Cult Rework Idea

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ChangelingRain
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Cult Rework Idea

Post by ChangelingRain » #111069

Numbers, especially power numbers, are definitely not final.

Instead of researching words, the cult needs to increase its power by corrupting tiles, constructing pylons, sacrificing unfortunate victims, and outright conversion.
The cult tome still has three options; communicate, scribe, and check notes.
Of these, only check notes and scribe are different;
Scribe drains blood instead of inflicting small amounts of damage, and can make any unlocked rune, though you can no longer stack multiple runes on a single tile.
Check notes describes the runes that are currently unlocked, shows how much power the cult has, and shows what objectives are complete.

The cult always starts at 5 cultists.

The cult has one of three sets of objectives;
Invoke, which has to invoke a scion of Nar-Sie, then call Nar-Sie Herself.
Slaughter, which has bloodthirst, requiring the cult to drain at least 3000 units of blood for Nar-Sie, then activate the Slaughter Rune.
Dominion, which requires the cult to trigger the Dominion Rune and then finish with at least 15 humanoid cultists on the shuttle and Dominion active.

Runes gain additional effects or become easier to use if on cult tiles or near pylons.

The null rod is anathema to most cult power, revealing it simply by presence, making the holder and even nearby noncultists immune to cult effects, and shattering it with mere single hits.


Cult power is a scale from 0 to 1000:
Each living cultist grants 15 cult power and each living construct(but not shades) grants 5 cult power.
Each corrupted tile grants 1 cult power, each corrupted wall grants 3 cult power, and each corrupted door grants 5 cult power.
Pylons grant an additional 20 cult power.
Once the cult hits 1000 power, all runes permanently unlock, even if cult power would normally lower.

0 power:
Spoiler:
Convert Rune;
A rune that converts enemies of the cult on it, but is blocked by loyalty implants.
If any of those enemies of the cult are holding a null rod, the rune explodes before it can convert anyone, damaging only nearby cultists.
If imbued, spawns a cult tome.
If on cult floors/near pylons, spawns a cult tome for each converted person.
Requires 3 cultists, or if on cult floors/near pylons, 1.

Corruption Rune;
A one-use rune that corrupts the nearby area, randomly converting walls to cult walls, floors to cult floors, and doors to cult doors.
Has scaling effect based on the number of cultists invoking it;
1 cultist converts only a 3x3 area, while 2 convert a 5x5 area, 3 a 7x7 area, 4 a 9x9 area, etc
At 9 cultists, converts a 17x17 area. Instead invokes a scion of Nar-Sie if the cult has the invoke a scion objective, which rapidly gains range until the entire zlevel is corrupted.
The scion of Nar-Sie does not kill or transform cultists as She would.

Stun Rune;
A one-use rune that stuns and mutes all nearby enemies of the cult.
The holder of the null rod is immune, however.
If imbued, stuns and mutes for 15 seconds.
If on cult floors/near pylons, stuns for much longer.
Effect scales with number of cultists invoking it;
1 cultist stuns only briefly, while 2 stun for enough to cuff, and 3 or more stun for nearly half a minute.
100 power:
Spoiler:
Wall Rune;
A one-use rune that produces a manifest wall on its tile.
If imbued, can be used to convert a normal wall into a manifest wall.
Manifest walls do not count towards cult power, but act as cult-only secret doors.
Manifest walls are shattered by the power of the null rod and revealed if the holder so much as bumps into them.
Manifest walls CAN be corrupted, and become much less subtle when corrupted, as it reveals their arcane markings.
Requires 1 cultist.

Shell Rune;
A one-use rune that summons a stone shell for emplacing a soulstone within.
The shell can produce Artificers, Juggernauts, or Wraiths.
Requires 3 cultists, or if on cult floor/near pylons, 2.

Imbue Rune;
A one-use rune that imbues a nearby imbueable rune into up to 2 papers on it.
If on cult floors/near pylons, does not require papers to imbue; it produces magical talismans from the blood used to scribe it.
Requires 1 cultist.
200 power:
Spoiler:
Sacrifice Rune;
Allows the cult to sacrifice any person on it, granting 8% of the cult's current cult power as more cult power.
If the target possesses the null rod, the rune fizzles, though it is imbued with enough magic to avoid causing anything worse.
Traps the victim's soul in a soulstone.
Requires 3 cultists, or if on cult floor/near pylons, 2.

