Blood Brothers!

[Generaldonothing]

Recently, Dearmochi has posted a few ideas they are looking for to be added to the game, one of these is Blood Brothers! This forum post will explain how Blood Brothers functions.

 

What's Blood Brothers? 

Blood brothers is a supplemental team antagonist role which seeks to provide fun for both new and old players alike! Blood Brothers shows up supplemental to other antagonist roles, so it never shows up by itself. In Blood Brothers, two people are assigned the antagonist role as a team and are given three objectives similar to that of the traitor antagonist. The big difference is that unlike a traitor, you don't start with an uplink, rather you and that second assigned person is given the ability to buddy up and go do your team objectives together! Both of you will need to escape alive and free though!
The goals of the Blood Brothers antagonist

• Give the ability for newer players to buddy up with a more experienced one so they can learn a bit of traitoring
• Allow for a higher challenge to older players that need to play without any non-crew obtainable gear
• Make an antagonist that pits the crew's tools against themselves, making the escalation more consistent between both parties

Blood Brothers breakdown

When you spawn as a Blood Brother, you'll notice that you are given your three objectives, 2 from the standard traitor pool and one "Blood Brothers escape" objective, which requires you to escape alive and free with your Blood Brother. Your Blood Brother and you will need to those complete your objectives together with the power of TEAMWORK! You have access only to what the crew has, so make it count! Blood Brothers may also roll Hijack, which sure would be a doozy to do without some special equipment. You have a bit of a blessing however, because you'll have no S class (with the exception of SM steal and core objectives) you're not going to get perma'd unless you do a crime worthy of it. Happy traitoring! If your Blood Brother enters cryogenic storage, you'll be provided a new one as well!

What new does Blood Brothers bring to the table?

All other current team antags are extremely high impact, and the entire round bends around them. This causes team antagonists to be often stressful and doesn't allow for a lot of creativity or silly plays due to you letting the other people in the group down. Blood Brothers will allow for an outlet for those silly interactions and creative comboing with a buddy of yours in a low stress environment. 

If you have any questions, ask em below! (Also, suggestions are welcome) 

[Shmabu]

I like blood brothers. I've done and seen traitor done well and fun for people involved with just a mindslave and an agent ID for both peoples. However, they always suffer from our combat system (go figure right). I think that blood brothers may suffer from stun based combat in both getting taken down and being limited in weapon options. The weapon of choice is always going to be stunprods, but that could be one officer vs two people or two vs two with one side winning or losing based on who clicked first. I get that blood brothers probably could work as the server is currently, and I would like to see it. But, I definitely think that they would work far better with stamina based combat.

[Bestmannnnn]

I will welcome them, but after these changes:
 

Halt, any and ALL crew sided balance nerf changes, because these are all attempts to nerf blood brothers

Grant them radio implants, these implants can NEVER be removed, only admins can remove them.

Give general combat advantages when next to eachother, slightly higher punch damage, longer stuns, longer disarms, higher chance to disarm/Push. Small and subtle 

[Generaldonothing]

20 minutes ago, Bestmannnnn said:

I will welcome them, but after these changes:
 

Halt, any and ALL crew sided balance nerf changes, because these are all attempts to nerf blood brothers

Grant them radio implants, these implants can NEVER be removed, only admins can remove them.

Give general combat advantages when next to eachother, slightly higher punch damage, longer stuns, longer disarms, higher chance to disarm/Push. Small and subtle 

The purpose of blood Brothers is to be an entirely teamwork based antagonist, the only advantage you have is that you have a buddy. Hence this design, I'm very, very concerned about giving them mechanical advantages and they would need to be explained well for them to be considered. Small advantages also might be less of a boon than you think it is because it sells the fact they are a blood brother.

 

I also think it's extremely safe to say items will not be nerfed due to blood brothers, rather the balance of the items themselves were originally flawed. 

 

[Generaldonothing]

2 hours ago, Shmabu said:

I like blood brothers. I've done and seen traitor done well and fun for people involved with just a mindslave and an agent ID for both peoples. However, they always suffer from our combat system (go figure right). I think that blood brothers may suffer from stun based combat in both getting taken down and being limited in weapon options. The weapon of choice is always going to be stunprods, but that could be one officer vs two people or two vs two with one side winning or losing based on who clicked first. I get that blood brothers probably could work as the server is currently, and I would like to see it. But, I definitely think that they would work far better with stamina based combat.

