Moving Away from Stun and Done combat

[IcePacks]

Bottom post of the previous page:

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

oh boy

[Steelpoint]

Hence why these discussions never get anything done, any good ideas get ignored down the line and forgotten.

[cedarbridge]

Hence why these discussions never get anything done, any good ideas get ignored down the line and forgotten.

That's my big projects like this need to be moved to static design docs apart from the funposting scrum of an ideas thread.

[MisterPerson]

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

I tried to fix this and people complained that they preffered the jittery movement over smooth movement.

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

There's no way to have viable non-stunning melee combat with the current combat movement speeds. Landing hits is more luck than skill and it's just overall frustrating to melee people.

[lzimann]

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

I tried to fix this and people complained that they proffered the jittery movement over smooth movement.

To be fair, the last "smooth" movemnet someone attempted ended up with an even bigger jittered movement.

[PKPenguin321]

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

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

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

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

Listen to this guy. Easily the wisest guy in this thread

[MisterPerson]

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

I tried to fix this and people complained that they proffered the jittery movement over smooth movement.

To be fair, the last "smooth" movemnet someone attempted ended up with an even bigger jittered movement.

I'm just explaining why I'm not even trying to fix it. But that's got nothing to do with the topic at hand I suppose.

[Steelpoint]

Well the problem is more so you need someone to be actually willing to code the idea.

The only person was was willing wanted to go in a different direction than what is being proposed in this thread, so there's that.

[onleavedontatme]

I'm not sure we can even move away from stuns at this point, since one guy being able to kill ten other people at once is the crutch that is holding up all our conversion modes in which security is outnumbered/our answer to bad scaling.

[Lumbermancer]

You're trying to improve combat in a shitty game with a tile-based movement and mouse clicky targetting. Nerfing stuns will not only affect security, but also everyone on the station who ain't an antag and the round as a whole.

[Remie Richards]

Well the problem is more so you need someone to be actually willing to code the idea.

The only person was was willing wanted to go in a different direction than what is being proposed in this thread, so there's that.

Nice perversion of history.
I only stepped in to code it when I saw people in the thread posting what I agreed with.
Shortly after I posted I'd do it you all changed your fucking minds.

[Remie Richards]

I don't even care that my mouse accidentally doubled posted.

Fuck you.

[Xhuis]

Asking people to consistently agree on something in /tg/ is like asking the wind to stop blowing. It might happen - might - but in a few seconds it'll be right back to before. In the end, if you want to code something, code it, opinions be damned. Works for me.

[MisterPerson]

I'm not sure we can even move away from stuns at this point, since one guy being able to kill ten other people at once is the crutch that is holding up all our conversion modes in which security is outnumbered/our answer to bad scaling.

Rip off the band aid.

[CPTANT]

I already tried this:

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

Did it ever move past that thread?

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

It was.

[Atticat]

As somebody who loves ss13 and loves lifeweb both, I've played lifeweb and the combat imo is FAR superior. and really fucking engaging sometimes. That being said, SS13 doesn't have stats like lfwb so I don't know how much we could take from that. But I agree with Danno that at a minimum lifeweb proves combat can be engaging.

Maybe more lethality and goryness would go a long way? Imagine your misfired laser hits the clown in the hall, causing his arm to disintegrate as he falls to the ground in writhing pain.

[oranges]

paprika made a thing that made melee combat way more intuitive, where it would find the nearest mob in the range of your mouse direction and then target them.

I tested it with them a few times and it playe dreally nice

[Screemonster]

but ree re reeeee reeeeee it takes away the "skill" of this clearly MLG pro tournament contest, or something.

[Dr_bee]

paprika made a thing that made melee combat way more intuitive, where it would find the nearest mob in the range of your mouse direction and then target them.

I tested it with them a few times and it playe dreally nice

This sounds like a good change overall, combat becomes more about positioning and less about 'CLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICK'. maybe have different weapons have different areas of attack? spears only hit directly in front, swords and axes 3 square in front, stun batons at the cardinal directions etc.

[PKPenguin321]

Add reach weapons

[Xhuis]

To prove how dull and uninteresting our combat currently is, I decided to jump into a blank BYOND project. This is the result of twenty or so minutes of 3:30 AM coding.

