Shadowling Rebalancing / Rework

[Vivalas]

Okay, shadowling is the worst thing about paradise currently. It has a bunch of major flaws and I literally just want to cryo whenever there is a shadowling round. Here are some of the issues with it:

1. Over 90% winrate. I mean, really. It has to be way up there. It's above 70% at least. Unless security and command are hot shit and botany gets shrooms growing right away, it almost ends in a shadowling victory. Are there actual stats pertaining to shadowling winrate?

2. Endings are boring. The easiest gamemode in rotation should not have the best reward for the antagonists. Getting to become a god and be a dick to literally everyone you don't like is kinda dumb, and this could be improved.

3. It is way too easy to convert people, and some people just go back to maintenance right after they are deconverted. Likewise, deconversion is a painstakingly lengthy process during which you are almost always going to be jumped by the shadowlings. In comparison to cult, where you must first be dragged back to the cult base, shadowling conversion is on the spot and very quick. Unlike cult where you can deconvert with holy water, you must also perform surgery.

 

The purpose of this thread is to discuss making shadowling a polished and interesting gamemode rather than the turd it is now. The premise is really cool: night creatures that  thrive in the darkness and enslave people's minds. The execution is bad.

 

My suggestion is this:

1. Make thralls permanent. This would mean becoming a thrall (or being thralled) is a significant event in your round, only escapable through death. This would encourage people not to become a thrall unless they are really into it, and also stops people who want to become thrall from being thrall again right after being converted. This would also allow security to fight back against the thralls much more effectively, since they would be able to kill them on sight. In exchange, thralls no longer are visible from their facial features. They would have to be specifically tested if suspected of thralldom. Perhaps with an advanced medical scanner. Currently security is very handicapped in fighting back against lings. It is hard to find a competent surgeon, and if you are deep in maint, it is even harder to get out with the thrall and not get thralled yourself.

2. Make thralls actually act like the description suggests. When a shadowling takes damage, make it so that a certain portion of the damage is divided among thralls. This would scale with the number of thralls. For example: staring at 5%, maybe 5% more damage gets divided among each thrall, up to a maximum of 80%. This serves as a way to, again, discourage people seeking thrall unless they are deadset on it. Even though players shouldn't seek to be thrall at all, this would discourage the metagamers at least until they think the thralls are competent and they won't just be throwing their lives away.

4. Remove ascension. Becoming a literal ascended shitter is fun for nobody but the thrall. No other gamemode gives you the same amount of room to just be a dick to everyone. Sometimes shadowlings are even dicks to their own thralls after being ascended. While I don't want to seem like this one is out of salt (although it somewhat is, although I think others have similar sentiments), in a recent example I was a thralled roboticist helping rescue thralls in an odysseus. The ascended ling then proceeds to destroy my mech and then kill me when I call him an idiot for doing that.

5.  Replace ascension with a series of related powers that unlock with more and more thralls. At high amounts of thralls, you might unlock a death ray or insta-thrall beam similar to what ascended lings have now (but you still have to actually hit with it), but they never become invincible. The idea is shadowlings become more and more powerful but never actually invincible. As lings get more thralls, not only is damage reduced tremendously as thralls take the brunt of it, but they unlock powers that make them more and more dangerous. I think this is more interesting for all involved than the current ending, but still rewards lings for good work.

6. Add objectives. Like other antagonists, instead of just ascending, lings get objectives. These would need to be very difficult objectives, that are generally only possible if the thralls are super-powered. Perhaps the current form of ascension could be an objective thralls get on occasion where they have to summon their god or merge all their thralls and lings together into one ascended shadowling, which performs as it currently does.

 

My idea is to generally to make thralls more of an eldritch beast type thing. As it prowls maint and collects more thralls, it gets more powerful and harder to kill. Instead of just becoming outright invincible at a certain point, it just gets more and more robust. Added on to this, they also get objectives which can then be worked towards as a team with all the thralls. I think this is better than what we currently have because it cuts down on some main issues thralls have, mainly boring endings and easy conversion / difficult deconversion.

