How lethal should SS13 be?

iamgoofball · Post by **iamgoofball** » Sun Jun 07, 2015 10:06 am #93824

vote in the poll please

ps. don't complain about there being more than 2 poll options please, this is a range, not a "yes/no"

extremely lethal:
dying is much more common. rounds probably become shorter. things speed up. things are really lethal, but are also healed faster. gibbings, explosions, body destruction deaths, etc. are more common, and coming back from death is less likely. but, rounds are shorter, so you're out of the game for less time.

lethal:
dying is more common, rounds slightly shorter, things speed up a bit. "hugbox" changes, such as reducing lethalities, are reverted, and dying is much easier to accomplish.

average:
what we have now

safe:
dying is less common, rounds become slightly longer, things slow down a bit, weapon damages nerfed a tad, with armor being buffed a bit. killing is harder and death is uncommon.
extremely safe:
dying is much less common. rounds become much longer. things slow down a lot. weapon damages nerfed more, armor buffed, killing becomes much harder and death is rare.

Sun Jun 07, 2015 10:15 am

What do we determine as average? What are our extremes? Would extremely lethal be "Fuck up hacking a vending machine and you fucking die?" Is extremely safe what we have right now, or some kind of hypothetical ultimate hugbo x?

My point is, none of these options hold any weight because none are defined.

Not-Dorsidarf · Sun Jul 30, 2023 1:33 am

I think "Extremely lethal" is along the lines of 'Remove hugboxy stuff, remove safety precautions, make things do more damage, make everything more deadly (like say, touching a wire that's hooked into the singulo incinerating you' or whatever)"

iamgoofball · Post by **iamgoofball** » Sun Jun 07, 2015 10:24 am #93828

Not-Dorsidarf wrote:I think "Extremely lethal" is along the lines of 'Remove kickin' rad place to be stuff, remove safety precautions, make things do more damage, make everything more deadly (like say, touching a wire that's hooked into the singulo incinerating you' or whatever)"

sorta like that, yeah

muh immulshions can just be "NT started cutting corners with a shitton of stuff" or some shit idfk

Incomptinence · Sun Jun 07, 2015 10:51 am

I think making poisonous food should be easier and much much deadlier. Oh and chemists should get less of the poison pie hydro puts in equivalent work.
Really any job that involves a lot of work should have a way of turning that into a slaughter. Learn your job learn to kill an elegant way for new or rusty players to train for their chance as antag.

Traitors should be more numerous within their own round, no shit they cause chaos that is the point of an independent operator they all do their own thing. Changelings totally busted like conceptual redraw or removal needed.
Singulo should be moved back to a revision where it caused less lag yeah it throwing stuff and people at itself is cool and lethal but we just can't handle that lag. Kill me repeatedly instantly or permanently but don't lag me down just to kill me we have better ways of doing that christ. Stop throwing more lethality to bloody engineering and its equipment while nerfing most everything else we going to get to the point where everything stalls until someone in yellow pajamas decides the boys are back in town then suddenly the station is cut in half or everyone is a burning steak.

Viruses that can kill people quickly should be possible, maybe redo the spread system to compensate hell at present it is just put sneeze in flies all over don't blood born for any disease worth using nicely even.

Let chaplain and chef do their jobs without doing the IC equivalent of filling forms out in triplicate to get rid of a corpse. Your body is not a fucking temple we have ways to get ghosts back no one owes your dead ass anything.

cedarbridge · Post by **cedarbridge** » Sun Jun 07, 2015 2:09 pm #93870

Incomptinence wrote:I think making poisonous food should be easier and much much deadlier. Oh and chemists should get less of the poison pie hydro puts in equivalent work.
Really any job that involves a lot of work should have a way of turning that into a slaughter. Learn your job learn to kill an elegant way for new or rusty players to train for their chance as antag.

Traitors should be more numerous within their own round, no shit they cause chaos that is the point of an independent operator they all do their own thing. Changelings totally busted like conceptual redraw or removal needed.
Singulo should be moved back to a revision where it caused less lag yeah it throwing stuff and people at itself is cool and lethal but we just can't handle that lag. Kill me repeatedly instantly or permanently but don't lag me down just to kill me we have better ways of doing that christ. Stop throwing more lethality to bloody engineering and its equipment while nerfing most everything else we going to get to the point where everything stalls until someone in yellow pajamas decides the boys are back in town then suddenly the station is cut in half or everyone is a burning steak.

Viruses that can kill people quickly should be possible, maybe redo the spread system to compensate hell at present it is just put sneeze in flies all over don't blood born for any disease worth using nicely even.

