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it's good

Balance doesn't matter. I know, crazy, right? Give me 5 minutes of your time and I'll prove it to you. Nuke Ops is not a balanced game mode. A well executed Blitz is basically impossible for the crew to counter. Blitzes fail only because the nukies make mistakes, not due to the actions of the crew. And yet... Nukies don't always blitz. A lot of the time they declare war, even though war isn't the optimal path to victory and they know it. Sometimes they even stealth or do gimmicks, even though, again, doing so is not optimal. Ideally, we'd balance the game so that there isn't one optimal path, but that's a whole different discussion. The take away is this: When you give players multiple viable paths to victory, they will not always choose the optimal one. Which means that balance isn't really all THAT important. It's better to have balance than not have balance, but imbalanced game modes can work because we have players who are not just interested in greentext. So what does this have to do with shadowlings? The main problem with shadowlings isn't that the mode is imbalanced (although it is), it's that there is only one path to victory. There are no alternative viable paths to victory that are sub-optimal for the shadowlings to take. As a shadowling, you do the same. thing. every. round. You know the meme rounds where operatives decide to try to pose as NAD inspectors? There is no shadowling equivalent to that. Shadowlings can't do that type of stuff. The mechanics force them to bulldoze towards greentext, the exact behavior that is shunned by the community in every other type of antag. No one blames shadowlings for doing it because they have no choice but to do it. So even if things were balanced it would be a bad game mode. Sure, it would be better if it was more balanced, and balancing it isn't a bad thing, but it's not the thing that is going to ever fix the issues with the round. What shadowlings need is to be able to actually use different tactics like other antags can, rather than being forced into the same thing over and over. If shadowlings had many viable paths to victory, they wouldn't need to always pick the optimal one. The best part is we don't even really need to worry about balancing those paths to make them equally strong as the way things shadowlings do things now. Even if the other paths were objectively non-optimal, players would still choose to use them.

An even better idea: actually having the department that has the responsibility of taking care of the problem their job was designed for to handle it. I apologize for the bit of snark, but really, I don't understand, at all, this notion of "let's add an existing job to my department only it's loyal to my department alone". No department is meant to be an island unto itself; no department is meant to be immune to the risks and incompetencies of having to deal with another department; security is no exception. Before someone brings up how ridiculous science can get at times; that's not an excuse for other departments to be just as ridiculous. You don't resolve a problem by creating another similar problem so they're both equal; you resolve the problem where it occurs. I'm further perplexed why this mentality crops up specifically with regards to security as a department; what is it that somehow set security apart from needing/deserving their own special role within that department? (The only exception I can recall is a few very very brief suggestion for a mining doctor). If that's the case, why shouldn't medical get their own engineering job, loyal to medical? Why shouldn't mining get their own science researcher role? Why shouldn't science get their own security officer *loyal only to them*? What is it about security, as a department, that specifically draws people to want to make it self-sufficient?

Nah, Only if x number of admins are online as that round needs a lot of attention. Heavily murder, not much rp, salty crew.

Additionally: Good luck getting some officers to prefer limping over to Medbay after dealing with a criminal when there's a questionably qualified doctor not three yards to their left. Telling an Brig Phys to specifically not heal anyone but prisoners is, as mentioned, a breach of that delightful Hippocratic Oath but as well crippling security in any situation where they will inevitably need surgery after dealing with the issue (Shadowlings, Terror Spiders, any high damage antagonist.) Brig Phys is also already restricted by what they can get from other departments, as I know all to well. If a Brig Phys doesn't need a cloning pod/cyro tube/chemistry station, then the respective department for the materials could easily tell them "No." And then report them for B&E when the doctor tries to get it themselves.

The issue with shadowlings is that a single shadowling can convert the entire sec team to their side. Traitors have mindslave implants, but those are expensive, require surgical removal of the mindshield first, etc. Changelings can impersonate sec, but that requires one changeling per impersonated officer. Shadowlings aren't stopped by mindshields, and a single shadowling can enthrall many officers. Once the slings thrall sec, they've not only eliminated their main opposition, they've converted a group of people with excellent stun/disable weapons (ideal for capture/conversion) to their side. At that point, the round balance is heavily in favor of the slings, and there's not much the crew can do to fight back beyond call an ERT. If you want shadowling rounds to be more interesting... alter mindshields so that shadowling enthrall doesn't work against mindshielded targets. Slings can still kill off sec. That should be possible. But subverting sec won't be possible anymore without using surgery to remove their mindshield first. That should restore some balance to the game mode.

One of those is the secret Paradise ERP server. Enter at your own risk.

Can someone explain to me why Shadowling, a roundtype that's at least fun to play in any of the roles involved with the struggle, is suddenly becoming hated and reviled despite multiple departments having the means and tools to limit or fight back against the slings, when roundtypes like vampire exist with blatant power gaming, mismatched kit, entirely unfun to combat and no real weaknesses? The fact that there is at least 1 PR up right now trying to nerf Slings when not a damn person has touched vampire as of now is troubling.

A picture Griff of their BF's character. A picture for Hazardtime of their DnD/Pathfinder party We have; Rekk the fighter, Kaede the trickster, Khekle the alchemist, Tetsu Kumo the Samurai, and Ruue the druid. A picture for Denthamos; We have; Henry "Grandpa" Gadow, Bikikarki, Slith, and Mike Murdock

People who love easy mode use carpire. I could give an inexperienced player carp n full powered vamp and they would have a hard time getting out robusted. Then people will shower praise on them for being super robust. Theres a difference between being robust and abusing game mechanics as much as possible. People often mistake the latter for being robust.