 

Anyways this is just my idea. Any other suggestions are welcome. Anything is better than the current implementation of shadowlings, including removing them altogether.

 

Edited April 20, 2018 by Vivalas

[R1f73r]

I don’t quite like the idea of giving shadowlings objectives aside from ascending nor do I like the permanence of thralling. I get that it can happen anyways via making them lesser shadowlings but still.

[Tayswift]

How about this:

1. Dethrall surgery is simplified to scalpel, light, cautery
2. Once dethralled, you develop immunity and can't be rethralled ("thrall me once, shame on you. Thrall me twice, you can't get thralled again!")
3. The whole point of becoming an evil god is that you wouldn't care for things less than you. Thralls were just tools for the slings. An ascended sling would care as much about its thralls as a human would care about stepping on ants on a sidewalk. You don't expect to be treated with fair and just compensation by an evil ascended being.

[SkeletalElite]

I don't really see the problem with ascension, it's like saying cult summoning their god which just kills every who gets near it isn't fun. The slings have already won and the round is going to be over in roughly 5 minutes anyways

[Coldflame]

getting thralled should ghost you in favour of a ghost taking your body go that getting thralled intentionally isn't a thing, it's evident beyond a doubt the issue will never be solved at a player level 

 

slings have too many get out of jail free cards, they can't die unless they fuck up. remove some of them

 

reconsider being able to thrall through mindshields, slings are already the strongest conversion antag without it. maybe make it a limited ability

 

ascension is fine 

[Vivalas]

Cult is still interesting for other players though. It's not a singular entity that kills everyone because they can, it's an NPC that floats around and turns people into little minions that go and grab other people to turn into minions.

[SkeletalElite]

16 minutes ago, Vivalas said:

Cult is still interesting for other players though. It's not a singular entity that kills everyone because they can, it's an NPC that floats around and turns people into little minions that go and grab other people to turn into minions.

Its not that indifferent from slaughter, slaughter demons are practically invulnverable. and kill almost anyone

[Tayswift]

Balancing post sling ascension is really not worth the effort and a waste of time. If you're salty that the ascended slings don't give everyone gold stars for all their hard work, well, too bad, that's what happens when you're working with an evil god. Think of thralls as any disposable tool, like a pencil or a piece of paper. Once you're done with it you throw it in the trash. You don't care about its feelings. That's what thralls are to ascended shadowlings.

[Vivalas]

That's not the main issue I have with it, other than the idea of having such a rewarding "gold star" given to a player who... really hasn't exerted that much effort to get where they have gotten. War ops with 100 players is a lot more difficult, and if they win, which they almost never do, they just get a little cutscene played.

Compared to all other endings it just lacks luster. The other issue I forgot was how the round just ends when all the lings die. I don't think slings causes enough chaos to justify that,.

[Rurik]

7 hours ago, Vivalas said:

1. Over 90% winrate. I mean, really. It has to be way up there. It's above 70% at least. Unless security and command are hot shit and botany gets shrooms growing right away, it almost ends in a shadowling victory. Are there actual stats pertaining to shadowling winrate?

Perhaps in the past it was, when sling thralls still had glare. As of late I have noticed more and more sling failures (due to a shit ton of glowshrooms or sling incompetence, usually a mix of both) and I would judge it more of 50/50 to 60/40. Of course I have no way to prove that, its just my experience as of late.

 

7 hours ago, Vivalas said:

Make thralls permanent. This would mean becoming a thrall (or being thralled) is a significant event in your round, only escapable through death. This would encourage people not to become a thrall unless they are really into it, and also stops people who want to become thrall from being thrall again right after being converted. This would also allow security to fight back against the thralls much more effectively, since they would be able to kill them on sight. In exchange, thralls no longer are visible from their facial features. They would have to be specifically tested if suspected of thralldom. Perhaps with an advanced medical scanner. Currently security is very handicapped in fighting back against lings. It is hard to find a competent surgeon, and if you are deep in maint, it is even harder to get out with the thrall and not get thralled yourself.