Agreed, but this also really isn't something I can control myself. Blood brothers aren't supposed to be super high impact on the round so it being a bit punishing is fine although not ideal. Stuff like this already happens to other antags as well, at the very least you have a buddy to haul your ass up to keep kicking.

[maxfromsweden]

While I like the idea of making two antagonists working together, how would you design to make that the most viable strategy?

If a noob is paired with a pro, the best way to accomplish your goals would be to let the pro do them while the noob stays under the radar.

What mechanical incentive is there to actually work together?

Something like a bonus when they are together would be such an incentive.

Another option would be that they have a symbiotic relationship like the abductors. Each of the brothers has to perform certain actions to actually accomplish their goals, so one can't remain passive.

[Charliminator]

Perhaps some, slight, stat buff while near your blood brother? 

Or to help alleviate that we could go with teams of 3. Especially seen as we tend to pull in higher pops than TG. 

[Longpipe23]

4 hours ago, Charliminator said:

Or to help alleviate that we could go with teams of 3.

Blood triplets sounds like a deacons of the deep style boss lmfao. 

Honestly the only thing I'd change is give 'em access to code words and some kinda traitor PDA cracking device so they could muck over other traitors. Could be an interesting flair on what they got on /tg/! There are very few mechanical advantages to messing with other antagonists as an antagonist in the current state of the game, so some antag vs. antag conflict could be cool; I enjoyed it the scant few times I've done it -- far more than teaming that is -- albeit an anecdote, and one potentially enhanced by its novelty, I trust the developer(s) sagacity in taking suggestions.  

[Generaldonothing]

5 hours ago, maxfromsweden said:

While I like the idea of making two antagonists working together, how would you design to make that the most viable strategy?

If a noob is paired with a pro, the best way to accomplish your goals would be to let the pro do them while the noob stays under the radar.

What mechanical incentive is there to actually work together?

Something like a bonus when they are together would be such an incentive.

Another option would be that they have a symbiotic relationship like the abductors. Each of the brothers has to perform certain actions to actually accomplish their goals, so one can't remain passive.

Solo blood brothers was certainly an issue I thought would crop up unfortunately, and I've had a few ideas to deal with that related to blood brother specific objectives 

4 hours ago, Charliminator said:

Perhaps some, slight, stat buff while near your blood brother? 

Or to help alleviate that we could go with teams of 3. Especially seen as we tend to pull in higher pops than TG. 

Some slight stat buffs might not be bad, but I'd need to figure out how to make it practically invisible to anyone else

3 person bloodbrothers also just sounds like a murder fest

17 minutes ago, Longpipe23 said:

Blood triplets sounds like a deacons of the deep style boss lmfao. 

Honestly the only thing I'd change is give 'em access to code words and some kinda traitor PDA cracking device so they could muck over other traitors. Could be an interesting flair on what they got on /tg/! There are very few mechanical advantages to messing with other antagonists as an antagonist in the current state of the game, so some antag vs. antag conflict could be cool; I enjoyed it the scant few times I've done it -- far more than teaming that is -- albeit an anecdote, and one potentially enhanced by its novelty, I trust the developer(s) sagacity in taking suggestions.  

Had some ideas for antag on antag objectives, I'd just need to fully flesh them out.

 

I thank everyone who has participated in this post, and you're always welcome to dm me on discord to just talk about this or anything really

[Bestmannnnn]

Just buff blood brother's playtime to 200 hours, no newbie problems there

[Generaldonothing]

Alright, post has been up for ~3ish days now

Current consensus seems to be that Team Operative (this is the name that is likely to be used over blood brother) might need something what that something is I'm not sure of. I can however, list things that are extremely unlikely to happen.

Team Ops in sets of 3s. - This is an issue related to a critical mass of traitors working together and I'm going to be rather brief with the reasoning behind this. When you have two people working together you're normally going to have an extra shot to get something right, you can get your buddy out or help your buddy deal with something. When you bring three traitors into the mix their abilities to solve fuckups increases severly, EX: Player A gets stunned, player B helps player A, player C is able to fend off player D, player C gets hurt, Player A helps them ect:. In a game that is rather punishing, almost anyone is at a nearly unwinable disadvantage against a 3 person if they do not meet their numbers. 