Pylon Rune;
A one-use rune that summons a pylon, which empowers nearby cult runes without needing cult floors, but is fragile.
Pylon Runes cannot be scribed within 3 tiles of other Pylons.
Requires 2 cultists.

Teleport Rune;
A rune that allows you to teleport to any other teleport rune, selected from a list that shows locations.
If imbued, allows you to teleport to any teleport rune.
If on a cult floor, will also move objects and mobs other than the invoker on it to the target rune.
Requires 1 cultist.
300 power:
Spoiler:
EMP Rune;
A one-use rune that causes an electromagnetic pulse.
If imbued, pulses only the target struck, but does so repeatedly.
If on cult floors/near pylons, only effects enemies of the cult.
Requires 1 cultist.

Armor Rune;
A one-use rune that summons spaceworthy armor and a robust blade on the invoker.
If imbued, can be used on other cultists to provide armor.
If on cult floors/near pylons, provides armor to all cultists near it.
Requires 1 cultist.

Blood Drain Rune;
A rune that drains blood from enemies of the cult on all Blood Drain Runes.
The holder of the null rod is immune, however.
If imbued, drains 400 blood from the target, enough to nearly kill them.
If the rune is on cult floors/near pylons, that rune drains in a 5x5 area instead.
Requires 3 cultists, or if on cult floors/near pylons, 2.
400 power:
Spoiler:
Blood Boil Rune;
A rune that massively overheats enemies of the cult who can see it, doing massive burn damage quite rapidly.
The holder of the null rod is immune, however.
If on cult floors/near pylons, heals the invokers for each affected non-cultist.
Requires 3 cultists.

Obscure Rune;
A rune that hides runes in a 3x3 area around it from enemies of the cult as long as it is active.
If the null rod passes over a hidden rune, it will be revealed and temporarily disabled.
If imbued, hides only runes on the user's tile.
If on cult floors/near pylons, hides in a 5x5 area.
Requires 1 cultist to activate or disable.

Raise Dead Rune;
A one-use rune that allows you to raise the dead as cultists.
Requires a ghost and a dead body to be on the rune, forcing the ghost into the risen body.
If the null rod is nearby, will fizzle, possibly creating vicious shards of nothing, unaligned to Nar-Sie.
If on cult floors/near pylons, will raise those who were already cultists with the original mind, if possible.
Requires 3 cultists.
500 power:
Spoiler:
Astral Vision Rune;
A rune that reveals ghosts who pass nearby.
If on cult floors/near pylons, has a much wider radius.
Does not require invoking, being simply a passive rune.

Astral Journey Rune;
A rune that allows the invoker to take an astral journey, speaking to unfathomable spirits and gaining the ability to seek out targets of the cult.
While invoking, the user cannot be moved, and the rune cannot be removed short of being struck by the null rod, which will permanently strand the invoker in the astral plane.
The invoker slowly loses blood while invoking, and may die if the rune is invoked for too long.
If on cult floors/near pylons, does not cause the invoker to lose blood.
Requires 1 cultist on the rune.
600 power:
Spoiler:
Retrieve Cultist Rune;
A one-use rune that allows you to retrieve a cultist who is currently bound.
If the null rod is nearby, or the area they are in is holy, the attempt to retrieve them will fail.
If on cult floors/near pylons, will attempt to outfit them with armor, a blade, and a tome, if they lack such.
Requires 3 cultists.

Summon Cultist Rune;
A one-use rune that allows you to attempt to summon a cultist who is not bound.
The summoning can be rejected by the cultist, and will be blocked if the null rod is nearby or the area they are in is holy.
If on cult floors/near pylons, will attempt to outfit them with armor, a blade, and a tome, if they lack such.
Requires 3 cultists.