I will always be in favor of this, as I prefer death matches over the catch and release. That makes me biased however, especially since I would prefer the same for cult as well.

 

7 hours ago, Vivalas said:

Remove ascension. Becoming a literal ascended shitter is fun for nobody but the thrall. No other gamemode gives you the same amount of room to just be a dick to everyone. Sometimes shadowlings are even dicks to their own thralls after being ascended. While I don't want to seem like this one is out of salt (although it somewhat is, although I think others have similar sentiments), in a recent example I was a thralled roboticist helping rescue thralls in an odysseus. The ascended ling then proceeds to destroy my mech and then kill me when I call him an idiot for doing that.

Can't say I am a fan of this either, but fixing it would take a lot of work for not much payoff for something that lasts no longer than five to ten mins at the end of the round.

 

7 hours ago, Coldflame said:

reconsider being able to thrall through mindshields, slings are already the strongest conversion antag without it. maybe make it a limited ability

This I feel would be a good fix, at least something to ponder about. The only reason slings tend to steamroll once the train really starts moving is because thralling a member of sec/command early is extremely potent and will almost guarantee success should the thralls/slings not be incompetent. Making the ability to do this limited, or removing it all together would even things out as it is.

 

5 hours ago, SkeletalElite said:

Its not that indifferent from slaughter, slaughter demons are practically invulnverable. and kill almost anyone

To be fair, slaughter demons DO have counterplay around them, even while being extremely powerful. They also don't instagib/convert you, which helps.

[ZN23X]

I personally mostly see slings win. Any time I see them lose its mostly due to inexperience. Slings are my favorite conversion antag cuz its essentially like a quicker and louder cult. I find sling rounds that turn into a nice tug of war match between thralling and dethralling to be some of the most exciting rounds, tho admittedly few and far between. Due to the quickness of converting and deconverting these rounds have a tendency to swing one way or another rather than feel balanced. I don't think this can be fixed through changing game mechanics though. Its really just a matter of who is more experienced on both sides.

Be careful what you wish for. Currently how ascension works forces a shuttle. If they didn't become an unstoppable god from ascension there would be no reason to force an unrecallable shuttle and you'd risk some sling rounds turning into the same as wizard rounds where the wizard has eliminated anything that could threaten them and just continuously recalls the shuttle because they want to play more, to the detriment of the massive amount of dead players...and in this case a bunch of thralls lurking around with nothing left to do.

Edited April 21, 2018 by ZN23X

[The Respected Man]

The most boring gamemode. I main HoS and it's taboo for me to cryo so i am cursed with remaining in sling rounds and playing not because i want to, but so i can end the round earlier. 

Let me sum up the gamemode for everyone here.

>Go into maint, find thrall, dethrall

>Go into maint, find thrall, dethrall

>Go into maint, find shadowling, fight, they mist

>Go into maint, find thrall, dethrall

>Go into maint, find thrall, dethrall

 

Dogshit gamemode. 

 

The only times i've lost as a shadowling were my first two times as a shadowling, after that, constant ascending. The antag is piss easy and i consider it the 2nd most robust antag. 

 

Security being all organized and efficient by being in a group while hunting you? Okay, mist, go over them, AOE freeze, and while still in your mist form go back to your hidey hole. 

Sec limps to medbay and stops by for robust coffee too, but by the time they've done that you've thralled enough to get EMP and dunk on borgs, just craft a spear and they're history. Then you ascend. 

 

I turn the sling antag on whenever i feel like blowing vulps, slime people and those damn IPCs the fuck out, since whenever i roll sling i ascend quickly because of how easy the antag is. 

