How can we make Cult more fun?

Xhuis · Post by **Xhuis** » Sat Nov 07, 2015 4:13 am #132244

I'm planning on doing a few changes to the Cult gamemode. How do you think that Cult can be improved? Post your ideas below.

Zilenan91 · Post by **Zilenan91** » Sat Nov 07, 2015 4:49 am #132247

Make it so stun paper doesn't go through sunglasses to prevent the shitty situation of sec getting absolutely GGNORE'd by it and the imminent snowball.

Poorman · Post by **Poorman** » Sat Nov 07, 2015 4:49 am #132248

Remove it so we can play a fun round instead

onleavedontatme · Sat Nov 07, 2015 4:59 am

Poorman wrote:Remove it so we can play a fun round instead

Super Aggro Crag · Sat Nov 07, 2015 5:02 am

remove nar-sie

Saegrimr · Post by **Saegrimr** » Sat Nov 07, 2015 5:04 am #132251

Make the cult walls/flooring actually useful for something.

Zilenan91 · Post by **Zilenan91** » Sat Nov 07, 2015 5:25 am #132255

Or just remove it or make an admin disable it from rotation until something is done about it. Cult is our only objectively bad mode, and without a total rework/Hand of God replacing it there's just nothing that can really be done.

As it stands right now, Cult is such a fucking mess. They do so many things and are just so poorly designed as a whole that they're impossible to save.

Helios · Post by **Helios** » Sat Nov 07, 2015 5:35 am #132256

Someone suggested this before, but build it towards constructs.
Give Harvester abilities around collecting resources, as well as supplying medical attention.
Give cultists the ability to make soulstones once ever 3 minutes using a rune, and shells every 2.5 minutes using a rune.
Take out conversion. Construct Cult 2015.

Other ideas.
Give them more abilties, give the shadowling curve, where the more followers you have, the more abilities you unlock. So blood boil higher, summon narsie when you have 9, cult space suits when you have 7 and so on

Zilenan91 · Post by **Zilenan91** » Sat Nov 07, 2015 5:39 am #132258

That's an entire cult rework. Which means it'll be another massive project, something that Xhuis has many of.

Helios · Post by **Helios** » Sat Nov 07, 2015 8:03 am #132270

Zilenan91 wrote:That's an entire cult rework. Which means it'll be another massive project, something that Xhuis has many of.

Fine, smaller change.
Make cult tiles make you feel uneasy and shake your screen/give you coughing
walls a pain to deconstruct
Runes that when walked over deal stamina damage
Encourage a base building mechanic

Zilenan91 · Post by **Zilenan91** » Sat Nov 07, 2015 8:05 am #132271

Hand of God can do this

Jembo · Post by **Jembo** » Sat Nov 07, 2015 1:51 pm #132291

Give cultists blood magic, and low tier wizard spells if they recruit enough people. Like give them recruitment points, 10 points and they earn robeless spell or unique cult only spells but only for the person doing the converting. It'd encourage converting people. But I don't think it'd be too OP because it'd be difficult to pull off. Perhaps have a trigger X amount of cultists has a chance to spawn some sort of protagonist to fight them. Also make it random, maybe nano sends a ninja to get rid of all this cult bullshit. Maybe they send the Spanish inquisition? Rounds are more fun the more people get to interact with each other, or if the round type has a bunch of cool abilities or items. Cult has a bunch of these but it's difficult to pull off, and putting your faith in your *team* is retarded.

Jacough · Post by **Jacough** » Sat Nov 07, 2015 3:24 pm #132301

Turn it into a silent hill type thing where the cultists have to convert a percentage of the station's walls and floors into cult tiles to create their vision of heaven. Monsters representing a 2D spessmen's deepest and darkest fears like an abstract blob of flesh with a stun prod and cable cuffs for arms or a hideous monstrosity that leaves trails of water and has an arm blade will occasionally spawn on cultist tiles and attack non cultists. Sometimes the cultists will receive an additional objective to capture a specific crewman and perform an ancient ritual to force them to birth God.

Saegrimr · Post by **Saegrimr** » Sat Nov 07, 2015 3:26 pm #132302

Jacough wrote:Turn it into a silent hill type thing where the cultists have to convert a percentage of the station's walls and floors into cult tiles to create their vision of heaven. Monsters representing a 2D spessmen's deepest and darkest fears like an abstract blob of flesh with a stun prod and cable cuffs for arms or a hideous monstrosity that leaves trails of water and has an arm blade well occasionally spawn on cultist tiles and attack non cultists. Sometimes the cultists will receive an additional objective to capture a specific crewman and perform an ancient ritual to force them to birth God.

