Umbrage: Shadowling Redux (delayed?)

[Xhuis]

This gamemode has been delayed because of a bunch of drama that happened between me and the maintainers. Full thread below and drama starts on page 8.

Spoiler:

(Original thread title was "Do you want shadowlings back?", development posts start from page two onward)

This is the development, suggestion, and feedback thread for Umbrage, a WIP gamemode made to succeed shadowling. GitHub PR can be found here.

Some stuff you should know:

• Overall goal remains the same, as do core mechanics of conversion
• Shadowlings are now called umbrages, and thralls are now called veils
• Umbrages have a completely new ability set
• Psi replaces cooldowns for abilities, and is a resource that umbrages get
• Psi starts at 100; 20% of max psi cannot be permanently depleted and will always recharge
• Psi is regenerated by using the Devour Will ability on a conscious, player-controlled human

[Saegrimr]

Assuming it did make a return it would probably be rewritten from the ground up and changed quite a bit.

If that's the case then yeah. Shadowling as it was, cool idea but just kinda sucked in practice.

[onleavedontatme]

>do you want X back
>I am going to completley change X into Y if so

This poll seems a bit meaningless

[Reece]

I found it fairly fun when I played it.

[Xhuis]

>do you want X back
>I am going to completley change X into Y if so

This poll seems a bit meaningless

You make a good point, but I would rather keep the core design and fix the flaws that were obvious with the first iteration than make a whole new mode.

[PKPenguin321]

For now just add it back as it was and we can fix it from there.

[danno]

haha its like you're two slimes talkin about things at each other lmao

[ShadowDimentio]

For now just add it back as it was and we can fix it from there.

[Xhuis]

With so many changes since the gamemode got reverted, it would be decently hard to bring it back to today's code - plus, it doesn't meet a lot of the standards that are now in place. I suppose I can see.

[Jacough]

I've had some great times with the shadowlings mode, especially when it comes to firefights in dark maint tunnels or stalking around maint as a shadowling looking for lone crew members to catch and convert.

[ShadowDimentio]

With so many changes since the gamemode got reverted, it would be decently hard to bring it back to today's code - plus, it doesn't meet a lot of the standards that are now in place. I suppose I can see.

All I want is the old glare. It was perfect. I don't care what else you do as long as it still has the glare.

[Oldman Robustin]

Already gave my thoughts elsewhere but the best part about Slings was the PARANOIA GAMEPLAY(tm).

You would actually be worried when a coworker walked into your room with a mask on. When a dept starts smashing its lights, you would legitimately be afraid to investigate.

A good sling mode would bring back conversions but using scaling similar to Gang War so that Slings don't just snowball with mass-recruitment. I think even a hard cap would be appropriate (Slings already have sacrifice mechanics that could be used to free up Thrall slots). The mode would end with some type of "defend the objective" mechanic that we saw in Gang War/Cult/Cockcult. Ideally the objective would have some nuance that would make it different than the others.

On the other hand I have very little confidence that coders would get it right.

[pidey]

Yes, but shadowling NEEDS a better instruction set. A big problem with it is it came up so rarely, that the people who DID roll shadowing often didn't know what they were doing.

[ShadowDimentio]

Sling gets 10 converts max. 3 get to be of higher status with proper abilities, but can't hang out in the light with the other 7 just being normies with antag status.

If the sling wants to ascend it can attempt it at any time, however to do so it needs to create a totem by sacrificing a thrall and protecting the totem for the required duration. More thralls lowers the duration but even at 10 it'd still be lengthy.

Bam. Not a full conversion mode but still has some inspiration of it and still has the paranoia undertones with incentives to do your job and do it well-- if you pop early the crew very well could bring searing light into your clubhouse and fuck your shit up.

[CPTANT]

No, the auto aim ranged parasting was incredibly lame.


And the rest of the gamemode was just another conversion mode.

[ShadowDimentio]

The ranged parasting was defeated by dragging a mouse with you. It wasn't flawless.

[onleavedontatme]

This kills tactical mouse pulling

[ChangelingRain]

The ranged parasting could return but with literally just a mouse click! Wouldn't that be fun. We have the technology.

[ShadowDimentio]

Absolutely halal.

