So, had a thought today. Might be terrible, thought I'd throw it out there.
One of the reasons that stun powers are so amazing in SS13 is that usually you can't tell when someone is going to try to gank you. There's no way of telling. In real life, people telegraph intent through body language. A person approaching you to shake your hand walks differently then someone coming to bash your head in with a rock.
We have the concept of intent in SS13. What if we had some kind of visual indicator, a tiny icon or something, when someone wasn't on help intent?
It would mean that people would only switch to harm/disarm when they were actually fighting, but that's probably a good thing. This would let you sort out who is actually fighting and who isn't in a crowd.
Wouldn't work perfectly out of the box, a lot of weapons will do damage when on help intent, but it might help.