Now that'd be some shit. It'd give the artificers something to fucking do too with their build a wall shit.

CPTANT · Post by **CPTANT** » Sat Nov 07, 2015 5:03 pm #132314

Cult just feels like revs where the revs have magical stun papers since the amount of people for conversion was lowered to 3 and every spell was made available at roundstart.

Xhuis · Post by **Xhuis** » Sat Nov 07, 2015 5:08 pm #132315

If I was to make cult based upon capturing territory, it would encourage use of new runes plus unused ones like Blind, it would encourage building a permanent base, as well as staying in communication.
I'll see what I can do.

Zilenan91 · Post by **Zilenan91** » Sat Nov 07, 2015 8:40 pm #132332

Can you also make stun paper less stupid? Cult will be at least bearable if that thing isn't as stupid as it is now.

Xhuis · Post by **Xhuis** » Sat Nov 07, 2015 9:26 pm #132341

Zilenan91 wrote:Can you also make stun paper less stupid? Cult will be at least bearable if that thing isn't as stupid as it is now.

Stunpaper is balanced. Here's why.

It requires multiple inventory slots to have more than one stun (compared to a stun baton, which requires one slot for ten stuns)
It is one-use (compared to a stun baton, which has ten by default)
It is melee-range only (compared to a taser, which can be used from any range)
It is obvious to nearby passerby
They are tedious to make en masse

And here's why most people consider them not balanced:

They mute you for 10 seconds (compared to perfluorodecalin, which mutes for much longer)
They stun you for 10 seconds (compared to a stun baton, which does 7, but can be chained)

Zilenan91 · Post by **Zilenan91** » Sat Nov 07, 2015 9:38 pm #132342

On their own, they are not a good stun, yes. The problem you missed is how cultists can shit out 30+ of these in a VERY short timespan and hand them out to their entire team, making all of them have access to incredibly long stuns that, unlike stun batons or really any other stun in the entire game, can't be used by non-cultists. So what you're left with is a bunch of dudes with 50% longer lasting stun batons that mute, and others with regular stuff.

Aloraydrel · Post by **Aloraydrel** » Sat Nov 07, 2015 10:12 pm #132345

More construct types honestly

1g88a · Post by **1g88a** » Sun Nov 08, 2015 6:54 am #132421

Aloraydrel wrote:More construct types honestly

I'd be cool with a bigger emphasis on constructs, it makes the original cultists more special and serves to distinguish it from other modes. Plus, constructs are cool.

Maybe let Artificer's build the fake/door versions of walls in addition to their current options?

onleavedontatme · Sun Nov 08, 2015 7:22 am

Aloraydrel wrote:More construct types honestly

I made tank/healer/dps already though what else would I add?

Saegrimr · Post by **Saegrimr** » Sun Nov 08, 2015 7:23 am #132429

Kor wrote:I made tank/healer/dps already though what else would I add?

Ah the "holy trinity" that every MMO falls victim to.

invisty · Post by **invisty** » Sun Nov 08, 2015 8:30 am #132432

Xhuis wrote:How can we make Cult more fun?

Remove all items and permanent indicators that scream valid at round-start (tomes, paper, constructs, constructions). Make the cult defined entirely by the actions of its members through magical powers granted as a result of their increasing influence. Introduce benign actions the cultists must complete that make them valid if caught, but collectively empowered if they can complete them.

As long as cult remains as "rev with constructs" it will just continue to play like a slower version of rev. IMO cult should be the asymmetric version of rev, where instead of winning via overt behaviour, the cult succeeds via being shady and keeping out of sight while slowly building their power-base, a lot like the way a shadowling does - snatching people into the shadows and turning them.

Of course this would require tearing out or redesigning many of the features of cult right. Maybe it would suit the Hand of God version better.

Helios · Post by **Helios** » Sun Nov 08, 2015 4:25 pm #132473

Kor wrote:
Aloraydrel wrote:More construct types honestly
I made tank/healer/dps already though what else would I add?

How the fuck is wraith DPS?
It's "kill the AI"

Lumbermancer · Sun Nov 08, 2015 5:51 pm

invisty wrote:Remove all items and permanent indicators that scream valid at round-start (tomes, paper, constructs, constructions).

Yep. Remove all unique elements. Make it gang with narsie.

invisty · Post by **invisty** » Sun Nov 08, 2015 9:29 pm #132529

Lumbermancer wrote:
invisty wrote:Remove all items and permanent indicators that scream valid at round-start (tomes, paper, constructs, constructions).
Yep. Remove all unique elements. Make it gang with narsie.

