Vgstation13: Cult 3.0 megathread

[Irradiation]

[gamemode]
Well, we got our two rounds of Cult 3.0, so here's a list of what I found/observed/people said/fuck you Duny, etc:

-THERE'S NO GODDAMN WIKI PAGE FOR FUCK SAKE. While I'm fine with having people experiment and learn the gamemode, nobody (Read: security) had any idea of what to do with bloodstones or what bloodstones actually did. Admins couldn't even tell ahelping players because the admins didn't even know how shit worked. This wouldn't be so bad on its own, but making it so only CULTISTS know the win condition is pretty retarded. Bonus points for that officer that didn't know that deconversions were gone, so he didn't do the safe thing, which is to say, collect valids before things went ploin-shaped.

-When bloodstones get spawned, the crew doesn't get a warning apart from explosion noises and maybe seeing the bloodstones appear if they were nearby. Could use a text warning, kind of like how everybody knows when a Horrorling shows up.

-When bloodstones get spawned, there's no timer or real indication on how long until the summoning happens. Just an extremely vague amount of blood slowly filling up bloodstones.

-Bloodstones having 1200 fucking HP makes it a FUN time to deal with without guns, as it also spawns Bats, Faithless and occasionally Creatures (Creatures presumably only spawn at the main bloodstone) that will JUST you if you dare engage the bloodstone in melee. Hope you brought 4 entire eguns with you and your buddies, fucko.

-Cultist HUDs and icons seem to block out the HUNGER HUD icon, so cultists couldn't tell that they were famished.

-Epilogue (NarNar gets summoned) also summons FEATURES and lags the server to hell and back. It doesn't seem to call the shuttle (I presume this is a WIP).

-Implanted people that get converted don't lose the green implant icon when observed with a SecHUD (to be tested, only one case of this being seen so far).

-Being able to convert implanted people in general is pretty gay, but is passable. The time to convert implanted people is pretty fucking short. It took you longer to deimplant via surgery in cult 2.0 than just plop a guy on the rape-rune and leave them to simmer for a bit while they're permastunned. Up the time to convert please.

-SPS not beeping for conversion happening is...something I guess.

-Until the code for it gets finished, chaplains have been relegated to being nigh-useless. Chaplains no longer are paladins or what-have-you, now they're...holy water whores?

-I can't commentate on if the Null Rod does anything anymore, but I vaguely heard Deity say in the discord that he was nerfing/buffing its effects regarding runes.

-Since deconversions are gone, the only way to identify a cultist is either by catching him with cult gear or making a rune. Or doing the sort of gay metacheck kind of thing and splashing/force-feeding him with holy water.

-Stun talismans that can be acivated to inflict the AOE effect is pretty gay. At least flashbangs can be resisted, but a cultist popping a stun talisman in his hand can easily get up and chain-stun everybody for longer than a banger-happy secboi ever will.

-I said this was dumb during the coding/design phase and I'll say it again. Pulling ghosts to become cult swords (and soul gems maybe?) with only a 1 minute cooldown with no real cost was a terrible idea balance-wise.

-Upgraded juggernauts are cool and shit, but I have no idea how long is their mech-dash ability cooldown.

-Sacrifice targets being ANYONE (and not preferably security & Heads like it used to) more or less trivializes the sacrifice objective.

I hereby end my rant/list of stuff/whatever. Post your own hot opinions and cold facts in here.

[nuklearcellphoneg]

I was told to post in here.

[RealestEstate]

as was I

[Caboozles]

Cultists being able to turn into shades is ridiculous. That they can ventcrawl is even more ridiculous. You are giving them not only a second chance of life, but a chance that allows them to sneak behind unarmed crew and kill them straight up.
Stun runes are now an aoe that hits the cultists for less time than the targets. Bear in mind, simple mobs are not affected by this, so you could in theory permastun someone next to a bloodstone while a creature munches on their face.
Implants are strictly designed to counter cult. This should not be a removed feature. If you're going to keep it as possible to convert them, then make it require a minimum of three, if not four people to convert an implanted person.