Let chaplain and chef do their jobs without doing the IC equivalent of filling forms out in triplicate to get rid of a corpse. Your body is not a fucking temple we have ways to get ghosts back no one owes your dead ass anything.

I had a hard time picking the good bits out of this enormous mass of seemingly random words. I mean, I gleaned some good stuff, but goddamn this was hard to read.

onleavedontatme · Sun Jun 07, 2015 3:43 pm

Reposting because this is relevant to this thread

Kor wrote:

People are simply not getting killed in any appreciable numbers anymore. Most of the crew usually survives.

However, the number of crew evacuating is significantly lower

Look at that shift in the graph

Are tons of people unable to reach the shuttle?

I find that unlikely given the high survival rates. The station can't be in that bad of a shape if everyone is still alive. So why aren't they reaching the shuttle?

I think it's much more likely that large numbers of people have simply gone braindead by the time the shuttle docks, something which I've noticed walking the halls.

The round is far too safe and dull if nearly as many people are missing the shuttle because they quit the game as people who missed it because they died.

Keep in mind we usually have several roundstart suicides as well so the numbers are even more skewed. Very few people actually get killed

onleavedontatme · Sun Jun 07, 2015 3:45 pm

Also this should be dorf fort in space dangerous.

Very lethal and chaotic with the long rounds being earned rewards instead of "ah fuck we caught two of the traitors in 5 minutes now I sure hope the last one will bomb something so we can quit." Not toolbox deathmatches with nothing else going on the whole time, but enough shit going on to keep you on your toes. Losing is fun and all that.

Amelius · Post by **Amelius** » Sun Jun 07, 2015 4:54 pm #93916

Just gotta say, good poll, good stats. I think it really does show that we need to move back toward the lethality aspect in the future, because it's really really hard to be paranoid, afraid, or even engaged unless there is that aspect.

Fastspace when goof? I'll forgive you for everything if we get that back. This sort of feedback makes me kinda hopeful for this server's future, when previously I was bleak because we seemed to be moving the opposite direction for the past few years (apparently, based on this thread) to the dismay of the community.

Like Kor said, this should be dorf fort lethality. I mean, I wouldn't even be opposed to having parasting back. Just SOMETHING to make me even somewhat concerned being alone with someone.

Incoming · Post by **Incoming** » Sun Jun 07, 2015 6:13 pm #93936

Realistically I want things to both be more lethal AND rounds to be longer

Every round that ends before an hour is a disappointment to me.
Every round where I survive as a nonantag is also a disappointment.

Post by **MisterPerson** » Sun Jun 07, 2015 9:32 pm #93975

I think it's important to remember that lone deaths are almost never interesting. Punishing someone for an hour or two because of a mistake leads to player frustration, not interest. Now getting killed by someone else, that's interesting. So making the station more dangerous should be done via adding more ways for players to kill each other, not by making the station more dangerous on its own.

Arete · Post by **Arete** » Sun Jun 07, 2015 9:55 pm #93982

MisterPerson wrote:I think it's important to remember that lone deaths are almost never interesting. Punishing someone for an hour or two because of a mistake leads to player frustration, not interest. Now getting killed by someone else, that's interesting. So making the station more dangerous should be done via adding more ways for players to kill each other, not by making the station more dangerous on its own.

I don't completely agree. Some of the most fun I've had in this game is crawling through the torn-apart wreck of the space station after the singulo tears through, trying to salvage and hack my way to an escape pod before it leaves, avoiding the depressurized areas and shocked doors, maybe working with a couple of other survivors to scrape by.

Now, it goes without saying that this would lose its charm if it happened all round every round. But I think it's good for traitors or even random events to be able to turn the station into a dangerous place, even if the danger is in indirect form. Getting ebowed and bombed is way less interesting than trying to survive a plasma flood.

onleavedontatme · Sun Jun 07, 2015 10:14 pm

MisterPerson wrote:I think it's important to remember that lone deaths are almost never interesting. Punishing someone for an hour or two because of a mistake leads to player frustration, not interest. Now getting killed by someone else, that's interesting. So making the station more dangerous should be done via adding more ways for players to kill each other, not by making the station more dangerous on its own.

But half the strange and interesting ways for people to kill people have been removed or severely nerfed. Some people have been trying to enforce strict power tiers of which person "should" win against which other person. We don't need to add new ways for robusting so much as we need to stop removing old ways (were spray bottles really that big a deal?)

Also what Arete said. Environmental hazards can be fun.

The person doesn't need to sit out for 2 hours either, because we're adding plenty of ways to return (though not fully) to the game and the jobs frankly don't have enough content to justify the rounds going on that long on a regular basis anyway.

