Replace wizard gamemode with raging mages when

[NoWolfie]

Wizard gamemode literally relies on one single person, and in most cases, said person will die in few minutes resulting in round not even reaching 20 minute mark, because its rare to get that role and is very easy to screw up/get lynched by crew.
If that gamemode instead would be replaced with raging mages, such rounds would have more action in it, more people can roll for wizard and whole station will be affected by this gamemode, which won't result in  <20 minute extended.

It will require tweaking and nerfing/buffing few spells since slaughter/laughter demons are already very devastating, but if it'd be done right, we will have magical version of nuke ops, which is way better than wizard which we have now.

Edited June 19, 2018 by NoWolfie

[Coldflame]

removing the survivability spells and perhaps the mass cc spells, then making ragin the main gamemode seems like a decent idea

[TwoCam]

You could also make not harming the station or the crew a goal for all mages.

[Bxil]

4 minutes ago, TwoCam said:

You could also make not harming the station or the crew a goal for all mages.

That's nonsense, what would they be doing then? Peace mages?

[TwoCam]

No, their goal would be to kill each other. I probably should have stated that before.

[NoWolfie]

1 hour ago, TwoCam said:

You could also make not harming the station or the crew a goal for all mages.

That would probably fit for adminbused wizards midround, not for gamemode wizards which purpose is to wreck shit.

But they probably should get their own set of goals, maybe even goofy ones, simular to abductor surgery victums, but i don't want them to be restricted to not wrecking shit (aka tator without hijack), or this gamemode will lose its charm quickly. 

Edited June 20, 2018 by NoWolfie
typos

[necaladun]

I'd love to see 5 apprentice mages working together like nuke ops.

[WingedYordle]

23 minutes ago, necaladun said:

I'd love to see 5 apprentice mages working together like nuke ops.

Same

[davidchan]

I do like the idea of Wiz ops (why did Vox Traiders get fully removed again?)

As for Ragin Mages as a full game mode, I'd really only back it if there was some level of RNG to what spells you have or can choose from, so everyone doesn't just take the same 5 or 6 spells.

[necaladun]

I might try it as an event some time for a test! Apprentice spells as loadouts, purple hardsuits, maybe some wands...

[NoWolfie]

....will someone code this?

[ID404NotFound]

I understand why wizard doesnt usually go over so well, but I managed to do something pretty special with my wizard, potted plant. I was only killing heads of staff, and soon was collecting their brains. It was all to free the crew from NT. Mostly I just got an idea and ran with it, instead of just "how many people can I murder?"

[Fox McCloud]

One way to make regular mages a bit more ...well, chaotic and exciting would be to make summon guns and summon magic do what they were originally designed to do; be something other than "screw the wizard over completely".

 

Originally it was designed to basically entice the crew to kill each other, making it easier for the wizard to cause chaos.

 

As it currently stands, summon guns/magic is pretty much just this, for the wizard:

 

[Spacemanspark]

I don't think letting the crew go into a free for all frenzy with each other (even only certain crewmembers) is really a good idea.

[GuiltyBeans]

May not be a good idea, but it's something different. I agree with Fox, there's never a time when I have seen it used and not thought to myself "Well, there they go killing themselves again." 

Though I am not sure why it would be a bad idea. The objective is to cause chaos. And what better way than to throw the no killing/harming each other rule out the window when guns and magic are summoned to do it? The whole objective is to cause chaos. Not kill as many people as possible, and as it stands most wizards, if they want to do something not incredibly memey, have to go high mobility kill mode. Adding the freedom for the crew to choose how they want to use their newfound magic and weapons would add a lot of spice to it. Not every player is going to go ham and kill everyone. Most that I know would rather band together and defend themselves or organize a party to fight the wizard and whoever turns coat and starts killing.

If we wanted to make it legit, fluff it as the spell alters the mental state of everyone on station, barring mind shielded people, somehow?

I'd also love to see a wiz op thing!