Structure Rune;
A one-use rune that allows you to summon a powerful cult structure.
Can summon a Miasmatic Brazer, an Automation Forge, an Arcane Armory, or a Cabal Library:
Miasmatic Brazers produce clouds of foul miasma which stun enemies of the cult, as long as the null rod is not nearby. They can also be destroyed by the null rod or simple brute force.
Automation Forges produce shells every few seconds, but can be destroyed by the null rod or simple brute force.
Arcane Armories produce cult armor and swords for any cultist who uses it, but can be destroyed by the null rod or simple brute force.
Cabal Libraries produce tomes and imbued talismans for any cultist who uses it, but can be destroyed by the null rod or simple brute force.

Requires 2 cultists, can only be activated on cult floors/near pylons.
700 power:
Spoiler:
Augment Rune;
A one-use rune that augments a cultist on it, giving them a body of infallible stone.
The augmented cultist is immune to the ravages of space, heat, electricity, and pressure, but becomes unable to scribe runes.
However, if they are struck by the null rod, they take massive damage and are stunned.
If on cult floors/near pylons, grants additional bindings that allow them to scribe runes without a blood cost.
Requires 3 cultists and at least 1 of those cultists on the rune.

Blazing Blood Rune;
A one-use rune that causes spilled blood to leap into unnatural flame, burning enemies of the cult.
The null rod will quench these unnatural fires when the holder passes through them..
If on cult floors/near pylons, the unnatural blaze will last for much longer.
Requires 2 cultists.
800 power:
Spoiler:
Construct Rune;
A one-use rune that requires a dead body and a ghost in or on it, allowing you to directly force a ghost into a construct.
Consumes the body to fuel the transformation, however.
Allows you to pick from Juggernaut, Artificer, and Wraith.
If imbued, can be used on any dead body to snatch a spirit from the astral plane into a construct.
If not imbued and on cult floors/near pylons, also allows you to pick Harvester.
Requires 2 cultists.

Manifest Spirit Rune;
A one-use rune that forces a ghost on its tile into a guardian spirit to protect a cultist on its tile.
Guardian spirits do not take damage themselves, but give damage to the invoker.
Spirits struck by the null rod will be forced back into the invoker and will deal the invoker heavy damage.
If on cult floors/near pylons, will summon a spirit that gives less damage to the invoker.
Requires 3 cultists and at least 1 of those cultists on the rune.
900 power:
Spoiler:
Dominion Rune;
A huge(3x3) rune that forces Dominion, forcing the Glory of Nar-Sie into anyone who is on a corrupted tile at the time of activation.
If the cult has the Dominion objective, this effect is constant, converting anyone who moves onto a corrupted tile.
Triggering Dominion reveals the location of the rune, and examining the null rod points you towards it.
Those who are implanted or near someone holding the null rod are immune.
If the rune is disrupted by the null rod, the Dominion is Broken, removing the cult status of all cultists converted by Dominion.
After activation, the rune cannot be scribed again unless the Dominion is Broken.
Requires 9 cultists to trigger, must be on cult floors, and cannot be removed by tomes once activated.

3000 Blood Drained:

Slaughter Rune;
A huge(3x3) one-use rune that calls out to foul demons and binds them to Nar-Sie's will.
On activation, summons 3 slaughter demons and binds them to the cult, as well as spilling blood on random corrupted tiles.
After activation, the rune cannot be scribed again.
Requires 9 cultists to trigger.

Scion of Nar-Sie Invoked:

Call Nar-Sie Rune;
A massive(5x5) one-use rune that summons the Geometer of Blood, She Herself, Nar-Sie.
She transforms all who witness Her into golems, animated creatures of stone bound to Her, outfitted with armor, a blade, and a tome.
She also advances all Constructs who witness her into Specters, suits of animated stone, with all powers of constructs, but the ability to hold and use items.
She also converts any remaining uncorrupted tiles and doors into cult tiles and doors.
After activation, the rune cannot be scribed again.
Requires 13 cultists within a 5x5 area around the center of the rune.
Other changes to cult items, mobs, and objects;
Spoiler:
Soulstones can be used on visible ghosts to pull them in if they have BE_CULTIST on.
Soulstones no longer remember the shade inside them, allowing shades to be grabbed by any soulstone.
Tomes do random damage between 10 and 20(from between 5 and 20) but do not damage the null rod holder.
Cult swords can be purged by pouring holy water over them.
Cult swords do 30 damage, but can block melee attacks.
Cult swords will not damage cultists if thrown at them.
Cult armor is spaceproof, is resistant to lasers and energy(though much less to melee and bullets)
Cultists can get cult robes via armor runes, retrieve runes, or summon runes, which are jumpsuit-slot and spooky.
Cultists can also get cult masks, which are also spooky.
Spooky cult gloves.