 

Anyway here's a few tips on dunking on slings:

If you dethrall a thrall and they end up getting thralled again, just murder them next time you see them in maint, no more wasting precious surgeon time

Fuck maintenance up. If the slings are taking their precious time to ascend, stop by cargo for an RCD, get a hardsuit and magboots and start poking holes into space in maintenance. It'll force the slings closer and closer to open areas where they are vulnerable. 

Get robust coffee, slings are capable of AOE freezing you even if they are in mist form, so don't bother "grouping up as sec" to "counter" slings because if they're competent enough as sling, they don't give a fuck, you'll just get your blood frozen. 

Borgs are your early game advantage, slings can get an EMP screech later on but till then they're at their mercy, utilize the borgs, if a thralled RD (basically every sling round) blows up the borgs, consider killing thralls on sight because now the slings are at the advantage and it's only a matter of time till ascension, unless they are incompetent, ofcourse. 

Call evac shuttle, not just because the round's boring, but the slings will get desperate and either murder one of their own thralls to delay it, or start appearing in open areas for thralls for a desperate rushed ascension where they can be killed

Edited April 22, 2018 by The Respected Man

[Vivalas]

Alright, I think this might not be so hard to balance, here is what I have pieced together from this thread:

1. Either make thralling permanent or create immunity afterwards. I actually feel the second one would make slings underpowered since now you have crew you have to fight who can only be killed and of are no use to you.

2. Leave ascension. If the gamemode is made difficult enough it is a worthy reward.

3. Don't cause killing all slings to end the round. I don't think it's enough of a "high intensity" gamemode to do this like nuke or wizard.

 

Really this is only one balance change though and I don't think it gets to the heart of why they shadowling is uninteresting currently. Are there any issues or comments on specific shadowling powers or mechanics that need looking at? I still think spreading damage out among thralls would also help balance it a bit. Slings themselves become more robust as the cost of the utility of the thralls, and in extreme cases even outright killing your thralls.

[R1f73r]

i feel like once you remove the shadowling tumor why not make it so they are RESISTANT to it, and take more time to thrall them again. say, twice the normal time?

[SkeletalElite]

How about simplify dethrall surgery to scalpel > hemostat > Retractor > Light > Cautery

Or even simpler Scalpel > Light > Cautery

The biggest problem is that dethralling is so tedious while thralling is super easy. Just make dethralling less tedious.

[Norwest]

I hate the shadowling gamemode with a passion, because at heart it's just so ridiculously mechanically unbalanced. Conceptually, I can understand where the designer was probably coming from: a Maintenance-bound antagonist who plays on a lot of our fears of the unknown, capable of turning friend against friend and leeching off of them in pursuit of ultimate power. All well and good, at least in theory. Let's talk about the practice:

A. Almost no weaknesses for shadowlings. Let's talk about the ridiculous abilities shadowlings can rock right from the get-go:

  1. Hivemind communication between all shadowlings and thralls, with no indicators and no limits. Traitors, vampires, and cultists wish they had that sort of capability.

  2. Numbers: Aside from being stupidly mechanically powerful (see below), shadowlings come in groups of 2-4. Unlike AutoTraitor, this number is calibrated only to server numbers rather than Sec numbers, so you can quite easily have shadowling equaling or outnumbering Sec at roundstart. No guesses as to how that round's going to end!

  3. Cooperation: Shadowlings have no mechanical reason to fight and every reason to cooperate. Traitors and changelings can't claim that.

  4. Complete concealment prior to hatching. There's no sussing them out when they're weak, short of dumb luck or admin intervention.

  5. Base abilities: Steady wound healing (heal ability #1), stun reduction (equivalent to somewhere between a CNS Rebooter and active adrenal implant), along with night/thermal vision. Compensated slightly by damage from all light sources, and increased damage from light-based weapons.