[Irradiation]

Implants exist to cuck both revs and cult, but yeah.

[Caboozles]

What's Revs? Never heard of it.

[RealestEstate]

personally not a fan of converting through implants at all, not only does it trivialize converting command and security, but it also bypasses SPS indirectly as a result. I think cult already has a large supply of tools to build up its asshole army to justify not being able to convert through implants (sharding, soul blade, etc), while sec has no way of deconverting besides borging. I think being forced to shard implantees is a small price to pay since sec is forced to borg cultists as it currently stands.

[Caboozles]

Borging doesn't work anymore. You can fall dead then shade yourself to cuck Security out of it.

[Irradiation]

Oh yeah, and ventcrawling shades as a free "OH I died, TIME TO MURDER UNARMED PEOPLE" sure is a fun thing. Can't keep a fucking cultist dead, unless you decapitate?

[RealestEstate]

oh yeah you're right I didn't think about that.

[SGuivenne]

oh god what the fuck who thought allowing dead cultists to random grief was a good idea. It absolutely isn't.

This encourages security to just code red, call in a death squad, and then gun down the entire crew. Its the only viable playstyle for the current meta.

[bungofungo]

autosharding people on conversion if they have their cult preferences set to never kinda sucks

[Intigracy]

-THERE'S NO GODDAMN WIKI PAGE FOR FUCK SAKE. While I'm fine with having people experiment and learn the gamemode, nobody (Read: security) had any idea of what to do with bloodstones or what bloodstones actually did. Admins couldn't even tell ahelping players because the admins didn't even know how shit worked. This wouldn't be so bad on its own, but making it so only CULTISTS know the win condition is pretty retarded. Bonus points for that officer that didn't know that deconversions were gone, so he didn't do the safe thing, which is to say, collect valids before things went ploin-shaped.

It was intentionally merged without the wiki update according to the changelog.

-Epilogue (NarNar gets summoned) also summons FEATURES and lags the server to hell and back. It doesn't seem to call the shuttle (I presume this is a WIP).

There's code intentionally not calling the shuttle for nu-cult.

-Until the code for it gets finished, chaplains have been relegated to being nigh-useless. Chaplains no longer are paladins or what-have-you, now they're...holy water whores?

-I can't commentate on if the Null Rod does anything anymore, but I vaguely heard Deity say in the discord that he was nerfing/buffing its effects regarding runes.

There's not a single reference to chaplain in the PR (or null rod) outside of chaplain being restricted from being cultist.

Can't comment on the rest because they're opinions.

[SonixApache]

_After 3 rounds, here's what I think._

The new equipment and spells are fucking amazing. They all look and feel great. I got blinded during a fight and I was genuinely confused and spooked. Good shit, Deity.

Not knowing what the fuck is going on is sort of fun, until it isn't. Heard 4 massive explosions and figured the cult was losing and decided to just bomb the brig. When I went to look at the hole I saw a giant red rock come sticking of the floor, and I started shooting it (mostly because everyone else was shooting it) but it didn't really feel like I was doing anything until it suddenly broke. Didn't have a clue that there were 3 more of them; my life ended long before I even had the chance to investigate.
I feel like the suggestion of a global message ("Four blood-curling waves ripple through the station...") is a good start.
Also add a description to the damned thing, and the other cult shit too.

I got very peeved when an implanted head of staff suddenly shot me about a minute after I last saw them - though I think being able to pass implants is okay, as long as it takes a bit, fries the implant and makes the user resist future implants.

Also got very peeved when nar-nar was floating around with no real end of the round in sight.

I'm not sure if I like or dislike the ghastly cultist form yet, it sure does change things up and I think that's interesting at the very least.

The asymmetrical "Find out if they're a bad guy, and if they are, immediately destroy them" gameplay of sec vs cult is awkward. Taking people outta the round is usually pretty gay, and this basically results in forced validhunters vs sneaky slashy lads and their dashing pets.