[davidchan]

3 hours ago, Fox McCloud said:

One way to make regular mages a bit more ...well, chaotic and exciting would be to make summon guns and summon magic do what they were originally designed to do; be something other than "screw the wizard over completely".

 

Originally it was designed to basically entice the crew to kill each other, making it easier for the wizard to cause chaos.

 Add an illusion effect to summon guns to make everyone hallucinate for a while viewing everyone as a wizard, monster or some other entity they can never be sure is friend or foe.

[necaladun]

It used to give some (10%?) of the people the "survive" objective, which meant you could be pretty dodgy as long as it was for your survival. Had some great fun once as a corrupt officer doing whatever they could to survive, along with my partner (who ended up as a slime). Also turned the wizard into a chicken then ate him. But it also created heaps of problems of people releasing/sing/plasma being generally antaggy in ways that didn't at all help them to survive (or got them killed).

 

However, an outright deathmatch for everyone I think would be awful. If I wanted to run around shooting everyone i'd play an FPS, or traitor deathmatch, or a grief server. 

[davidchan]

Well option B) would be to instigate a mini-nations mode that forces the station into factions fighting for supremacy while the wiznerd does their thing or acts as a wild card offering to empower specific factions.

[necaladun]

54 minutes ago, davidchan said:

Well option B) would be to instigate a mini-nations mode that forces the station into factions fighting for supremacy while the wiznerd does their thing or acts as a wild card offering to empower specific factions.

That could be huge amounts of fun, but not sure if it'd be easily enough done with code, or is better suited for an event, maybe by someone who is really, really good at that exact thing *cough* @Elysian_prince *cough*

[Irkalla]

Probably beating a dead horse here (there will be a line or two about that spell too) but Wizard should get some rebalancing before even thinking of forcing ragin, let alone putting it in rotation or any of its varieties.

Wizards have some extremly problematic and unfun spells and combos, you know which I am talking about (from least horrible to most horrible gameplay wise and RP wise.) But hey lets still list them and explain whats wrong:

Disintegrate: A spell that just instant kills the target if in touching range. No fun at all and when combined with one of the two instant stun spells is a safe and boring kill.

Horsemask: Really annoying low RP and basicly a stale 2010 meme that should have died off long ago. Blind does the same but is more effective and doesnt ruin peoples round because noone knows how to make Fluorosulph because everyone is anyways hunting the wizard using that spell with... said fluorosulph... in smoke grenades... and RSGs filled with Sarin... I have seen many people cryoing over wizards/crew using horsemask. And I get them. Its just not fun and downright complete shit.

Anything that transforms into lesser forms: That is corgi/none sentient animals/ animals with no attack or nothing to do. It basicly is disintegrate but you cant get yourself killed so you can spectate. You HAVE to ghost to spectate the round and loose respawn rights in the process.

Mindswap: An ability that should only be used on Clings because it makes sense for them to have. For wizards its just leading to them being stunned then being thrown to death with floor tiles "just to be sure". Its one of the spells that makes cheesing wizards so utterly compelling.

Lichform: Respawn and use your other spells from this list alongside mostly evasive things or stuns to make the round drag on as much as possible. Suggestion how to improve it: Make it an actual set of spells that turns the wizard into a real full blown necromancer with spells that allow raising zombies (which can infect crewmembers ala rommerol from TG), throw "deathbolts" which basicly just freeze people to death. Cause "fogs" that bring great pain to everyone moving in (and lets their organs rot), animate skeleton that basicly turns the person into a skeleton, a fleeting form but with alot of anger and will to help the necromancer. Being close to the necromancer would keep them alive, corpse detonation aswell would be cool if a corpse is there for more than say 3 mins and might get more dangerous the longer the corpse exist. And good old bonespike that basicly pierces armor and does internal organ damage but can be dodged easily. And maybe keep the ressurection in. But make it a "all or nothing" kind of deal. They spend all their points on becoming a lich with all those spells and thats it.

