box for muh RP.

If you don't know the tricks, you don't know the tricks.

Running side-to-side to dodge attacks is better than running up and down, for example. If you think about it for a second you'll figure out why.

There's depth and tricks to learn but people would rather blame lag or accuse the system of being RNG based.

Ping is a fairly small part of robustness outside of thunderdome goat battles.

Bruh come on bruh I live farther away from the server than you do and I trampled you everytime bruh. Goat battles are the epitome of robustitude because you have to rely solely on your ability to juke around and click on people accurately.

SS13 combat as it is is kind of like a shmup in that sense. You swoop around and make attack runs on people then retreat back and juke around for another stab.

[Saegrimr]

If you don't know the tricks, you don't know the tricks.

Running side-to-side to dodge attacks is better than running up and down, for example. If you think about it for a second you'll figure out why.

There's depth and tricks to learn but people would rather blame lag or accuse the system of being RNG based.

Well yes, its the same idea that playing a female character with a satchel was more desirable for powergaymen because less pixels to click. Its also why people get their shit slapped by the little nuke ops manhacks despite having next to no health.

You're still not touching the subject of once the clicks DO connect. You can ninja dodge left and right fully nude with a *flip macro if you have a sixth sense to prevent me clicking your head/legs and get 20 disarms on me all you want, but if none of them proc the actual disarm or slip and I manage to hit you only once while holding perfectly still taking it like an unrobust bitch. Then bam. Instant knockdown. Thanks nat 20.

No amount of your effort in dodging mattered.

[Loonikus]

In the end, it doesn't even matter if the current combat system has "depth and tricks" because its just not fun. The entire system feels like your just trying to stunlock your opponent and nobody likes to be stunlocked.

[Remie Richards]

In the end, it doesn't even matter...

I smell edge.

[Loonikus]

Well meme'd my weeb friend.

[PKPenguin321]

Personally I find that having an antagonist who relies on raw killing power to survive (wizard and nuke ops) that can be offed by one asshole assistant who gets a lucky disarm is very poor design.

Keyword being "Personally." When I first got into this game and friends would tell me stories about it, some of the more memorable ones were things like "A horde of assistants, they call 'em the greytide because they all wear grey and are indistinguishable, ran up to the nuke ops, right? The armed gunmen set on murdering everyone. And this greytide, with just toolboxes and fists, runs up and slaps their guns down and bashes their heads in!" or "I was just walking down the hall as a chemist when this wizard teleports out of nowhere in front of me with some staff, so I quickly slapped it away and turned him into a monkey with it!"
To us these stories don't seem like such a big deal, but that's because we're used to it. But before you started playing the game, these crazy ass stories probably intrigued the hell out of you. The absurdity of slapping someone's gun out of their hand and beating them with nothing but a toolbox? Hilarious. Unique. That doesn't happen in other games.
What convinced me to take an interest in this game was the stories of the shenanigans and wacky fun. These would not exist without the combat system we currently have. "The clown's banana peel slips people? Instant stun, REMOVE IT!" No more clown.

All of that goes without even mentioning the insane flaws this proposed system has. "Attacking deals stamina damage to the attacker so they can't fight forever!" So fighting too much makes you collapse and die?
"Shields protect you from everything and you only take minimal stamina damage if you're attacked while holding them!" So I can hold a shield, everyone that tries to attack me with collapse from stamina, and I can murder them for free?
"You can't take more stamina damage while already collapsed, so no more stunlocks!" You mean stamina damage literally doesn't matter because the stun won't even last long enough for people to cuff me? So after I collapse from fighting too much, or blocking too many hits, I'll be back on my feet and fighting again nearly instantly and there's nothing anybody can do about it? You mean stamina damage, the thing half of this entire proposed system is built around, doesn't even work?

I'm sorry, but this system has practically no merit. Maybe on some kind of crazy ass RP server, but they're probably not the type of people to want a super complicated combat system, since it requires too much "game-y" effort. Our combat system, while it has stunlocks and instant stuns, is worlds better than the proposed.

[WJohnston]

Notice that I avoided giving real numbers here, as they're bound to get tweaked. How much stamina damage you suffer while beating the crap out of someone is probably minor, it's just to prevent you from single-handedly fighting off a squad of 30 people if you happen to be able to continuously whack at all of them. It forces you to retreat and recover a little bit, which is hardly a problem since you already can't fight a huge team of people by yourself without getting absolutely destroyed (just TRY to take on 10 guys alone, your equipment won't matter as-is). I see it less as a restriction and more as a way to nudge players towards smarter play. We all know you can't fight groups of people, even right now. Them getting tired for trying it will penalize them for attempting the impossible.