 

Small, passive buffs to TeamOps when near each over. This is not the boon that you think it might be. People can track who has these buffs rather easily and treat them as such. These buffs would need to be severe to be effective, or extremely small and entirely unnoticeable by both the Teamops and the other players.

 

Things I DO think will likely happen.

Team specific objectives: Objectives that require a two person act to do (A few ideas will be stated)

Call in/Revengeance: TeamOp 1 Spawns with the device, TeamOp 2 spawns with the key and activation code. Objective is to find a location and activate the device with your brother, both of you need to turn the key together. After a short delay, an annoucement is sent out stating the location of the device on station alongside a GPS signal being set out. If the device is activated and not deactivated for a minute straight, you call in a random midround antagonist.
Ideas for what can be called in:
A single princess of terror (Objectives given: Protect Teamop1 and Teamop2.)
A blob core which is unable to split (Objectives given: Protect Teamop1 and Teamop2.)
2 Randomly assigned Nukie module cyborgs along with a cyborg conversion machine (Objectives given: Protect Teamop1 and Teamop2, convert 3 people to cyborgs)
A laughter demon (Objectives given: Protect Teamop1 and Teamop2. Make 5 people laugh)
A revenant (Objectives given: Protect Teamop1 and Teamop2.)
 

Station Goal Datasteal: Both ops are given the objective to hack into the station goal and then hack it. One operative needs to actually hack the thing (which involves them using their PDA on it) for thirty seconds to send the required information. During this 30 seconds timespan the other Operative is going to be busy sending the required information to the syndicate (which will involve them using their PDA on a communication console.). The station goal must be finished to be able to actually hack the thing.

More will likely be added, but feel free to add any suggestiosn you might add!
 

[maxfromsweden]

I like how you're expanding on the idea! Seems like you're putting a lot of thought into this.

 

3 hours ago, Generaldonothing said:

Team specific objectives: Objectives that require a two person act to do (A few ideas will be stated)

Call in/Revengeance: TeamOp 1 Spawns with the device, TeamOp 2 spawns with the key and activation code. Objective is to find a location and activate the device with your brother, both of you need to turn the key together. After a short delay, an annoucement is sent out stating the location of the device on station alongside a GPS signal being set out. If the device is activated and not deactivated for a minute straight, you call in a random midround antagonist.

Sounds very sound from a game design perspective. Forcing the two players to actually work as a team is great.

 

I like the activation process of Call in/Revengeance, but think the actual effect is a bit strange, considering you earlier stated it wasn't a high impact antagonist. Furthermore, all of these options:

3 hours ago, Generaldonothing said:

A single princess of terror (Objectives given: Protect Teamop1 and Teamop2.)
A blob core which is unable to split (Objectives given: Protect Teamop1 and Teamop2.)
2 Randomly assigned Nukie module cyborgs along with a cyborg conversion machine (Objectives given: Protect Teamop1 and Teamop2, convert 3 people to cyborgs)
A laughter demon (Objectives given: Protect Teamop1 and Teamop2. Make 5 people laugh)
A revenant (Objectives given: Protect Teamop1 and Teamop2.)

Seem to directly contradict:

3 hours ago, Generaldonothing said:

When you bring three traitors into the mix their abilities to solve fuckups increases severly, EX: Player A gets stunned, player B helps player A, player C is able to fend off player D, player C gets hurt, Player A helps them ect:. In a game that is rather punishing, almost anyone is at a nearly unwinable disadvantage against a 3 person if they do not meet their numbers. 

Since you're basically getting a third teammember, although you have to work quite a lot for them. You also get a teammember that is arguably stronger than a regular blood brother.

How about just having the activation be the goal in itself? The reward is that you accomplish your objective. You don't need an extra incentive for that.

[Generaldonothing]

Just now, maxfromsweden said:

I like how you're expanding on the idea! Seems like you're putting a lot of thought into this.

 

Sounds very sound from a game design perspective. Forcing the two players to actually work as a team is great.

 

I like the activation process of Call in/Revengeance, but think the actual effect is a bit strange, considering you earlier stated it wasn't a high impact antagonist. Furthermore, all of these options:

Seem to directly contradict:

Since you're basically getting a third teammember, although you have to work quite a lot for them. You also get a teammember that is arguably stronger than a regular blood brother.