Cultists can only be deconverted by holy water if they were not part of the original five.
Cultists converted by Dominion have a different icon, so that you can avoid surprise murder if the Dominion Rune gets rodded.

Juggernauts have slightly less health, lose reflect, the force threshold, and some melee damage.
Juggernaut forcewalls can be moved through by cultists and have a lower cooldown, but still block projectiles.
Juggernauts gain 'Unholy Force' which gives them a temporary force threshold, more damage, and laser reflect(which makes them immune, rather than resistant, and reflects at the firer)
Artificers can see construct health percentages and heal for a percentage of the target's health instead of a flat amount.
Artificers no longer have minor magic missile, instead gaining the ability to heal nearby constructs for a large amount.
Wraiths no longer have jaunt, instead having the ability to bloodcrawl, though not consume.
Wraiths heal by attacking enemies.
Harvesters no longer have paralyzing smoke.
Harvesters can soulstone by attacking targets normally eligible for soulstoning, and can release filled stones or release the shades instead.
Harvesters hold up to 6 shades at once.
There can only be a maximum of 1 construct per 50 power, a maximum of 20 constructs when at max power.

Specters have all powers of normal constructs, including wallsmashing and bloodcrawling, but can also carry and use items.
Cult Guardian Spirits do low-ish damage and give medium(0.6 or 0.3 if spawned on cult floor) damage to the invoker when hit.
Cult Guardian Spirits can go up to 7 tiles from the summoner and have a visible beam link to the summoner.

Cult Doors only allow you to pass if you are a cultist or smash the door with a null rod.
Manifested Walls allow passage if you are a cultist only, being otherwise a solid wall.
Pylons grant cult power and empower runes, and are moderately fragile.
Last edited by ChangelingRain on Sat Sep 19, 2015 6:28 pm, edited 14 times in total.
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Cheimon
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Re: Cult Rework Idea

Post by Cheimon » #111097

What is wrong with cult currently, creating a need for this rework?

How would this rework fix those issues?
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ChangelingRain
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Re: Cult Rework Idea

Post by ChangelingRain » #111111

This is a good question to ask!

Words(and thus research) are the main problem with current cult; they're a limiter on cult power that doesn't work, being easily cheesable via research, as well as randomly granted by sacrifices, making any possible limit on a rune's power via it being hard to obtain words effectively impossible.
There are also a bunch of little problems, stuff that's more or less useless, including a deafness rune, two different runes for revealing and hiding runes, stuff that's simply too good, such as blood boil and manifest ghost spam via blood drain, and, the crowning achievement, these things not being used despite how effective they are.

In theory, the null rod is a counter to cult power. In practice, it does very little, not even making the holder unconvertable.

The objectives are also bad; right now, the cult starts with 9 people. If they got Summon Nar-Sie and sacrifice, they could sacrifice and summon literally roundstart if they were coordinated.
Meanwhile, the escape with 15 cultists objective, which shows up with sac, is harder than actually summoning nar-sie, as it needs more cultists and for said cultists to reach the shuttle, which, despite there being a rune to summon cultists AND a manifest rune, is often extremely hard to pull off even if there is significant cult presence.
That is not good balance.

I guess I can't fix players being idiots, but I can make the actual play+rune use smoother and more intuitive.
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invisty
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Re: Cult Rework Idea

Post by invisty » #111119

Anonus wrote:Words(and thus research) are the main problem with current cult;
They're really not.