Except that gang does have unique elements, like uniforms, guns, gang uplinks and dominators. Nor was I suggesting that cult have no unique elements - instead, that they aren't sitting in the pockets of every cultist as a mandatory meta-flag for security.

But you just read that sentence and then decided to post a reply without continuing to read to the next sentence, didn't you?

adrix89 · Post by **adrix89** » Mon Nov 09, 2015 9:51 am #132628

It depends on what you wan to do with cult.

I always wanted to see cult more as a cloak and daggers type mode with good teamwork but with sacrifice for words gone that is dead.

One elegant solution I found for the whole conversion/sacrifice problem is to need cult armor and sword for solo conversions at the cost of lots of brute damage with multiple cultists removing the damage.
This is a win win as experienced cultist can do things solo and the security may find out about the cult and prepare.

Other ideas
Messing with the cameras, room power and AI visibility.
The ability to transmutate unique armor(from captain,HoS,spacesuits,firesuits)
Give artificers ability to create empty shards and use it on constructs to destroy and take the soul back
Spacewalking constructs (cult spacebases) and lock the runes to work only on the main map/level
Have talismans have multiple uses to prevent only the creation of only the rune.
Per rune type limits to remove the stupid hardcoded limit and to not be spammed on the other hand.

Other thing is to balance things on the other side like for example tweaking holy water, maybe have a blessed tank instead from cargo(at a cost). It is still balanced as the tank could be cursed if they get to it.
Maybe the chaplin can have disciples?

Drynwyn · Post by **Drynwyn** » Tue Nov 10, 2015 9:13 pm #132903

Give it shuttlecall protection. At present, as soon as the cult is found out, 9/10 of the time instant shuttle call, now you can't get your objectives done, fuck you.

Xhuis · Post by **Xhuis** » Tue Nov 10, 2015 9:59 pm #132915

Drynwyn wrote:Give it shuttlecall protection. At present, as soon as the cult is found out, 9/10 of the time instant shuttle call, now you can't get your objectives done, fuck you.

The problem with this is that I've never found an elegant solution, and giving every antag shuttle protection would needlessly stall the round. If you have any suggestions, feel free to post them.

invisty · Post by **invisty** » Tue Nov 10, 2015 11:01 pm #132937

The problem isn't recalling the shuttle, the problem is shuttle calls in the first place.

The whole game mechanic is fucked, has snowflake code cases for a huge array of game-modes (see: every team mode), and is used for two polar opposite cases: The station being fucked, and people wanting to re-roll antagonist.

adrix89 · Post by **adrix89** » Wed Nov 11, 2015 8:04 am #132998

Does anyone want sacrifice for words back?

The problem with cult is that they need some reliable challenge from which they can get words and sacrifice was really ideal and unique to them.
There needs to be a way to give global words reliably as well as have free communication for cultists. It is the only way for some semblance of teamwork and they would need it if they are to be effective with the more limited resources.
You could probably implement some object or resource hunting instead but that would make it more like a team spy mode.
But at the very least you should have sacrifice target objective that gives 3 words.

Another thing you should be careful about is what words you give at the start.
Sacrifice which should be give reliably at the start and would be best if it doesn't have too many words in common with convert which should be delayed.
For example have "hell","blood","join" at that start for sacrifice and convert would be kept as "join","other","self" with only word in common being "join".
Other spells can also be tweaked based on what words you give at the start and how many more words you need. Imbue would be best to not have any starting words to keep it relatively to the late game.

Another thing that needs to be handled is talismans. They should be treated as always a limited resource at about the rate of 4-5 talismans per 4 cultists or 16-20 total per roundstart.

The most important thing is to promote uses other then stun talismans so to do that you need to give all other talisman types more charges.(check this for some ideas)
Talismans are the lifeblood of the early game and it can make or break the gamemode.

Once they have some words they can get more creative as they would still be limited by the spell selection and the talismans would be running out. With random words more or less keeping things fresh in the midgame.
It would be best to tweak the runes so that every rune a cultist gets is welcomed and used.
The number of runes should be limited by type and not be a global total and should check if there is a previous rune on the floor.
Runes should not be removed by tomes only cleaned and if they go beyond the limit the beginning runes should deactivate(grey?). This should give security some reliable proof and promote hide and reveal runes.

For midgame cultist should really have a reliable base. One way is to make constructs move like jets and give cultists a way to make spacesuits at the cost of the runes not working outside of the main level(to keep cult from being impossible to find). Another way is to mess with AI cameras and room power. I made a rune that actually cloaked room so that mobs and gibs were invisible inside. As well as the transmutation/armor rune for the spacesuits.