How about just having the activation be the goal in itself? The reward is that you accomplish your objective. You don't need an extra incentive for that.

Forgot to say, but this is a hijack level goal (AKA the only one you get outside of escape alive). The choices were chosen to have moderate impact (as it's two objectives in one).
Most of these can be delt with fairly easily, and when you start the objective you put a target on your and your buddies head. Aside from this, the purpose of the objective isn't to just "have green lmao", it needs to have some round impact that other people will feel. Having a pretty lowyield antag trying to protect those two while doing their normal objectives is actually pretty cool (the laughter demon one might be a BIT too much though).

[Retrograde115]

7 hours ago, Generaldonothing said:

Station Goal Datasteal: Both ops are given the objective to hack into the station goal and then hack it. One operative needs to actually hack the thing (which involves them using their PDA on it) for thirty seconds to send the required information. During this 30 seconds timespan the other Operative is going to be busy sending the required information to the syndicate (which will involve them using their PDA on a communication console.). The station goal must be finished to be able to actually hack the thing.
 

This right here is really interesting to me. Since the Team Ops wouldn't have access to conventional Class-S contraband, maybe giving them a special PDA or PDA cartridge with minor covert abilities would be fun.

Off the top of my head:

• Multitool function that automatically shows the purpose of the wires
• Putting things other than pens in the pen slot (or maybe just a secret compartment with space for one tiny item)
• Hacking PDA messengers to send false messages listen in on others'
• Bypassing ID requirements for certain consoles/crates, maybe it takes 30 seconds to crack the code or something
• Scanning and storing papers/documents

I also really like the idea of somehow summoning a midround antag, but it would need more prepwork than just the two Ops meeting up. Maybe name it something like "The Redspace Beacon" and require stealing several items from various departments. Maybe it needs a hand-tele, femto-manipulators, the blood of the clown, etc.

Just spitballing.

[Generaldonothing]

1 hour ago, Retrograde115 said:

This right here is really interesting to me. Since the Team Ops wouldn't have access to conventional Class-S contraband, maybe giving them a special PDA or PDA cartridge with minor covert abilities would be fun.

Off the top of my head:

• Multitool function that automatically shows the purpose of the wires
• Putting things other than pens in the pen slot (or maybe just a secret compartment with space for one tiny item)
• Hacking PDA messengers to send false messages listen in on others'
• Bypassing ID requirements for certain consoles/crates, maybe it takes 30 seconds to crack the code or something
• Scanning and storing papers/documents

I also really like the idea of somehow summoning a midround antag, but it would need more prepwork than just the two Ops meeting up. Maybe name it something like "The Redspace Beacon" and require stealing several items from various departments. Maybe it needs a hand-tele, femto-manipulators, the blood of the clown, etc.

Just spitballing.

Thanks for showing interest in this! 
Multitool idea- Very niche and would sell the TeamOps out, maybe something in the notes could be more helpful?
Pen idea- Would sell the TeamOps out, which I hope to avoid
Hacking PDAs- You can already do this with a messaging console!
Bypassing IDs- I'd rather not, 2 people are already gonna start with alot of access, giving them more would probably be either redundant or flat out OP, they will be able to hack objective specific stuff however
Scanning and storing papers/documents- I don't see much of a use for this, and photocopiers are all over the station anyways
 

Beacon objective: You still both need to escape alive and free... so going very unga with it is going to end very poorly. I'll probably up the time needed to 2 minutes on station. Prepwork is required because if you don't do it you are gonna get killed as they know where you are using it from 

[Retrograde115]

21 hours ago, Generaldonothing said:

Thanks for showing interest in this! 
Multitool idea- Very niche and would sell the TeamOps out, maybe something in the notes could be more helpful?
Pen idea- Would sell the TeamOps out, which I hope to avoid
Hacking PDAs- You can already do this with a messaging console!
Bypassing IDs- I'd rather not, 2 people are already gonna start with alot of access, giving them more would probably be either redundant or flat out OP, they will be able to hack objective specific stuff however
Scanning and storing papers/documents- I don't see much of a use for this, and photocopiers are all over the station anyways
 

Beacon objective: You still both need to escape alive and free... so going very unga with it is going to end very poorly. I'll probably up the time needed to 2 minutes on station. Prepwork is required because if you don't do it you are gonna get killed as they know where you are using it from 

Putting the wires in the notes is a decent idea, but it's so minor that it might not be worth adding.