The main problems that I see with cult is the terrible powercreep balance vs sec, meta-flagged items (tomes) making them easy game for validhunters, and their "WORST OF THE WORST" status under asimov.
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Malkevin

Re: Cult Rework Idea

Post by Malkevin » #111125

Cheimon wrote:What is wrong with cult currently, creating a need for this rework?

How would this rework fix those issues?
Whats wrong with it is thats its a completely unfinished game mode thats been abandoned.
Anonus wrote:Instead of researching words, the cult needs to increase its power by corrupting tiles, constructing pylons, sacrificing unfortunate victims, and later on, outright conversion.[/spoiler]
This was actually where I was going with things for sac cult.
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Oldman Robustin
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Re: Cult Rework Idea

Post by Oldman Robustin » #111582

Cult has room for improvement but this is not improvement, this version of cult COULD be an improvement but it would require an almost unprecedented level of effort.

Your idea isn't anywhere near a workable game mode but I'll throw out a few quick reasons:

1) 3 starter cult when many early runes require 3 cult to be effective. This is a huge problem given that back in the days of ~4 starter cult you would be lucky to even convince two to share their starting words. Convincing the other two cultists to gather somewhere, act intelligently, and do their job effectively would be nearly impossible. The fact you're gimping starter cult so hard AND gimping stun talismans gives you an obscenely low chance of success.

2) While the starter cult is absurdly weak, like 99% guaranteed to fail as a team weak, your mechanics do a far better job of encouraging cheese above anything else. I would NEVER attempt to use your mechanics as intended. Trying to get people to gather around a stun rune and effectively capture and convert passerbys without being discovered has an infinitesimally small chance of succeeding. Meanwhile your mechanics completely encourage me to grab an RCD, all the metal I can carry, and sit in space/mining making a legion of cult doors and pylons until I hit 800 power and float over to the solars to poop out infinite juggernauts and kill the station.

3) Way too much emphasis on the null rod. It's a item that sits on a desk at roundstart with no special protection. If there's no chaplain then cult will immediately space it and if there is a chaplain then you're forced to stunprod and loudly murder him just so he doesn't show up later with his aura of cultfucking. Also placing a massive emphasis on the robustness of an RP role is also very questionable.
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ChangelingRain
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Re: Cult Rework Idea

Post by ChangelingRain » #111618

Oldman Robustin wrote:Cult has room for improvement but this is not improvement, this version of cult COULD be an improvement but it would require an almost unprecedented level of effort.

Your idea isn't anywhere near a workable game mode but I'll throw out a few quick reasons:

1) 3 starter cult when many early runes require 3 cult to be effective. This is a huge problem given that back in the days of ~4 starter cult you would be lucky to even convince two to share their starting words. Convincing the other two cultists to gather somewhere, act intelligently, and do their job effectively would be nearly impossible. The fact you're gimping starter cult so hard AND gimping stun talismans gives you an obscenely low chance of success.

2) While the starter cult is absurdly weak, like 99% guaranteed to fail as a team weak, your mechanics do a far better job of encouraging cheese above anything else. I would NEVER attempt to use your mechanics as intended. Trying to get people to gather around a stun rune and effectively capture and convert passerbys without being discovered has an infinitesimally small chance of succeeding. Meanwhile your mechanics completely encourage me to grab an RCD, all the metal I can carry, and sit in space/mining making a legion of cult doors and pylons until I hit 800 power and float over to the solars to poop out infinite juggernauts and kill the station.

3) Way too much emphasis on the null rod. It's a item that sits on a desk at roundstart with no special protection. If there's no chaplain then cult will immediately space it and if there is a chaplain then you're forced to stunprod and loudly murder him just so he doesn't show up later with his aura of cultfucking. Also placing a massive emphasis on the robustness of an RP role is also very questionable.
You're probably entirely right on points 1 and 3, and I commend you for actually giving feedback on my shit idea.
Though point 2 isn't an issue because that would take literal hours(you'd need about 230 walls to get 700 power and the corrupt chance is semi-random)
Editaroni: Swapped convert and sac rune unlocks, 5 starting cultists everything is fixed okay
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