[jknpj]

The ruleset isn't appearing on discord's round end info

[ShiftyRail]

I really don't believe removing implants being a passive way to slow down the cult was a good idea and it seems I'm not alone here.
The only option remaining is being proactive (ie Hitlering everyone) and feeding them holy water and then seeing if their health drops, then beheading and proceeding to the next target.

In Cult 2.0, a converted sec officer was basically a guaranteed win, but it required effort. Now, it seems that we'll be seeing this kind of thing much more often.

[iFlashYou]

1)Write the wiki deity

2)Get the crew a warning in form of some big red text

3)Timer would not work

4)Deity probably did not want that a lone assitant with a toolbox can take it down but it should be reduced to 1000hp

5)HUDs randomly break or overlap with the hunger one, even had now that sometimes cult icons dont show up on some constructs

6)Fix this Deity

7)They lose the implant but maybe there is a problem with the sechuds

8)It's not really short, you have to stand there for a extended period of time. With cult 2 you needed to remove the implant via surgey and it took time but if you had all upgraded tools then you could do it in under 30sec., if you were fast enough. So maybe increase the time a bit to convert a implanted person but greatly decrease it when cult gets in the later acts.

9)SPS is for ded and stripped. Dont add more handholding to it, esspecially something that makes no sense.

10)no comment

11)^

12)Whats the problem here?

13)Oof, did not know that. Stun Talismans are fine as one use stuns, no need for the AOE

14)Up the cooldown, 1min is to short. But readd the charge system for it back: When someone does not get converted and gets ashed then cult should get 1+ charge that they can use to bypass the cooldown for the next ghost.

15)no comment

16)Agree with that

[DeityLink]

I woke up less than an hour ago, give me time to soak him all the info from here, the thread, and the Discord, then I'll get to work on making the necessary changes.

[SGuivenne]

Please deal with the sharded when dead thing particularly, as is it just encourages security to start holocoastering cult via the crematorium or gibber and that just round ruins for cult in a way not even borging does.

[DamianX]

megathreads are stupid

[SonixApache]

just make a new megathread for every iteration

[Allspice]

could make the shade thing a tattoo

[DeityLink]

Looks like Sec quickly caught up with the fact that they need to hunt down cultists, so I won't nerf cultists again anytime soon. Not until the level of cultist player rises.

[Kurfursten]

I don't like the loyalty implant conversion thing

For one thing we're back to birdcult and even worse seccult. The nice thing about merchants was that if you had one and he was NOT DEAD you could reasonably assume there was no trader rapecave because most people won't deimplant.

[DeityLink]

Well implant still guarantee they're not cultists, what's your point?

[SonixApache]

From a security perspective, the implant thing is fine. Good way to test, and quick way to identify hostiles.
Captain suddenly doesn't have an implant? Might be a bad guy.
Officer goes off on his own, SPS goes off, but he's right there, but with no implant? Bad guy.
Greyshirt that you implanted and set to [R]eleased suddenly has no implant? Bad guy.
etc etc.

[SonixApache]

In my experience so far, with a laser rifle and laser gun, I've been able to solo the stones without any of the creatures even laying a hand on me. Literally too fast for them to even start moving. And that was before the nerf. Not sure if that's good balance.

[DeityLink]

I might buff the bloodstones if the cult still can't manage to spill enough blood in time once they get better.
@Irradiation 's arguments was that a Mechanic cannot 1v1 a bloodstone, which now that I think about it was kinda intended.

[Kurfursten]

There must be some misinformation going around since there isn't a wiki page (wow what a surprise), but my understanding is that an implant merely slows down conversion not blocks it. I think I'm gathering from context here that it deletes the loyalty implant?

That's great if everyone on the station has shades but most people do not.

[DeityLink]

Yeah, that's what it does.

[SonixApache]

sentient swords are OP pls nerf

[DeityLink]

Considering most (if not all) of the points in the Issue's OP have since been adressed, I think you should update it @Irradiation , either that or close this issue and open another one if needed.