Thinking on it, if the goal is to simply have two antags team up for a challenge and not have access to any special equipment, the idea of blood brothers might be better served as a side-grade to the normal traitors, similar to how contractors work. Except instead of giving up all your TC with the promise of even more TC if you succeed, you're giving up all your TC for the promise of friendship.

Maybe when you choose blood brothers in the PDA, you and another traitor who also chose it get paired. Or maybe when you choose it, some random schmuck with less than X number of hours gets told he's now your partner.

[Bestmannnnn]

everybody thinks that moving stuff to traitor uplinks is valid balancing, its not, we have more than a dozen antagonists, we shouldnt be only one cam access this.

with the nerfs to syringe guns, blood brothers are now so cripppingly weak that even metafriending is a stronger antagonist than them, im certain whoever made that pr is out for more weapons to nerf, making blood brothers so horrficly weak, all we can say is stop stop he is already dead

[Shadowradar1212]

I've played this gamemode on TG manuel where it now exists still on TG.

 

don't get me wrong, it can lead to some amazing moments, it does have a few, flaws though...

 

1: no comms outside of general, although people don't snoop on the PDA messages hardly ever, this can lead to an RD that actually checks it just, instantly getting security suspicious, it can also lead to one brother dying without the other knowing, especally three-person teams and they could wind up doing it solo, or even that and dying themselves even if the other is alive (especally when the PDA server goes down).

2: exclusively based on stolen-gear balance with the only starting advantage being numbers, while this can lead to some interesting situations, IE an engineering knocking out comms while their brother hits a target, this also leads to urm... massive disadvantage sometimes, IE clown and viro for example, as a combo that doesn't get much firepower upfront or long term. traitor gear usually can subvert this, vampires have massive built in power regardless of job, changlings usually rely on their abilities over gear and job as well as blending in.

and to be honest, fighting sec with improvised weaponry early-round ain't easy, try a "whoops all mindslaves" traitor loadout for a few rounds and you'll see what I mean, they're disposable too unlike BBs where everyone needs to live and leave.

3: if someone goes SSD near roundend/afk/forgets they're actually an antag, unless something reminds them when the PDA servers die and you can't contact em, you're kinda done for if loud and you need to hide evidence, especally if you don't know its happened to em, urm- yeeeeeah, a good example is if someone crashes out roundstart, you kinda lose a brother till the autocryo mark/reconnect/offering to dchat from administration intervention.. (especally with a new player).

4: no antag hud, while that'll probably change if it were added on paradice, on TG that's the case and oh boy does it make it needlessly more confusing and worse especally with uhh, point 3 where people forget they're an antagonist... yeeah, or if say you're going incognito/genetics fuckery and now you're monkey238 or whatever else that changes your identity, good luck asking your sci bud in RnD and convincing them to print up some gear and tag along with you going loud when sec are trying to kill you for being a "changling" because you murdered an officer with improvised weaponry and they killed a ling beforehand doing the same thing but have no teamwork and you're that """ling""" now. (although BB will probably break away the improvised weaponry gang = changlings meta.)

 

however when you don't get the issue of a team member going SSD/forgetting they're an antag/ignoring you and rushing off to solo the objectives, you can actually get a very very nice run where you have to be creative and use whatever tools are at your disposal to deal with your objectives while making it out alive. while hijack as a team of three blood brothers without anyone dying is probably borderline impossible, its a glorious show though and that's what matters most right?

I think blood brothers honestly aren't a bad since people tend to love doing antag objectives over messing around with the gear and the status, they can vary a lot though and probably should always be mixed in with other roundtypes, lest they become extended with violent greytiders. they ARE good in that they can break up the usual meta, but definitely not enough to carry an entire round.

it also hurts a LOT more to rush objectives roundstart as a blood brother since you rely on being a parasite off of the crew's own efforts and advances to get your own tools out of theirs to get the job done, which actually might make for some rather interesting traitorious acts to see. although sec's unga attitude and spacelaw's 100% no exceptions RR confirmed antagonists with gear/near successes (class S/high risk items/murder) might make it a bit of a sour taste of creativity to some who nearly succeeded.