Sun Jun 07, 2015 10:33 pm

I'm gonna vote for more lethal. Honestly in my past maybe ten rounds the only times I have died are when I have deliberately killed myself. Back when I started playing (which honestly wasn't even that long ago), I died on a majority of my rounds.
The lack of death or stakes in anything you do makes the game more boring and thereby less fun. If I can do almost anything with nearly zero consequence, there is no real point in playing in the first place unless.

Not to mention, there really are a lot of ways to get back into the round nowadays, so death shouldn't be as painful as it used to be even if it happens more often.

Post by **lumipharon** » Mon Jun 08, 2015 1:03 am #94023

Some chemicals should be way more effective.
I want people to eat a poisoned pie and drop dead, blood pouring out of their eyes before they can crawl to medbay.
Conversely, some things like acid and mutagen, which abuse spammable touch reactions to be OP need to be fixed.

We need dismemberment so bombs will maim people horribly, and dual e-sword nerds will send arms flying as they run down the corridor.

onleavedontatme · Mon Jun 08, 2015 1:42 am

The poll is pretty overwhelmingly in the favour of "more death"

I think we should put it on the server live for a better playerbase representation

THE MIGHTY GALVATRON · Mon Jun 08, 2015 2:00 am

lumipharon wrote: We need dismemberment so bombs will maim people horribly, and dual e-sword nerds will send arms flying as they run down the corridor.

Yes dismemberment would be nice, didn't we have that long ago? Also more injuries that take surgery to heal please.

Scones · Post by **Scones** » Mon Jun 08, 2015 2:00 am #94039

Combat is a total shit-show, being based off stuns with everyone having 100% equal stats

The way we handle damage is a snoozefest as well, with simple damage types on limbs where you just grab a medkit and fix yourself in about a minute, tops.

I like my ss13-esque games crazy lethal. You hit the Clown too hard? Well, fuck, you cracked his skull and he's having a heart attack. Door closed on you? Well fuck RIP all your bones.

With the number of ways back into the round that currently exist there is more or less no reason not to try and rework the game to be more lethal and restore the feeling of "Shit is dangerous and I probably won't make it out alive, but I'll have a damn good story to tell!"

SS13 should be hard and uncomprimising. It should be user friendly in the sense that the mechanics are easy and intuitive, not in that every possible threat to the player is so neutered that you are almost always on equal ground/slight advantage/disadvantage.

Post by **lumipharon** » Mon Jun 08, 2015 3:34 am #94063

BaaaayMeeeeed

Seriously, the system is good, and values can be tweaked from "stubbed toe = shattered bones" to "Shrug off LMG to face".
The main thing is it opens up actually interesting consequences from damage.

Scones · Post by **Scones** » Mon Jun 08, 2015 3:53 am #94071

lumipharon wrote:BaaaayMeeeeed

Seriously, the system is good, and values can be tweaked from "stubbed toe = shattered bones" to "Shrug off LMG to face".
The main thing is it opens up actually interesting consequences from damage.

Medbay is going to be like Sanctuary every round if we get Baymed. I've taken time to play a lot of Medical, lately, and while it's sort of dull in depth, there are usually enough injuries rolling in that you are always busy. Baymed, if we want to talk about it seriously as a method by which to increase lethality, requires a remap of Medbay with two Surgery rooms, maybe three.

Amelius · Post by **Amelius** » Mon Jun 08, 2015 4:28 am #94077

The core problem I see from porting Baymed is that antagonists are going to have to be far, far more subtle to be able to shrug off any sort of damage. If you have to go into surgery for a single harmbaton, then it's going to be really really really difficult for antagonists compared to security (who can get surgery done whenever with little consequence), far moreso than even now. I feel this narrows the field of viable play, especially for anything that might involve the entire crew against these mystical antagonists, and that's really the opposite of what we should be aiming for.

As Goof described, by 'increasing lethality' I would personally prefer to see that 'non-lethal damage is easy to remedy, but death is easier to meet, with more permanent 'fixes' to removing people from the round that are far easier to come by', rather than Baymed.

Scones · Post by **Scones** » Mon Jun 08, 2015 4:36 am #94079

I disagree, I think getting shut out of a round with some ultimate body destroy metastrat is absolutely awful and in no way what we should strive for.

Also, Baymed makes things really good for antags. Nuke armor soaks bullets and blasts like a champ while their guns blow the limbs off unarmored combatants. Esword and armblades decapitate. Bombs hurling debris are even more lethal. The antagonist usually has the drop on people, as well as the crazy strong equipment, so if anything its sort of advantageous.