You're also absolutely not invincible with a shield. The point of it is that it makes you take stamina damage from most directions you would otherwise get struck from (which is recoverable by just backing out for a bit) as opposed to armor which simply minimizes incoming damage. Again, this is a way of preventing you from over-extending and trying to take on the entire station just because you have a shield, getting swarmed will absolutely end poorly for you. Furthermore, shields could very well have specific weaknesses: For example a regular riot shield would prevent melee and bullet attacks (good against revs, cults, and nuke ops, useless against lasers) while energy shields that nuke ops have could prevent melee and energy/laser attacks (good against swarming people and security's lasers, useless against friendly fire or the detective).

The amount of stamina damage a weapon can deal, how much stamina damage you take from being the attacker and wailing on someone, and how much you take from your shield blocking an attack can all easily be tweaked, and I haven't tried to suggest what these values should be, only that the system exist for it.

[Bombadil]

Turn rates soon... We dota now

[PKPenguin321]

Notice that I avoided giving real numbers here, as they're bound to get tweaked. How much stamina damage you suffer while beating the crap out of someone is probably minor, it's just to prevent you from single-handedly fighting off a squad of 30 people if you happen to be able to continuously whack at all of them. It forces you to retreat and recover a little bit, which is hardly a problem since you already can't fight a huge team of people by yourself without getting absolutely destroyed (just TRY to take on 10 guys alone, your equipment won't matter as-is). I see it less as a restriction and more as a way to nudge players towards smarter play. We all know you can't fight groups of people, even right now. Them getting tired for trying it will penalize them for attempting the impossible.

You're also absolutely not invincible with a shield. The point of it is that it makes you take stamina damage from most directions you would otherwise get struck from (which is recoverable by just backing out for a bit) as opposed to armor which simply minimizes incoming damage. Again, this is a way of preventing you from over-extending and trying to take on the entire station just because you have a shield, getting swarmed will absolutely end poorly for you. Furthermore, shields could very well have specific weaknesses: For example a regular riot shield would prevent melee and bullet attacks (good against revs, cults, and nuke ops, useless against lasers) while energy shields that nuke ops have could prevent melee and energy/laser attacks (good against swarming people and security's lasers, useless against friendly fire or the detective).

The amount of stamina damage a weapon can deal, how much stamina damage you take from being the attacker and wailing on someone, and how much you take from your shield blocking an attack can all easily be tweaked, and I haven't tried to suggest what these values should be, only that the system exist for it.

You keep using these examples involving "Hordes of thirty people" or "getting attacked from all sides and blocking with your shields," but the fact is these scenarios will almost never happen. What is worlds more likely is one HoS sidestepping with a shield and beelining for a traitor in maintenance whilst firing his disabler. The traitor now has zero viable options and inevitably dies. This will happen again and again, every round, with every antag type. 1v1 conflicts are 99% of the conflicts we have. 1v30 has never really happened, and 1 verses a horde is seriously unlikely and will only maybe happen in rounds like rev.

This system is not balanced or functional at it's core for the game that we have currently.

[Incomptinence]

It's called asymmetrical balance one man is a clown the other is a captain are they equal in terms of damage fuck no.

Stun nerfs didn't really help the solo antags because it came after them too. All it does is make groups of revs with random objects closer and closer to being unbeatable.

[onleavedontatme]

To us these stories don't seem like such a big deal, but that's because we're used to it. But before you started playing the game, these crazy ass stories probably intrigued the hell out of you. The absurdity of slapping someone's gun out of their hand and beating them with nothing but a toolbox? Hilarious. Unique. That doesn't happen in other games.

Argued basically the exact same thing in coderbus last night. The same people who tell us to stop validhunting because it's a roleplaying game want to strip all the wackiness and randomness out so said validhunting can be perfectly balanced.

X role is supposed to beat Y role, A shouldn't be happening to B, and so on.

And for what though? Why tear down (and attempt to rebuild) an established game when the end result is never gonna be that great anyway because of the engine.

Why not make your own game instead of getting upset at and trying to change unique features of SS13? There are literally thousands of games out there already where you can have "balanced" matchups and with a hell of a lot better gunplay as well.

[onleavedontatme]

The banana peel example in particular is perfect.

My first wizard round, back in 2010, I warped into genetics, ei nathed the clown, slipped on his PDA, and got monkeyed by the geneticist. He promptly ate me.

That can't happen in any other game. Completely stupid shit is what makes SS13 memorable. Things going wrong is what makes the game so replayable. I sure as hell do not remember the average round of counterstrike or battlefield 5 years later (or a week or even day later).