Remove Cult Conversion and stun paper.

[Zilenan91]

This is totally not my weekly attempt to get someone to do something about what is currently an abortion of a mode.

So anyways, here's my thoughts on this. Cultists, as they stand right now, start with four members, and can make a ridiculous amount of stuns which they can use to convert. The only problem? They don't need to convert anymore. Converting is honestly just a hassle, and waiting for other cultists or constructs to teleport to you after you shit on somebody with a piece of paper isn't fun for anyone involved. Stun paper is also shit in a combat situation, since unlike a stun baton or almost any other stun in the entire game, you can't use it on cultists without suffering massive brain damage, and it lasts 50% longer than said stun baton and mutes, so the only counter is to either get fucked, to run away, or to have either enough lethals to mow them down, (why would they attack you like this in the first place) or enough stuns to eclipse the sun, where as a team antag that can teleport their dead to their base, they don't give two shits about stuns or even death. Victories such as destroying their base and runes are utterly meaningless because of their numbers and individual power.

If we removed converting and stun paper, the mode would shift focus to four robust dudes and some construct helpers they can make against the whole station, which would honestly be far more interesting than the cancer that's here currently where sec is literally unable to stamp out the cultists since even if they destroy their autism forts, the cultists have teleport runes up the ass along with stun paper, so even if they do kill 99% of the cult, if even two get away they can suddenly breed like fucking rats and teleport their dead to a hidden hovel in maint and revive them. This forces sec to gib all of its victims, permanently taking people out of the round because of the shittery that is body teleporting in a team antag that can spread relatively fast. It's this awful cycle of cat and mouse where one side can make an effectively infinite amount of mistakes, while the other one can't afford to or the snowball overtakes them. It's awful. It needs to change.

If this actually becomes a thing, perhaps remove cultist deconversion via holy water (or make it burn them?) and make them resist implants like shadowlings, since at this point they'd be basically an entirely different and far less shit antagonist.

[Xhuis]

This could easily happen once Incoming finishes datum antags.

[Zilenan91]

how many years

Also sorry for the shitpost, but if we coded this rather simple change now, wouldn't it help out Incoming with datum antags a little?

[Incoming]

Fewer than three.

The idea of a finite population cult/rev/gang variations is something I'm exploring with datum antags. It won't be the first thing though, since the idea is to be a refactor first, then features.

Doing this now doesn't help or hurt me. It's all gonna have to change in the datumization for the most part. It's definitely an interesting idea, but it shouldn't outright replace normal cult (unless everyone just straight up loves it).

[Davidchan]

Doesn't this kind of remove the point of the Cult?

2 of the major objectives they currently have right now are built around conversion. Either survive with x acolytes on the shuttle or summon Nar'sie after getting 9 people, constructs don't count for any of this. Cult isn't the problem, its the fact that people who know how to play it are the minority. I prefered the old cult where you had to find words but anyone could convert, stealth cults were possible and ambushes were vital. Now we have lots of dumb cults who can't take the time to read their tome and just go on a murder spree because muh valids.

Removing conversion just makes them into weaker wizards unless you plan on buffing their other abilities. And if they can't convert its going to play out a lot like wizards if they can't convert, 4 people instantly putting on their robes and cult sword and running around murderboning everyone they see for sharding.

I'm fine with tweaking the cult and nerfing papers, hell remove imbuing all together and make talisman summoning a thing, require 2 cultists to summon a limited use talisman and summoning it drains 10-20 health from both of them.

tl:dr Cult was never meant to be a murderbone antag like Wizard or Ops, stop trying to make every antag into a spree killer instead of making people learn to play stealth.

[Amelius]

> Cult talismans fine for fucking years.
> Suddenly cults OP.
> Ignores the elephant in the room that is changing the number to convert from 3 to 2 and making the starting cultists 4, which solves nothing other than making more cults fluke, but the rest are flat rolls after you get a couple conversions.

I keep screaming this, but 2 to convert is too low. We changed it from 1 to 3 because it made it into rev with magic. With the low bar for magic, it's literally that right now - Increase it back to 3, increasing the starting cultists, and expand the viable conversion AoE for convert runes from 3x3 to 4x4. Every problem is solved.

[Helios]

Doesn't this kind of remove the point of the Cult?

2 of the major objectives they currently have right now are built around conversion. Either survive with x acolytes on the shuttle or summon Nar'sie after getting 9 people, constructs don't count for any of this.