[onleavedontatme]

What if instead we didn't add another conversion mode based around the worst aspect of our combat.

[ShadowDimentio]

>The other conversion modes aren't based around stuns

Conversion is either instant or based around stuns, Kor. You baka.

[Davidchan]

Are we suggestion a melee attack that RNG's conversion or requires multiple hits to build up in a person to conver them? Could be interesting but I still see most slings and thralls just getting stunprods and binding prey.

Slings shouldn't be a forced stealth antag, imo. As slings grow in power maybe crew in a certain radius might get an ominous message or hear a noise when a Sling gets their 5th, 10th or 15th thrall. Changing Ascension to a timed hatch (similar to Dominators from Gang) that would require the thralls to defend or the Sling to hide/barricade themselves in well enough that people can't get in and kill them (make the chrysalis super vulnerable to light?)

Consuming thralls to heal/reset cooldowns could be an idea, restoring the sling but lowering their thrall count by one, turning said former thrall into a shade or non-humanoid shadow entity with some spooky powers but all around a short term gain for a long term loss to the shadowlings.

[ShadowDimentio]

Changelings have been deformed into a very vocal antag, so what do you mean we don't need a stealth antag? We absolutely do.

[oranges]

no

[Davidchan]

Antags are meant to make the round interesting and enjoy able for most of the playerbase. Having antags that can complete their objectives without ever raising the alert until it's too late to stop them isn't fun. It's typically far to punishing for new players to the role as one fuck up (especially in team modes like old sling) can make coming out on top next to impossible, on the flip side if a player who knows what they are doing can stealth up to the final bit of their objectives, the crew has little to no chance of combating them. The only time Stealth antags are good is for roles with static power levels, like Traitors or Nuke Ops who arguably get less powerful as the round drags on and they run out of resources.

[D&B]

Remove cuck cult and buff jungle fever

[InsaneHyena]

Only if you remove clocks first.

[Gun Hog]

I miss Shadowling, and I would love to have a reworked version back! It would be a good opportunity to upgrade our very basic, tile-only, one-color lighting system to more of something akin to Goon's beautiful system. Balance wise, the veil power would have to reworked so that it affects lights better. As a Shadowling RD, I liked to pass out night vision equipment to everyone I can, especially Security, as it made them less likely to carry around several lights at once. They would walk confidently into the darkness, only to get slaughtered.

I enjoy Clockwork cult, and would not sacrifice it for Shadowling, however.

[onleavedontatme]

Well yeah the real answer to this is you need to

-Make lighting directional

-Make vision directional

-Make people with night vision able to still be able to see if things are dark

Shadowling wasn't even about light vs dark at the end, just a pile of wizard spells and other crutches because you're trying to build on a system completely unsuited for stealth or light vs darkness.

[Armhulen]

1) Conversion scaling mechanic. First few conversions will be very fast, but once you've got X number of thralls (where X scales with crew size), the conversion time will start to increase significantly - to the point that only a desperate Sling would sit around trying to convert anyone, perhaps even a hardcap would make sense.

2) Interactive finale. Turning into a god within a few seconds of reaching 15 thralls was just anticlimatic for a number of reason. It just encourages Slings to play super conservatively while snagging the low hanging fruit and avoiding anyone actually equipped to stop them. A "defend the win condition" type finale would have been far more appropriate, drop a Chrysalis, have it summon your thralls, then the crew gets a warning about the Chrysalis location and have X minutes to destroy it matures and allows the Sling to ascend and win.

3) A bunch of other tweaks to its abilities to make the Sling less insane to catch, raise the skill floor and drop the skill ceiling so that its not instant death for newbies but not an unkillable superwizard for good players either.

re add this, go down the list

[confused rock]

It replaces cuck cult right

[Incomptinence]

How about instead of big bad monster goes around converting people to gain power the big bad monster instead kills people to gain revives at like a cocoon structure they leave behind per revive, ash walker rate 2 corpses 1 life.

We can then focus on monster with incentive to kill people that gets stronger rather than everyone drags goombas to a monster and it never does anything but convert till it ascends.