Spoiler:

There's a fifth of a second of a delay between attacking and hitting a tile. When a tile is red, it's targeted for an attack, but the attack hasn't gone through yet.
If another person attacks that tile during the brief delay, they parry the first person, preventing them from attacking or moving for two seconds.
During the parry window, anyone can attack the "victim" for a riposte that does triple damage. This immediately removes the stun.
It's relatively difficult because if you attack too early, you end up being parried, and if you attack too late, you don't do anything.
You can move in or out of the tile during the attack, making it less based on "who can hit the sprite first" and more on "can I catch his running or get the jump on him before he moves away".

That's a BYOND tech demo I made in a tiny timespan and it already has more strategy than the combat we currently have. I think that's a little eye-opening and I'm going to work on this tech demo more to see what else I can easily code with simple BYOND code, which means we would have no excuse not to at least try it!

If other people are on the fence about changing our combat system, I'd do it my damn self.

[cedarbridge]

If other people are on the fence about changing our combat system, I'd do it my damn self.

If you could organize what you find and find interesting in a single place like a design doccument that we could examine and comment on that would do a lot to help kinda organize things. Like has been discussed. If we're going to change combat its going to require a lot of things moving at once which need to be balanced all at once.

[Grazyn]

Every attempt at removing stuns failed because they were all half-assed changes meant to work as a temporary bridge to an actual removal that never happened. See disablers, ballistic sec etc.

If you want to be serious about it, the change must happen in one fell swoop. No "phasing", no bridges, no middle ground so that people "can get used to it". This is how these things fail.

A single PR is merged, and we move from stun based combat to damage based combat. The very concept of stun is ripped away. Stamina damage should stay, as in slowdown without the stun, but it should only apply together with regular damage. No "stamina-only" weapons.

[Steelpoint]

Grazyn and cedarbridge are correct, all past attempts to change our combat system were a 'part 1' PR that would've been followed up with a second PR.

So long as a proposal is complete, content wise, I think it would work.

[Atticat]

Personally, I see no reason why we couldn't move towards something like the dwarf fortress system. Dismembermant and pain. So if you slice the captain's arm off with an energy sword, they'll be screaming on the ground from pain. Instead of "stun weapons" , you go for the result of stunning by targeting vulnerable parts on your enemy etc.

[Remie Richards]

paprika made a thing that made melee combat way more intuitive, where it would find the nearest mob in the range of your mouse direction and then target them.

I tested it with them a few times and it playe dreally nice

Won't work, paprika's idea was just my PR (that was in turn MrPerson's Idea) that unearthed the Tactical Chairs meme.
people went ballistic (cos they're idiots)

[PKPenguin321]

paprika made a thing that made melee combat way more intuitive, where it would find the nearest mob in the range of your mouse direction and then target them.

I tested it with them a few times and it playe dreally nice

Won't work, paprika's idea was just my PR (that was in turn MrPerson's Idea) that unearthed the Tactical Chairs meme.
people went ballistic (cos they're idiots)

It was an absolutely massive buff to stun based combat though because you didn't even have to actually aim your stunbaton to win

[Screemonster]

So...

1: removing stuns in the current combat system is bad because fights are horrible drawn-out clickfests until someone lands a lucky hit and oneshots them
2: remie's PR to change the combat system is bad because it makes landing a stun too easy and fights are over before they begin

...

there's a relationship here

I can't quite put my finger on it

[Steelpoint]

>everyone ignoring Icepacks insightful plan on page 2.

[Remie Richards]

Fine, I'll do Icepacks' suggestions.

If they go terribly, I'll laugh and do my suggestions.
If they go well, well ok sure that's good.

Either way, let's move in SOME direction.

[oranges]

RIP u

[MisterPerson]

paprika made a thing that made melee combat way more intuitive, where it would find the nearest mob in the range of your mouse direction and then target them.

I tested it with them a few times and it playe dreally nice

Won't work, paprika's idea was just my PR (that was in turn MrPerson's Idea) that unearthed the Tactical Chairs meme.
people went ballistic (cos they're idiots)

At this point I'm willing to try again.

I still giggle at tactical chairs btw, it's the best meme.