That's factually not true. Constructs count as cultists for the purpose of runes, as well as escaping

[Zilenan91]

> Cult talismans fine for fucking years.
> Suddenly cults OP.
> Ignores the elephant in the room that is changing the number to convert from 3 to 2 and making the starting cultists 4, which solves nothing other than making more cults fluke, but the rest are flat rolls after you get a couple conversions.

I keep screaming this, but 2 to convert is too low. We changed it from 1 to 3 because it made it into rev with magic. With the low bar for magic, it's literally that right now - Increase it back to 3, increasing the starting cultists, and expand the viable conversion AoE for convert runes from 3x3 to 4x4. Every problem is solved.

None of what I was saying was talking about how "good" or how "bad" cult was, but how fun and fair it was. Stun Paper and their complete unkillability due to them spreading like rats (which even if we nerfed to 3 convert) is insane.

[Oldman Robustin]

The only major change to cult that actually fucked it up was the "no research" change.

Before it took significant TIME, SKILL, and EFFORT to get to talisman spam mode. That filter was a huge part of preventing most cults from snowballing.

Now you can poop out as many talismans as you want at roundstart.

Changing from 3->2 conversions was a fine change. Making that change in conjunction with all-words-at-roundstart was NOT a good change.

[Davidchan]

The only major change to cult that actually fucked it up was the "no research" change.

Before it took significant TIME, SKILL, and EFFORT to get to talisman spam mode. That filter was a huge part of preventing most cults from snowballing.

Now you can poop out as many talismans as you want at roundstart.

Changing from 3->2 conversions was a fine change. Making that change in conjunction with all-words-at-roundstart was NOT a good change.

Pretty much my thoughts.

There was a risk reward, and the sac rune had purpose, aside from greentext. Lots of other servers have 1 person converts, and they rarely have problems with snowball cults. It's also worth noting that convert and imbue are basically the only 2 runes that are reuseable without having to repaint them, so if you think people are being converted too fast that is also something that can be changed so that convert runes are removed upon use.

[Incomptinence]

Eh people only tolerated the parapen equivalent factory when they removed the actual parapens because of pure self interest.

After all it is fine if it gets them antaged so might as well make them even stronger.

[Zilenan91]

The only major change to cult that actually fucked it up was the "no research" change.

Before it took significant TIME, SKILL, and EFFORT to get to talisman spam mode. That filter was a huge part of preventing most cults from snowballing.

Now you can poop out as many talismans as you want at roundstart.

Changing from 3->2 conversions was a fine change. Making that change in conjunction with all-words-at-roundstart was NOT a good change.

I think you missed my point. I want stun paper gone not because it's absurdly powerful and easy to get, which it is, but because it's unfun as hell for everyone involved. You click on dudes once as a cultist and win at space, or get clicked on by a cultist once and lose at space, either being gibbed or getting the opportunity to also click on people once and win at space. This is not engaging gameplay and needs to change. Hell, the main reason I want converting gone is because people say Stun Paper is required to convert, while it's actually not. Cultists can just go loud and murder everyone now, turning them all into constructs which count for their objectives almost effortlessly with stun paper. The cultists themselves also don't even NEED more cultists, literally four dudes with cult powers are more terrifying in a lot of ways than even Death Squads, and that's really really stupid.

[Saegrimr]

Random wild idea but what about making some use or specific goal to the spoopy cult walls and flooring other than just being a beacon of what gamemode it is?

[Takeguru]

Maybe slow healing to constructs and cultists within X range of them, that ramps up the more walls/floors there are?

[Zilenan91]

That would be nice, but honestly if we keep buffing cult they're just never gonna lose.

[callanrockslol]

How to fix cult in three steps.

• Remove constructs
  Bring back research
  Bring back one person converts

[Zilenan91]

One person converts is cancer combined with stun paper.

[1g88a]

How to fix cult in three steps.

• Remove constructs
  Bring back research
  Bring back one person converts

but constructs are cool

[Davidchan]

The only major change to cult that actually fucked it up was the "no research" change.

Before it took significant TIME, SKILL, and EFFORT to get to talisman spam mode. That filter was a huge part of preventing most cults from snowballing.

Now you can poop out as many talismans as you want at roundstart.

Changing from 3->2 conversions was a fine change. Making that change in conjunction with all-words-at-roundstart was NOT a good change.