Wyzack · Post by **Wyzack** » Mon Jun 08, 2015 5:13 am #94086

I think his point is that an unlucky toolbox to the leg and you are right fucked for any sort of loud antag action. Although an antag item that allows you to ignore broken bones for a time would help balance this a bit

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Mon Jun 08, 2015 5:18 am #94087

Hey I like the sound of that iteration of Nuke Ops. Perhaps lower their movement speed to compensate for the fact that their armour is so robust. It sounds cool.

The fact is that if we do make SS13 more lethal we also need to strive to lower the length of the average rounds. As Scones notes there's no point in making death easier and harder to get out of if the average round will continue to last for two hours.

If we can't lower the round time's, then there's no point in making the game more lethal.

Wyzack · Post by **Wyzack** » Mon Jun 08, 2015 5:20 am #94088

Aren't average rounds on Sybil already like half an hour?

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Mon Jun 08, 2015 5:22 am #94089

Wyzack wrote:Aren't average rounds on Sybil already like half an hour?

You be the judge

Post by **lumipharon** » Mon Jun 08, 2015 5:25 am #94090

The majority of rounds are between 30 and ninety minutes, in favor of the shorter rounds.
The very act of making shit more lethal makes rounds shorter anyway, so I don't see an issue.

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Mon Jun 08, 2015 5:43 am #94091

I did a quick calculation, and from what the stats show the average round goes for around 84 minutes.

Not-Dorsidarf · Mon Jun 08, 2015 6:01 am

Yeah, but the modal round is 40-50

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Mon Jun 08, 2015 6:08 am #94097

Its still a bit longer than it needs to be, but I digress.

In retrospect making the game more lethal would more likely than not advance the round faster, that coupled with a few antag buffs should serve us well.

DemonFiren · Post by **DemonFiren** » Mon Jun 08, 2015 7:40 am #94113

Can't get no RP done in that short a time.

Not sure about you folks over there, but roundtime seems to be fine as-is on Basil.

Scones · Post by **Scones** » Mon Jun 08, 2015 7:41 am #94114

DemonFiren wrote:Can't get no RP done in that short a time.

Not sure about you folks over there, but roundtime seems to be fine as-is on Basil.

Basil population and playerbase basically exempts it from being used as a source in these discussions. Especially considering I've seen some extreme edge cases there, like five hour rounds.

DemonFiren · Post by **DemonFiren** » Mon Jun 08, 2015 7:48 am #94115

Five hours is nothing, try 6:30 for size.

But, fair point. Just try not to drop us entirely, dead piling up in maintenance in the permanent extendatatorling that Basil is, maybe not such a good idea.

Scones · Post by **Scones** » Mon Jun 08, 2015 7:55 am #94122

The game is not built to function at the populations Basil often sees nor will it be in the future.

Drynwyn · Post by **Drynwyn** » Mon Jun 08, 2015 10:48 am #94142

As the round becomes more lethal and therefore shorter, it will be important to rebalance endgame content like mechs so that it's actually attainable by a few dedicated people. IE- if there are 2 shaft miners who are mining, a Scientist researching, and a Roboticist Roboticisiting, the typical round should allow enough time for that group to build mechs at least 10 minutes before the typical round end.

Fr05tByt3 · Post by **Fr05tByt3** » Mon Jun 08, 2015 11:11 am #94145

lumipharon wrote:BaaaayMeeeeed

Seriously, the system is good, and values can be tweaked from "stubbed toe = shattered bones" to "Shrug off LMG to face".
The main thing is it opens up actually interesting consequences from damage.

Pretty sure about 90% of the posts arguing against this didn't read it fully.
The values can be tweaked to the playerbase's liking.
"One harmbaton = surgery" isn't necessarily true just because of baymed system.

FUCKING BAYMED
AND
DISMEMBERMENT
PLS

Saltycut · Post by **Saltycut** » Mon Jun 08, 2015 1:45 pm #94157

More lethality => less place for mistakes => more powergaming. Because contrary to what some say, losing is not always fun.

Scones · Post by **Scones** » Mon Jun 08, 2015 7:10 pm #94204

Everyone on /tg/ 'powergames' and it rarely crosses a line.

Scott · Post by **Scott** » Mon Jun 08, 2015 9:25 pm #94239

Current lethality level is fine. The poll is meaningless.

Amelius · Post by **Amelius** » Tue Jun 09, 2015 1:16 am #94302

Scott wrote:Current lethality level is fine. The poll is meaningless.

Apparently it isn't, given the vast majority want the game to be far more lethal than current. So how it's meaningless simply because you're content with 90 minute nothingfuckinghappens rounds?