Clunweform/Curse of Clunwe: I get its a meme from goon. But on goon its balanced. Why is that? Its on a 2 minute cooldown last time I checked and its CUREABLE. The chaplin on goon can cure it by just whacking you a few times with his bible on the head. Permanent clunwe should really be only a thing as a very special "punishment" for doing things like /pray Dabs at the gods or sending assfaxes. And even the latter. Makes no sense. Why would a megacorp with any kinds of extradimensional tech and a full arsenal based on nanotech waste time turning someone into this instead of quitely, efficiently sending someone to take them out or use some kind of other "technology based" weapons at their disposal (nanomachines to turn them into a borg.). Wizard clunwe should be cureable. Nothing permanent. Maybe even make it wear off after X ammount of minutes (including the fucking clothes). This spell is just outright terrible and number one reason to cryo on wizard rounds instead of playing along, alongside the spells listed above. Remove outright, rebalance or maybe replace with something less, sorry for the choice of words, retarded. And it gets worse with the instant stun spells wizards have. clunwe spell should cost 2 + 5% of max karma of the caster PER CAST and if the caster has no karma he gets turned into a clunwe then people would think about using it.

 

Now that the negative is out of the way some positive things:

Wizards have many tools to cause chaos. The engaging kind. For instance:

 

The summon gun spell, while pretty broken, allows for extremly extensive gunfights only seen once every blue moon during nukeops.

Fireball, while unoriginal, can be flunged along corridors and hit random people making them very paranoid when they hear the sound of it being fired.

Soulstone Belt and Artificer: Gets the people killed right back in the round and allows them to cause chaos and help the wizard, essentially making one big fight on the whole station. One of the most fun things I have seen in wizard rounds and an always buy, atleast for me, whenever I roll wizard

Necrostone: Same deal as soulstone belt but more limited.

Flesh to Stone and Animation Staff: Should be combined into one item honestly. The animation staff itself is a fun item, but flesh to stone can make it even more fun. You get turned into a statue and are supposed to wreck havoc while lurking in the dark. Flesh to stone alone is just terrible, but with animation staff its pretty good.

Door Staff: While its uses are pretty limited it can result in a few chaotic situations. Like people looting the captains spacesuit cause its a wizard on station and they want to survive/fight

 

Things that make wizard rounds potentially more enjoyable:

Potion of bloodrage/Enrage: Gives the Doomslayer buff to everyone on screen/the target. What it does: Basicly people affected by Doomslayer get a chainsaw, adminmeds and an objective to RIP AND TEAR while seing everyone else as a demon. For 60 seconds. They are NOT friendly to the wizard. But also not necessarily completly hostile to him. Could lead to some interesting things like stealth wizards who keep enraging people every now and then. 2 points cost/3 points cost

Mind Control: Control someone for 10 minutes. Basicly Wololo staff but without the staff. Instantanous (debateable) and 2 people who can be under mind control PER invested level. Can lead to some pretty interesting stuff. Pierces mindshields. 3 Points cost.

Paranoia/Mass Hallucination: Makes someone suffer from extremly vivid hallucinations for 10 minutes/ Makes everyone see extremly vivid hallucinations for 1 minute. 1 point cost, (both), target spell/range is on screen. Both spells are silent.

Plasma Breath: Basicly a small breath like spell that allows the wizard to throw ignited plasma. Like a flamethrower. Also grands the wizard heat and fire immunity. 2 points cost.

Dragon Form: Turns the wizard into a lesser ashdrake (and lets them turn back on will) gives them a new set of abilities but unable to cast spells during drakeform. 3 points cost.

Runeblade/Spellsword: The thing that shoots those orange circles. Could be nice to have for wizards since it costs 2 points and only has 5 charges maximum.