[Remie Richards]

paprika made a thing that made melee combat way more intuitive, where it would find the nearest mob in the range of your mouse direction and then target them.

I tested it with them a few times and it playe dreally nice

Won't work, paprika's idea was just my PR (that was in turn MrPerson's Idea) that unearthed the Tactical Chairs meme.
people went ballistic (cos they're idiots)

At this point I'm willing to try again.

I still giggle at tactical chairs btw, it's the best meme.

It is yes, but I negatively associate it with the vitriol people spewed at me at the time, so.

[Steelpoint]

That face when nothing came from this, as usual.

[ShadowDimentio]

[cedarbridge]

Its just a complicated issue and any time somebody proposed to start coding one of the suggestions some mong would run in to tell them not to do it and they'd listen.

[CPTANT]

While we are on the subject:

nerf handcuffs, they are a large part of the stun=dead mechanic.

[cedarbridge]

While we are on the subject:

nerf handcuffs, they are a large part of the stun=dead mechanic.

How do you actually propose to do this without removing their function as hand cuffs?

[CPTANT]

While we are on the subject:

nerf handcuffs, they are a large part of the stun=dead mechanic.

How do you actually propose to do this without removing their function as hand cuffs?

Increase time to cuff, decrease time to break.


Though you can only do that moderately without breaking their function. I still think you can add 0.5 seconds to cuff time and do 15 seconds off the resist time.

[ShadowDimentio]

That's not going to do anything. If you're already stunned it doesn't matter how long the cuff applying takes, I'll just stun you again once I'm in baton range and you'll be shit out of luck pal.

[Cik]

remie fix gam

[WJohnston]

we seem to have a serious disconnect between our combat and our gameplay intents:

security is supposed to detain criminals, they need stunning and cuffing to do this, else they'd have to crit you and hope you don't die on your way to the brig.

but we want stun and cuffs removed, in favor of lethal or stamina oriented combat.

i wonder if it's just a simple conflict of fundamental mechanics, and one or the other may have to be cut out entirely because of how poorly it meshes with the other.

[XDTM]

The idea of reducing stun time when hit was nice; it would not be detrimental to sec (except harmbatoners, which probably deserve it) while it prevents, or at least mitigates, stun-then-damage combos. It won't prevent cuffing your target then killing it, but that takes more time which can lead to someone coming to help the victim during that time.

[IcePacks]

you guys

if you scroll on back to the post me and steelpoint have been shilling you'd know that i also had a similar angle for stun+cuff killings

also can anyone in favor of a stamina-based damage system inform me of how stamina does anything but make the problem worse

[CPTANT]

you guys

if you scroll on back to the post me and steelpoint have been shilling you'd know that i also had a similar angle for stun+cuff killings

also can anyone in favor of a stamina-based damage system inform me of how stamina does anything but make the problem worse

Stamina allows the removal of 1 shot stuns, which IMO are horrible. I still think the 2 shot tazer was a step in the right direction.

Agree on the cuffs though.

[oranges]

basically you either accept security lethally detains people who run, or you accept less lethal stuns

[Lumbermancer]

You don't stun people who run, you disable them because you have more shots. Stuns are used when you are guaranteed to land a hit (during arrest, which wouldn't make any difference if it was stamina based), or during lethal firefight (which is only fair). At least that's how I see it.

[Steelpoint]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The common theme I'm getting here is this.

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

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

The above is literally all we need to do. Icepacks had it on point when he made his post on the combat system.

[CPTANT]

basically you either accept security lethally detains people who run, or you accept less lethal stuns

I think stunning should not be a superior way of capturing people. Whoever it SHOULD be possible to non lethally detain people. Lethals become a proper way of escalation in that case.

Though widening the gap between stuns and lethals would be a very good start.

Hence: 2 shot tazer.

[Steelpoint]

Two shot tasers are what goon do.

Though on goon you can outright crit/kill someone with two or three laser rounds.

I don't think that'll fly here, and IcePacks suggestion is more 'tame'.

[ShadowDimentio]

We could introduce a "second wind" system where taking enough damage cancels stuns for a moment and gives you a chance to react. The whole "stuns don't stack" idea is garbage though, it only makes it obnoxious for sec to arrest people instead of just executing them on the spot.