Babin · Post by **Babin** » Tue Jun 09, 2015 4:05 am #94346

If they are made more lethal and therefore shorter, I'm not sure how time-gated roles such as mining/R&D/robotics/hydroponics will cope. Genetics either, but genetics is pretty high on the list of roles which need a rework anyway.

I do like a lethal station, but the worst part about playing shaft miner is when the round ends in less than twenty minutes or so. Even if you're a fast miner and return with a smaller stockpile of ore (most miners I've seen just fuck off until they have 50+ of everything, when you really don't need more than 15 of each special ore for most purposes), short rounds really limit what you're capable of doing. Mulligan has alleviated this somewhat, thankfully.

The whole "we should keep players in the game longer" vs "we should be able to remove players from the game" thing is a battle of design philosophies and personal preference. Keeping players engaged is generally good, but when death is too cheap then it becomes a design problem in itself. I think the game might have shifted too close to the 'death is cheap' side of things.

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Tue Jun 09, 2015 4:59 am #94365

R&D and Robotics can usually get most of their work done in under 10 to 15 minutes, the main constraining factor is minerals for the higher tech equipment but research can be done very quickly if you know what your doing.

Generally under the older, faster, rounds getting to the point in R&D or Robotics where you could create a lot of high tech gear was seen as one of the rewards for the station surviving long enough to get to that point.

Mining is the same and Hydroponics was usually just a gimmick until it got more heavily expanded.

bandit · Post by **bandit** » Tue Jun 09, 2015 3:33 pm #94492

Hydroponics isn't a time-gated role anyway, if you're competent you end up making more vegetables than the chef will ever use within the first 10-15 minutes, then having to make your own fun somehow.

Miauw · Post by **Miauw** » Tue Jun 09, 2015 4:01 pm #94502

making the game more "lethal" does not neccesarily make the game more fun.
if you give all traitors an ebow and an esword at roundstart, your numbers will be better but your rounds will still be shit.

Scones · Post by **Scones** » Tue Jun 09, 2015 4:04 pm #94504

Miauw wrote:making the game more "lethal" does not neccesarily make the game more fun.
if you give all traitors an ebow and an esword at roundstart, your numbers will be better but your rounds will still be shit.

people were moreso referring to increasing the negative effects of things on people, not increasing the number of items that cause the current level of negative effects

Miauw · Post by **Miauw** » Tue Jun 09, 2015 4:10 pm #94506

yeah, but i dont consider people not dying an issue in itself, unless you have some good arguments as to why it should be.

also fuck "le port baymed"
somebody is going to have to get off their ass and write a proper medical system that isnt just a straight port from bay, goofchem is enough of a reason as to why we should never directly port systems of that size.

Scones · Post by **Scones** » Tue Jun 09, 2015 4:15 pm #94508

le port baymed implies ignorance of the system; and im sure that may be the case with several people who want it

i've played bay, i know what it entails, and i'd like to see it's medical system or some variation. or something closer to lifeweb where damage has a chance to just be superficial (and honestly in ss13 the majority of damage you take SHOULD be ez-heal superficial) but there's pretty good chances to get ripped tendons, severed arteries, and all limbs must fly off in bloody arcs.

medical, security, and the game at large would become so much more interesting if a serious level of depth was added to the med system

onleavedontatme · Tue Jun 09, 2015 4:26 pm

Miauw wrote:yeah, but i dont consider people not dying an issue in itself, unless you have some good arguments as to why it should be.

We've had this argument before though and you always respond to it with "just roleplay"

Standing around for 2 hours with no direction and nothing to do isn't conducive to good roleplay though. It's just boring.

And no there isn't really much else gameplay wise. Most jobs are just following steps from the wiki or spamming die rolls.

onleavedontatme · Tue Jun 09, 2015 4:35 pm

Also this topic is all well and good but there need to be concrete suggestions on how this would actually happen.

People dont want traitors to get scary weapons because murderboner sucks

People dont want sec to be weaker because they think sec needs an "edge"

People dont want shit like polyacid, chloral, stungloves, parapens because they're not fun to get killed by

Silicon players are upset by AI nerfs

Etc.

Every step you could realistically take to make things deadlier is something that people will rail against. You cant really advocate for most of the stuff either because most of it really is terrible individually. Parapen legitimately sucked. And yet changeling isnt scary without it.

So nobody likes to die but they're coming to the realization that no death is incredibly boring and the solution is not at all clear.

Miauw · Post by **Miauw** » Tue Jun 09, 2015 4:40 pm #94518

we have never argued that dying in itself is or is not an issue.

instakill shocks, for example, would increase the death number without making the game more interesting, as would numerous other things.
the lack of deaths is caused by boring rounds, not the other way around.

it is, imo, only partially a code problem.