 

So wheres the difference in the things listed above as "bad things" and "good things". Pretty simple actually. "Well designed" spells are engaging, and are not a instant death/humilation/round ending spells. They get you a different thing to do other than "get killed" during a chaotic round. They are not ruining anyones round or make them feel "robbed" in a very disgusting and bad way. Theres a good kind of chaos and a bad kind of chaos. Aslong wizards have spells that are listed above and explained why they are bad it will always be a terrible gamemode where people will always rush to kill the wizard to get a different, more engaging round which allows for more things to happen. Atleast thats how I see it and perceived it so far. Cause a Wizard using a Soulstone belt and artificer doesnt get nearly cheesed as badly as a stun into clunwe wizard with evasion and necromutation. I did both (except the clunwning but thats frankly because I find that spell pretty terrible, disintegrate is more effective and doesnt make the person wait for death) and didnt get cheesed as much with a "dark mage" "build" than with a "Bullshit tier spell" "build". Its all about the arsenal they have aviable. Not about the antag itself. The antag itself is fine, atleast on paper. The tools/weapons are not. But thats just my opinion on that entire deal.

 

[Da Dman234]

2 hours ago, Irkalla said:

Mindswap: An ability that should only be used on Clings because it makes sense for them to have. For wizards its just leading to them being stunned then being thrown to death with floor tiles "just to be sure". Its one of the spells that makes cheesing wizards so utterly compelling.

Mindswap and Summon Guns/Spells have led to some of the best and most interesting Wizard rounds I've ever seen. The problem is Wizard has such a high learning curve, the solution isn't to remove or limit them by removing spells the crew thinks are "OP" or cheesy, because the reality of the situation is it's very commonly 1 vs. 50 if not more.

[Irkalla]

58 minutes ago, Da Dman234 said:

Mindswap and Summon Guns/Spells have led to some of the best and most interesting Wizard rounds I've ever seen. The problem is Wizard has such a high learning curve, the solution isn't to remove or limit them by removing spells the crew thinks are "OP" or cheesy, because the reality of the situation is it's very commonly 1 vs. 50 if not more.

Agreed on that, mindswap is not all too bad, but still some really weird things can come from it and from what I have seen so far its just being used with Disintegrate. I mean I havent seen all in the world but thats by far one of the more disgusting combos people tend to use.

[Allfd]

This is the list of things I like about wizard rounds.

1.   It is the perfect round type to force when you need to buy 5 minutes to see if a patch got into the server and then reset without ending the round.

 

[Rurik]

I still think removing/restricting some of the wiz's more powerful spells, and them moving wiz to a midround event would be a fun idea. Even then, switching to raging mages in rotation sounds better, since it will allow more people to play wiz than just one, letting more people get experienced in the role. It'll also cure the 5 min round end if the wiz dies quick.

Or we could just just make slaughter/laughter demons have their own gamemode, since they're the only good thing about wizard.

[Aletmagne]

On 6/24/2018 at 8:55 AM, necaladun said:

It used to give some (10%?) of the people the "survive" objective.

Thats actually the reason I stopped playing YogStation; give a handful of players free reign to murderbone. Be one of the players that didn't get the objective and get bwoinked for defending yourself. Jesus it was a dumb idea.

 

I always thought wizards were too overt. I know stealth wizards can be a thing but its hardly ever done. I'd love to see wizard be more of a "puppetmaster" making the crew fight each other, inciting greytide, causing chaos among the crew. Also it allows for more RP which never happens in wizard rounds (aside from that one time Ipsum RP'd as a wizard because he was tired of people making fun of him)

The very concept that the uninfluenced crew would be unaware that they are being toyed with by a magician sounds more inline with "magic" than fireballs and frost novas to me. Things like:

• Casting a spell on the HoS to make them hallucinate the clown is attacking them
• Casting a spell that makes the bomb beeping sound near the bridge to freak out the Captain
• Conjuring illusions of Xenos in maint and waiting for someone to stumble across them
• Taking over another player (like a Borer) and making them start a fight to make them look deranged or insane
• Conjuring fake food or drink that set people on fire/poisons people when they consume it.
• Conjuring a medkit mimic that, once opened, explodes

Maybe the wizard could see who has eligible antag on and recruit/coerce them into murdering the HoP, stealing all-access etc. to further cause chaos and disarray

Edited August 6, 2018 by Aletmagne