 

also, what happens if they just, cryo in perma? or with... the objective item (supermatter kit/nuke core kit, will the new one be provided it? will it sit in cryogenic storage? what if they needed to leave asap but couldn't just leave class S in the open, yeah...) can a blood brother team just infinitely stall security by just, refilling its ranks outside of sec from crew candidates by cryoing? people might not want to deal with being perma'd like me, but would end up giving their team an unfair advantage that security can't counter.

[Generaldonothing]

17 hours ago, Shadowradar1212 said:

I've played this gamemode on TG manuel where it now exists still on TG.

 

don't get me wrong, it can lead to some amazing moments, it does have a few, flaws though...

 

1: no comms outside of general, although people don't snoop on the PDA messages hardly ever, this can lead to an RD that actually checks it just, instantly getting security suspicious, it can also lead to one brother dying without the other knowing, especally three-person teams and they could wind up doing it solo, or even that and dying themselves even if the other is alive (especally when the PDA server goes down).

2: exclusively based on stolen-gear balance with the only starting advantage being numbers, while this can lead to some interesting situations, IE an engineering knocking out comms while their brother hits a target, this also leads to urm... massive disadvantage sometimes, IE clown and viro for example, as a combo that doesn't get much firepower upfront or long term. traitor gear usually can subvert this, vampires have massive built in power regardless of job, changlings usually rely on their abilities over gear and job as well as blending in.

and to be honest, fighting sec with improvised weaponry early-round ain't easy, try a "whoops all mindslaves" traitor loadout for a few rounds and you'll see what I mean, they're disposable too unlike BBs where everyone needs to live and leave.

3: if someone goes SSD near roundend/afk/forgets they're actually an antag, unless something reminds them when the PDA servers die and you can't contact em, you're kinda done for if loud and you need to hide evidence, especally if you don't know its happened to em, urm- yeeeeeah, a good example is if someone crashes out roundstart, you kinda lose a brother till the autocryo mark/reconnect/offering to dchat from administration intervention.. (especally with a new player).

4: no antag hud, while that'll probably change if it were added on paradice, on TG that's the case and oh boy does it make it needlessly more confusing and worse especally with uhh, point 3 where people forget they're an antagonist... yeeah, or if say you're going incognito/genetics fuckery and now you're monkey238 or whatever else that changes your identity, good luck asking your sci bud in RnD and convincing them to print up some gear and tag along with you going loud when sec are trying to kill you for being a "changling" because you murdered an officer with improvised weaponry and they killed a ling beforehand doing the same thing but have no teamwork and you're that """ling""" now. (although BB will probably break away the improvised weaponry gang = changlings meta.)

 

however when you don't get the issue of a team member going SSD/forgetting they're an antag/ignoring you and rushing off to solo the objectives, you can actually get a very very nice run where you have to be creative and use whatever tools are at your disposal to deal with your objectives while making it out alive. while hijack as a team of three blood brothers without anyone dying is probably borderline impossible, its a glorious show though and that's what matters most right?

I think blood brothers honestly aren't a bad since people tend to love doing antag objectives over messing around with the gear and the status, they can vary a lot though and probably should always be mixed in with other roundtypes, lest they become extended with violent greytiders. they ARE good in that they can break up the usual meta, but definitely not enough to carry an entire round.

it also hurts a LOT more to rush objectives roundstart as a blood brother since you rely on being a parasite off of the crew's own efforts and advances to get your own tools out of theirs to get the job done, which actually might make for some rather interesting traitorious acts to see. although sec's unga attitude and spacelaw's 100% no exceptions RR confirmed antagonists with gear/near successes (class S/high risk items/murder) might make it a bit of a sour taste of creativity to some who nearly succeeded.

 

also, what happens if they just, cryo in perma? or with... the objective item (supermatter kit/nuke core kit, will the new one be provided it? will it sit in cryogenic storage? what if they needed to leave asap but couldn't just leave class S in the open, yeah...) can a blood brother team just infinitely stall security by just, refilling its ranks outside of sec from crew candidates by cryoing? people might not want to deal with being perma'd like me, but would end up giving their team an unfair advantage that security can't counter.

Thanks for the input, all of these problems should get delt with :>