  6. Glare (30 second cooldown): Stuns and mutes for a good 10-15 seconds, because why should a sling's victims have any chance of fighting back? Works while cuffed, tabled, or grounded, just in case you had any realistic hopes of winning 1v1s with a 'sling.

  7. Veil (15! second cooldown): Knocks out all electrical light sources in a wide area.  We can't have our poor darling antags getting hurt, after all.

  8. Shadow Walk (30 second cooldown): Escape ability #1. The shadowling becomes invisible, moves quickly, and goes through obstacles.

  9. Icy Veins (25 second cooldown): Crowd-control ability #1. Just b'cuz.

  10. Collective Mind (30 seconds): Thematically it's supposed to be the shadowlings reaching into their thralls' mind to leech off of 'em, but mechanically it's completely harmless. Of course.

  11. Rapid Re-Hatch (60 seconds): Heal ability #2. Shit, even wizards don't have rapid-healing covered without specc'ing into a Staff of Healing. Shadowlings get this right from the start, of course.

 

But that's just the starter pack, everyone! Let's look at the extra-fun things shadowlings can rock later on as well:

12. Sonic Screech (3 thralls, 30 second cooldown): Crowd-control ability #2, now with extra EMP! Also destroys windows for shits'n'giggles.

13. Blindness Smoke (5 thralls, 60 second cooldown): Escape ability #2. Big pile of smoke which hurts enemies and heals allies without obscuring vision.

14. Drain Life (7 thralls, 10! second cooldown): Heal ability #3, crowd-control ability #3. Causes 50 damage (25 brute, 25 burn) to local non-thralls while healing the 'ling.

15. Black Recuperation (9 thralls, 60 second cooldown): Heal ability #4, also can resurrect a thrall (unlike cultists, no sacrifice needed), also can empower thralls into being even more kickass. Because of course.

16. Destroy Engine (one-time use): Sacrifice a thrall to push the shuttle timer back to 15 minutes.

17: Ascend: Win round, get to shit on everyone for funsies. Yaaaay, so much fun for everyone. Wheeeee.

Let's compare shadowlings to other antags to note exactly how bullshit this is in practice:

i. Cult: Shadowlings can convert faster, and unlike with cults, mindshields are just a speedbump for their conversion ability. Compared to "load 'em up with holy water (and mannitol if you're nice)," shadowling conversion is considerably harder to remove. Unlike cultists, shadowlings can communicate silently, and since the recent (very necessary) cult change, cultists can't just teleport their way out of the Brig when they're captured (even a newbie shadowling, of course, can just just Veil/Icy Veins/Shadow Walk their way out of trouble and Rapid Re-Hatch away any damage). Unlike cultists, shadowlings also have a shitload of effective healing abilities, and of course they can be absolute combat monsters with zero prep-time needed (whereas cultists are largely reliant on their runes/talismans; sans those, they're no more dangerous than any other well-equipped crewmember). About the only way in which cults are more powerful is their ability to 'snowball' via summoning constructs and individual capability, but that relies on finding and converting capable converts. Unless the shadowlings themselves are gibbering idiots, then they'll just use their god-tier lategame abilities to dunk on any organized resistance and let their thralls mop up the rest.

ii. Wizard: An individual shadowling is only slightly weaker than a wiznerd, and unlike normal one-bearded-army wizard games, 'slings come in large numbers. Large games will have up to 4! shadowlings running around, with no difficulty coordinating with each other due to their abilities synergizing well with each other.

iii. Changeling: Changelings have a hivemind, but it's nicely undercut by their lack of cooperation. Changelings can probably trust each other, but mechanically they can't be sure since some of them might have an 'assassinate/assume identity' objective against each other. Needless to say, shadowlings don't have the same weakness. And while changelings can regenerate themselves from literal death and have some nasty crowd-control abilities, their abilities are all mechanically limited by a number of Evolution Points and the common 'Chemicals' pool; a changeling can't simultaneously spec into 'being a combat monster' and use all their fun abilities at the same time. And of course, changelings don't have thralls to serve as meatshields for 'em.