[Armhulen]

How about instead of big bad monster goes around converting people to gain power the big bad monster instead kills people to gain revives at like a cocoon structure they leave behind per revive, ash walker rate 2 corpses 1 life.

We can then focus on monster with incentive to kill people that gets stronger rather than everyone drags goombas to a monster and it never does anything but convert till it ascends.

??????????????????????????????????????

[Lumbermancer]

Correct me if I'm wrong but the early iteration of Sling didn't have the end-goal ascended meme form right?

Remove it, it stupid and I hate it.

Make the thralls more like zombies, sick automatons, bumbling buffoons unable to use items or inventory reduced to being zombiecucks who walk around and follow simple commands.

Make Sling an antag not a game mode, figure out an objective.

There, I fixed it.

[Armhulen]

what, an antag as in a shadowling in traitor?

and, to add on, I like the zombie idea as long as you can tumor dead bodies, alive bodies, husked bodies... don't let the shadowling get into the morgue.
the zombies should be npc until the player renters corpse or a random ghost clicks on the zombie.

but there's a downside to the zombie idea, it ruins all the paranoia the gamemode HAD. at that point you might as well remove the shadow downsides and just make it a necromancer wizard. Shadowling was fun because it wasn't like the other game modes, where your friends would get dragged into maint and come back out with a gas mask on. And that would be gone. And that would make me sad.

[Lumbermancer]

Shadowling was fun because it wasn't like the other game modes, where your friends would get dragged into maint and come back out with a gas mask on. And that would be gone. And that would make me sad.

You mean like Narsie Cult? Clockcult? Rev? Gang? It was just another conversion mode just with different flavor.

[CPTANT]

Shadowling was fun because it wasn't like the other game modes, where your friends would get dragged into maint and come back out with a gas mask on. And that would be gone. And that would make me sad.

You mean like Narsie Cult? Clockcult? Rev? Gang? It was just another conversion mode just with different flavor.

And more boring since Slings and thralls were very restricted in what to do, sit in maint and abduct/convert people.

yay.

Convert and ranged parasting were basically the only sling abilities used.

[Lumbermancer]

I don't remember Thralls having any restrictions.

[Xhuis]

Thank you everyone for the feedback! I'll type out some responses when I get home.

[Aloraydrel]

Hand of God was better

[CPTANT]

Hand of God was better

Gang was better.

[Xhuis]

Hand of God was better

Gang was better.

I really liked gang though, so I'd say it was better, yeah.

[Incomptinence]

How about instead of big bad monster goes around converting people to gain power the big bad monster instead kills people to gain revives at like a cocoon structure they leave behind per revive, ash walker rate 2 corpses 1 life.

We can then focus on monster with incentive to kill people that gets stronger rather than everyone drags goombas to a monster and it never does anything but convert till it ascends.

??????????????????????????????????????

Conversion ruins monsters and this mode, HEAVILY.

Sling becomes dedicated conversion machine, as with any conversion mode people may join willingly. Where's the the fear of the big baddy?

[Wyzack]

Hand of God was better

Rip hand of God, rip Neerti

[ShadowDimentio]

Hand of God will be fondly remembered as TG's least functional gamemode.

[Xhuis]

All right, I'm here.

Yes, but shadowling NEEDS a better instruction set. A big problem with it is it came up so rarely, that the people who DID roll shadowing often didn't know what they were doing.

In-game documentation would be added to the new iteration of shadowlings.

Various conversion concerns

I can't say for certain how conversion will play into the new version. It was a big controversy back then, and it still is right now. None of the presented solutions appeal to me right now, but perhaps I'll think of something. In the meantime, this is the best place to put your ideas down.

The ranged parasting could return but with literally just a mouse click! Wouldn't that be fun. We have the technology.

Glare will be returning in a different form. All I can say for now is that it will be tentacular.

Are we suggestion a melee attack that RNG's conversion or requires multiple hits to build up in a person to conver them? Could be interesting but I still see most slings and thralls just getting stunprods and binding prey.

Slings shouldn't be a forced stealth antag, imo. As slings grow in power maybe crew in a certain radius might get an ominous message or hear a noise when a Sling gets their 5th, 10th or 15th thrall. Changing Ascension to a timed hatch (similar to Dominators from Gang) that would require the thralls to defend or the Sling to hide/barricade themselves in well enough that people can't get in and kill them (make the chrysalis super vulnerable to light?)