Anonmare · Post by **Anonmare** » Wed Nov 11, 2015 9:39 am #133004

Rev is a very fast-paced, offensive mode and I think Cult should be distinguishable from it so that it isn't "Rev with magic".
With cultist conversion being harder to undo and more difficult to do in the first place I think Cult mode should be more defensive like mentioned earlier with the base-building. Perhaps focus Cult objectives on corrupting the station and the more they corrupt the station; the more reality becomes more to Nar'Sie's, like, monsters beginning to appear in the dark and where corruption is strongest (like rooms needing to so-and-so corrupted until spawning happens) maybe make them different from each other so it isn't immediately obvious it's a cult, like Faithless in the dark for example so the uninitiated think they're Shadowlings (maybe give them that description too) and straight up abominations in the ruins.
Ultimately culminating in Nar'Sie manifesting in the realm if corruption hits about ~90%, so even if the Cult gets roflstomped early on even a single cultist could keep carrying on to try and summon Nar'Sie via corruption instead of the rune meaning Security needs to stamp the Cult out in it's entirety if they want to make sure.

To aid the defensive focus, you could make corrupted rooms cause non-cultists to hallucinate so they aren't sure if the monsters they're seeing are real or not (maybe make some stamina-damage hallucinations uncommon/removed since getting ggnore by a holo-singulo during a crucial moment would be pretty weak). Stun talismans I think would need to be nerfed in some ways like; the stun part of a stun talisman not going through sunglasses/welding protection but the muting component does, and/or their effectiveness being tied to how many cultists there are to the point they no longer function. Call it Nar'Sie demanding more and more blood and stun talismans being too clean.

To combat the Cult, maybe make the Null Rod unable to leave the z-level and respawn in the chaplain's office if it's destroyed and make it give the wielder the ability to ignore the hallucinations. It would make the wielder of the Rod the lead person in combat and the most dangerous person to Cultists. If a Cultist tries to be clever and hides it, the Chaplain could always know how far away they are from their Rod and can be used to destroy cult artefacts and runes, as well as remove cult taint from a tile if Holy water is too valuable to waste.

Dunno how this would all work but I'm just putting down what I would like to see.

adrix89 · Post by **adrix89** » Wed Nov 11, 2015 11:39 am #133012

The problem with corruption and structures is they always shift focus from the runes and removes any possibility of stealth.
Once the crew sees even a hint of corruption they will immediately call the shuttle and get armed to the teeth.

Drynwyn · Post by **Drynwyn** » Sun Nov 15, 2015 5:15 am #133806

Xhuis wrote:
Drynwyn wrote:Give it shuttlecall protection. At present, as soon as the cult is found out, 9/10 of the time instant shuttle call, now you can't get your objectives done, fuck you.
The problem with this is that I've never found an elegant solution, and giving every antag shuttle protection would needlessly stall the round. If you have any suggestions, feel free to post them.

Give the cult a "Teleport Station" rune that requires three members. This will cancel any active shuttle call by teleporting the station to a different location in space.

If the cult is coordinated enough to gather three members, they're still strong enough to keep the round interesting.

Zilenan91 · Post by **Zilenan91** » Sun Nov 15, 2015 5:17 am #133807

Oh my god no fuck that.

Drynwyn · Post by **Drynwyn** » Sun Nov 15, 2015 5:48 am #133809

How would you recommend preventing "whelp there's like 15 of us, but they called the shuttle as soon as we got discovered so now we can't get our objectives done because the captain decided GOTTA GET THAT RED TEXT"

Cheimon · Post by **Cheimon** » Sun Nov 15, 2015 4:10 pm #133856

Give them a set time limit. 15 minutes isn't enough, sure, but indefinitely? We all know that ends up being crap, because either antags are losing badly (and so keep recalling in the hope they'll get better) or are winning really well (and so keep recalling so they can achieve ultimate domination). It's not really fun for non cultists.

Give them one single recall, perhaps, and make it very clear it's a cult that did it. If the cult can't secure their objectives in 20 minutes+however long the round's been going on already, they should get redtext.

Cik · Post by **Cik** » Sun Nov 15, 2015 7:06 pm #133879

that is pretty sick

code please

Post by **Cobby** » Sun Nov 15, 2015 8:15 pm #133891

Possibly Give Constructs Trees?

IE You can choose one of the three and at first they're lackluster. However, if they stay in the cult room long enough OR hit non-cultists, they can 'level' into the next area which increases their power and gives them more tools of the trade.

Also make a 'turret' type construct that has Ejaunt, can shoot, but is immobile outside of Ejaunt [AKA Ranged DPS].