iv. Vampire: While vampires are also p. bullshit, with a boatload of escape (Rejuvenate, Shadowstep, and Mist Form), crowd-control (Summon Bats), and stun abilities (Chiroptean Screech, Glare, and Hypnotize) to call on, they've got several glaring weaknesses. For one, they don't have a hivemind 'communicate' ability, so they can't cooperate to the same ridiculous degree that shadowlings and their thralls can. For two, they lack the umpty-bajillion shadowling healing abilities, which lets individual encounters do lasting damage against them. And finally, rather than just relying on time cooldowns, vampire abilities all draw from the same Blood pool which is difficult to replenish (unless you're a FILTHY CASUAL who uses humanized monkeys, of course). Even if they don't stand a chance of 1v1ing a vampire, Sec can stand a chance against even a competent vampire with just starting equipment: buckshot and holy-water tranq darts in riot shotguns, group attacks, and constant pressure to drain a vampire's blood pool until they're dry and can actually be taken down.

v. Traitors: No. Just...no.

 

Conclusion: Even starting off, shadowlings can outdo other antagonists even in areas they're supposed to excel in. They can hivemind and convert better than other conversion antags, can kick ass on par or better than other 'superhero' antags, and their thematic disadvantages are just that - themes. This leads into a further problem of shadowlings:

 

B. The Fun of Being A Thrall: There's no mechanical downside whatsoever to being a thrall. The one and only time you could ever be screwed over by a shadowling is if you're the one thrall selected to be the sacrifice for the Destroy Engine ability. Aside from that you've got zip, zilch, and nada to worry about. All of that flavor text about 'being a tool of eldritch powers' is just that; the game mechanics simply don't back it up. Let's cover the specifics of thralldom:

1. Night sight: Free night vision, of course.

2. Hivemind comms: No delay, no whispering, no downside.

3: Guise: Can hide in shadows, just b'cuz.

4: Deconversion: Slow, difficult, and requires a complicated surgery with a full set of tools. No field deconversions here!

5: No reconversion penalty: Once you've been deconverted, literally nothing's stopping you from running riiiight back into Maint to get converted again.

6: No endgame penalty: Shadowling ascension = "license to validhunt /everyone./" Of course.

Conclusion: As others have already mentioned, becoming a shadowling thrall is mechanically an upgrade. I'd happily kill a few greytiders to get myself permanent night-sight, heh.

 

C. Fun: Fighting a shadowling is quite frankly un-fun, by and large. You're going to get absolutely dunked on in close combat, and unlike with a vampire, you can't rely on building up damage over time on a 'sling since they can regenerate their injuries so easily. There's no way of "thrall-proofing" anyone or anything, and shadowling ascension means getting shit on with no ability to do anything about it. Given all that, is it any surprise that people choose to join the winning side?

Furthermore, methods for fighting 'slings are equally un-fun. As a CE, the moment shadowlings are reported I get my hardsuit and RCD and get to space ASAP. I deconstruct every Maint window I can find and carve larger Maint areas open to space, and instruct my team to do the same. This is an effective and capable strategy at boxing in shadowlings, and it's hilarious to watch the civvies "hunting" shadowlings go flying off into space, but it's obviously not fun for them. This sort of escalatory, tit-for-tat bullshit does not make for fun and happy gaming, and I'd like to not have to engage in it.

 

 

 

D. Summarized Issues and Proposed Solutions:

1. Shadowling powers: Unlike other 'group' antags (everyone except wizards, basically), shadowling abilities are all just cooldown-based. In addition to the cooldown (to prevent spamming), I'd like to see shadowling abilities actually harm their thralls in some way. Every time a shadowling uses one of their combat abilities (Glare, Icy Veins, etc.) it deals a flat 10-25 damage to all thralls in game. This'll provide a mechanic similar to the one vampires have to deal with, where Sec putting pressure on the shadowling has lasting effects of some way. It should also sufficiently de-incentivize thralldom that people won't blindly charge in to get re-thralled for shits'n'giggles, and provide a boost to the "parasitism" theme which shadowlings are supposed to have.