Consuming thralls to heal/reset cooldowns could be an idea, restoring the sling but lowering their thrall count by one, turning said former thrall into a shade or non-humanoid shadow entity with some spooky powers but all around a short term gain for a long term loss to the shadowlings.

Shadowlings have always been stealth-centric. I could implement a "loud phase" or something like that, but staying hidden will likely remain important. There's creative things you can do with your thralls - have them cause trouble in an area to draw attention away, or lesser glare a dude in a big group while not wearing an ID.

I disagree entirely with RNG conversion unless it has some luck-trumping mechanic, like injured people being more vulnerable to it, and melee conversion is always kind of a thing.

no

Good banter good banter

Only if you remove clocks first.

Clockcult is no longer my territory. I passed it onto Joan many moons ago, and people have not often been allowed to touch it without her approval. For context, the last time I merged something into clockcult was July.

Well yeah the real answer to this is you need to

-Make lighting directional

-Make vision directional

-Make people with night vision able to still be able to see if things are dark

Shadowling wasn't even about light vs dark at the end, just a pile of wizard spells and other crutches because you're trying to build on a system completely unsuited for stealth or light vs darkness.

While some of your concerns have merit, the simplicity of our lighting system is part of the appeal, to me. It means newer players can still be helpful by carrying around light sources, and prevents complication in an already-complicated gamemode.

Correct me if I'm wrong but the early iteration of Sling didn't have the end-goal ascended meme form right?

Remove it, it stupid and I hate it.

Make the thralls more like zombies, sick automatons, bumbling buffoons unable to use items or inventory reduced to being zombiecucks who walk around and follow simple commands.

Make Sling an antag not a game mode, figure out an objective.

There, I fixed it.

Your proposals sound fun for the shadowling but unfun for everyone else. Being removed from the round and made into effectively a simple animal isn't fun at all, although it would be a great way to prevent people voluntarily being converted. Shadowlings have had ascendance from the start, but it can easily be tweaked. Right now I'm planning on making their "ascendant" form into eldritch "progenitors", which are still immensely powerful but not world-endingly so and still mortal.

Shadowling zombies might be cool with corpses, but only if they can be recovered afterwards. Having seen changelings methodically go through the morgue and headcrab every body to gibs just because they could, watching your playtime for that round end forever because someone is feeling like a dick isn't fun gameplay.

Hand of God was better

Thanks. Could you maybe tell me how without being completely obtuse?

Hand of God will be fondly remembered as TG's least functional gamemode.

Oh, cut Remie some slack. It was a very, very high-upkeep mode and probably destined to fail with how hard it is to get right.

Rip hand of God, rip Neerti

Neerti went to Polaris. He deserves no mourning, and I dance on his grave.

[leibniz]

I think it's idiotic that ascended shadowlings are immune to everything.
They deserve their greentext but molesting 10-15 people doesn't make you a god, it just irks me even with our nonexistent lore standards.
Singulo and bombing should kill them for a bit, they could rise from their ashes and keep their greentext but at least it would look less silly.

[Luke Cox]

The core concept is pretty neat. It was given up on way too quickly in my opinion.

[Armhulen]

How about instead of big bad monster goes around converting people to gain power the big bad monster instead kills people to gain revives at like a cocoon structure they leave behind per revive, ash walker rate 2 corpses 1 life.

We can then focus on monster with incentive to kill people that gets stronger rather than everyone drags goombas to a monster and it never does anything but convert till it ascends.

??????????????????????????????????????

Conversion ruins monsters and this mode, HEAVILY.

Sling becomes dedicated conversion machine, as with any conversion mode people may join willingly. Where's the the fear of the big baddy?

no, as in i literally didn't know what you're saying. and besides, only THE shadowling can convert, so you still get to be you before becoming a brainless thrall

also that's a good idea. they still look the same but when the talk it's babble and moaning, so they can cuff you but they're dead inside

[Luke Cox]

If we want to brainstorm this effectively, we need to lay out everything that was wrong with the original shadowling. Who wants to start?