I think you missed my point. I want stun paper gone not because it's absurdly powerful and easy to get, which it is, but because it's unfun as hell for everyone involved. You click on dudes once as a cultist and win at space, or get clicked on by a cultist once and lose at space, either being gibbed or getting the opportunity to also click on people once and win at space. This is not engaging gameplay and needs to change. Hell, the main reason I want converting gone is because people say Stun Paper is required to convert, while it's actually not. Cultists can just go loud and murder everyone now, turning them all into constructs which count for their objectives almost effortlessly with stun paper. The cultists themselves also don't even NEED more cultists, literally four dudes with cult powers are more terrifying in a lot of ways than even Death Squads, and that's really really stupid.

How is ANY other antag different? Wizards Ei Nath, Traitors have their high damage guns and holoparasites, changelings can crit you before you have time to run away, nuke op guns can kill exceptionally quick. The papers only work if cult gets close enough to use them, they have no special protection against other methods of disarming. Every single antag has an 'I win' button, so why are you targeting cult?

[Zilenan91]

Because all of the other antags you listed are few in number. Sure, wizards can Ei Nath cheese people, but it has a weighty cooldown and literally everyone wants to kill him. Same with traitors and lings, only one dude, and Ops have everyone against them as well. Cult? It's a team antag that can convert people and make a ridiculous amount of long duration stuns round start.

[TheWulfe]

You mean cult is actually effective now? Oh no! What will we ever do without rounds where if the cult didn't have guy who knew how to do 'research' (it was technically meta), the round becomes a boring 1.5 hour nothingfest.

I agree with stunpaper though. There needs to be something better than CLICKWIN a cult can do for converting/fighting.

[ShadowDimentio]

If only the crew could do something

Like dodge

[Zilenan91]

Yeah I don't mind an antag being good, but stun paper is straight up unfair.

[PKPenguin321]

i don't get how stunpaper is so unfair
if you cut telecomms (not difficult), a stunbaton is like a stunpaper on steroids, and stunbatons are in EVERY mode. you don't see anybody complaining about those.

[Cobby]

You mean cult is actually effective now? Oh no! What will we ever do without rounds where if the cult didn't have guy who knew how to do 'research' (it was technically meta), the round becomes a boring 1.5 hour nothingfest.

I agree with stunpaper though. There needs to be something better than CLICKWIN a cult can do for converting/fighting.

To be fair you can get the words with saccing [which now give you a shard, so you get a Construct plus a word!]. It only takes 1 round as a semi-murderous cultist to figure out how to research [Wow, I put this word in and it added runes, and wow they have a specific color too!].

Not having to research is kinda on par with putting the medicines into the chem dispenser instead of having to do mix the components. I don't even think it did its intended purpose, was to get cult to use something other than convert/sac.

I like the papers. If you don't know it's cult yet, GG on you. If you know it's cult and get within melee distance 1v1, GG on you [GG probably being convert or Sac, both keep you in the round <the latter is by YOUR choice>]. No need to nerf them because it's a pain to get people to huddle up for convert [referring to stuntime], It's a dead giveaway, and I think you even shout while using it [MICS ON INTERCOMS NEW META]. However, unlike most stuns, these rarely mean unless very late game that you're gonna be out of the round.

Out of all the gamemodes to complain about, It's kinda odd to complain about the one that allows you to stay in the round throughout via Cultist, Construct, or Manifest.

[Saegrimr]

Okay so what I really meant to imply with the cult walls/flooring was... why does this have to be another convertmurder game mode? Rev, gang, and shadowlings already do this just fine.

Maybe take a bit from Gang with the influence thing, and blob with the station destruction thing? The more spoopy flooring and walls you've replaced the station with, the more powers you unlock until you're able to call in Narsie? It'd also give artificers a reason to bust down walls and make the cult floors. Bump the starting cultists back up to where they were, too.

[Zilenan91]

This will require an entire remake of cult, something nobody will ever do. The best we'll likely ever be able to hope for is that Remie may eventually replace Cult with Hand of God.

[Saegrimr]

Sounds like that's getting procrastinated on too, but hey I can't really complain about free content.

[Lumbermancer]

If we removed converting and stun paper, the mode would shift focus to four robust dudes and some construct helpers they can make against the whole station

We have such mode already, it's called traitor + syndicate channel key + holomemesites.