2. Shadowling area weakness - escape: Remove Shadow Walk (escape ability #1) and Blindness Smoke (escape ability #2). This'll give shadowlings an actual, real area in which they're weak: wizards have lack of numbers, vampires have lack of healing, etc. Mind you, they'll still have Veil, automatic stun reduction/heals in darkness, Icy Veins, Glare, Sonic Screech, Drain Life, and their thralls to help 'em either win the fight or just run away (where the auto-darkness heals and Rapid Re-Hatch will rapidly patch 'em back up). However, since shadowlings can rapidly heal themselves back up, removing their rapid-escape capabilities gives Sec a chance in hell of actually taking one out.

3. Mindshields: I have no idea why anyone thought it'd be a good idea for shadowlings to be able to remove mindshields without surgery, but that's just plain stupid. Want to subvert the Captain? Then do it the old-fashioned way with a table and a set of surgical tools. If Cargo's on-point, this would also cut down on repeat thralldom (thank Christ).

4. Repeat thralldom: No matter how it's penalized, some people are going to love their chance to murder sans consequences too much to give up becoming a thrall. We can't realistically stop that from happening the first time around, but if it's a repeat occurrence, then game mechanics can come into play. I'd support the 'player gets replaced by a ghost' to keep from penalizing the shadowling while still penalizing whichever player is causing trouble, although you'd also have to make sure that anyone removed from game in this fashion can't just re-enter if another shitter gets repeatedly thralled.

5. Ascension: Quite frankly, I'd like to replace ascension entirely with a cutscene a la nuclear detonation, but I imagine that simple inertia and people loving the whole 'god-complex fantasy' will keep it going. Still, an easy way to penalize thralldom without affecting gameplay is to have all thralls be killed on ascension, like cults have. It'll reinforce the "they're actually evil, who'da thunk?" nature of shadowlings, and provide a real penalty to being a thrall.

Edited April 25, 2018 by Norwest

[bryanayalalugo]

Why not make shadowlings be separate individuals?

Meaning that they do not communicate with each other, nor do they share the same thralls with each other or know the thralls of other shadowlings.

That way, they have to compete with each other and go beyond their abilities, since they are immune to their own abilities, instead of it just being mostly a shadowling vs. sec thing.

I never understood myself to why shadowlings would work together, since you are ascending to godhood, why should there be others to share/take your spot?

[jubba890]

You would then have rival gods and thralls competing as well as having security hunting you down.  I feel like slings should just take more damage to light and increasing cool downs on their teleport ability.  This would make it much more easier to contain and hunt slings.

[Norwest]

19 hours ago, bryanayalalugo said:

Why not make shadowlings be separate individuals?

Meaning that they do not communicate with each other, nor do they share the same thralls with each other or know the thralls of other shadowlings.

That way, they have to compete with each other and go beyond their abilities, since they are immune to their own abilities, instead of it just being mostly a shadowling vs. sec thing.

I never understood myself to why shadowlings would work together, since you are ascending to godhood, why should there be others to share/take your spot?

I definitely like your idea, although I wonder about issues with regards to execution. Either they'll all have to be on the same hivemind 'net (with all the confusion that'll go with it), or they'll have to be separated into different hivemind comm-nets (which is probably a coding nightmare). Perhaps different slings/thralls would speak on the same 'net, but with a different language so that different 'slings are incomprehensible to each other?

[Coldflame]

https://github.com/ParadiseSS13/Paradise/pull/8926

 

not the overhaul the mode needs, but this is an alright bandaid imo

[Mystical]

On 4/24/2018 at 3:23 PM, bryanayalalugo said:

Why not make shadowlings be separate individuals?

Meaning that they do not communicate with each other, nor do they share the same thralls with each other or know the thralls of other shadowlings.

That way, they have to compete with each other and go beyond their abilities, since they are immune to their own abilities, instead of it just being mostly a shadowling vs. sec thing.

I never understood myself to why shadowlings would work together, since you are ascending to godhood, why should there be others to share/take your spot?

This is interesting. It keeps them very powerful, but internal struggles between them may slow them down from becoming to op to quick. It may also cause them to hurt themselves enough to the point where security has a good enough chance of being able to stop them.

[Renaultus]

I love the shadowlings as separate individuals; who are you most likely to find in maints during a sling round? Thralls. Half the guys you try to convert are gonna be another guy's thralls. Hilarity ensues.

However, I think the best solution would be to make thralling permanent. This would, I think, have two main effects:

 

1. Thralls can be killed with impunity, sidestepping the cumbersome, difficult, time-consuming process of dethralling. The difference between security catching you, dragging you to a surgery table, obtaining tools, obtaining a professional, and guarding the process; and security catching you and harmbatoning you into a paste, is huge.

In other words, disallowing dethralling actually nerfs shadowlings significantly; to them, the difference between a dethralling and a dead thrall is nonexistent. If anything, dethralling is worse, since that's another crewman to fight.

 

2. It would hopefully make playing a thrall a bit less appealing, since once you die, you're out of the round. That means less self-antaggers... again, hopefully. At the very least, it adds an edge of danger and salt to being a thrall that isn't just clowning around making Security look bad as they repeatedly try to subdue you; being actually damaged by lethals sucks.

[davidchan]

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.

[The Respected Man]

1 hour ago, davidchan said:

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.

Oh hell no, I've been shitting on slings for a while now. And it's not fun either. Going into maint tasing gas mask toting baldies gets old fast, and when i try to fight a sling they click and mist to their hidey hole. I honestly prefer changelings. I turned sling off because i ascended every single time and it got boring, but honestly right now i feel like gibbing some slime people. 

Vampires are also weak as shit. Great at killing newbies. They're my problem if they have sleeping carp + vampirism though. They rely on stuns and restraints to win in combat and so can be countered extremely easily just pay a visit to your chemist or geneticist, traitors and changelings are way better than vampires and kill me every now and then but never a vampire. 

[davidchan]

We'll agree to disagree since Slings have numerous stats that work against them if the crew even bothers to fight back. Could their powers be toned down or reworked to make things play out better? Yes of course, are they worse than vamps? Not by a long shot.

Vamps have a retarded number of abilities drawn from changeling and wizard lists, from mist form, to 3 different stuns they can use while prone and cuffed, x-rays they can unlock basically for free, true form removes almost all their weakness, something slings don't get till they literally won the game and the round is coming to an end.

 

Edit: As far as sling balance goes, Thralls just need a rework so they are disoriented in bright light, or otherwise move slower. Exposures to bright lights (engineering lamps and such) should be how to deconvert them, not surgery. That or coming up with some radium cocktail or ground up glowshroom. Would allow NT loyalists to use light sources as weapons against thralls and slings alike, and make it even more important for thralls to snuff out all light sources they can find.

Veil could use a longer cooldown, or if the coders can make it work dim lights down a few lumen levels so flashlights turn off for 5-10 seconds before turning back on, while brighter sources of light just dim down to a few tiles before restoring themselves. Global cooldowns shared between slings on certain abilities would be good as well, encouraging sec/crew to assault multiple lings at once since if one ling panics and uses all their abilities, the other would be stuck on cooldown themselves and easier to defeat. Forcing certain stronger abilities to require a second ling or number of thralls to function properly would be good as well, having thralls enter a 'channel' state where they can't move or talk but empower nearby sling abilities, but rendering them defenseless to anyone trying to break up the thrall ball.

Edited April 26, 2018 by davidchan