Cult power creep

[Supermichael777]

99% of antags
-limited shit
-If crew get their hands on it they can kill you with it

cult
-all you shit is basicly free
-normie proof gear
-you get all the cool shit from other modes

its kind of silly

First it was constructs, those used to be one of wizards five spells. Cultists got them because new cultists murder-boned too hard and it was messing with conversions.

Then cult got reworked a few times. Now they get shielded syndicate suits in cult flavor, e-shilds that are boomerangs and spawn shadow clones, literally eswords, Dsword+, and enough stuns to round up all of sec and the whole of the tide. all for basically free.

Someone link to cult stats.

[Shadowflame909]

>normie proof

The Mirror Shield and blood spear wants to have a chat with you

Edit: Also if the chaplain gets his hands on a cult shell, he can literally put his own soul-stone into it. Which wont obey the cult, but him.


THE DUDE CAN LITERALLY STEALTHILY KILL THE CULT FROM THEIR OWN ENEMY LINES

[confused rock]

tfw cult can go loud immediately and win to the point where stealth isn't even worth considering

[Shadowflame909]

No gamer what I mean is, the soul-stone construct could literally murderbone against the cult and the cult would have no hard-tell to know about its true motives.


It can use their teleport ruins, and is also immune to blood-boil so the cult is gonna get fucked

[confused rock]

I don't care tho

[wesoda25]

This is the best state current cult has ever been in. I think the winloss rate reflects that too, but I don’t know where to check it. The great thing is that security can steam roll a cult with relative ease. It really depends on whether each side has competent players.

The whole halo/eye thing has been a godly fucking update. Twisted construction got nerfed hard, as did mirror shields.

Also you forgot flag robes and and barrier runes are the actual OP cult shit.

However I think cultists should only get two spells, with barrier rune.


But at the same time I also think cult is far from ideal. Honestly needs to be removed or get another major rework. But right now its tolerable.

[subject217]

cult in its current state is more balanced than it was 6 months ago by far

i agree that a lot of the cult items are pretty absurd but usually they DO have counters, it's just something you have to specially prepare for or know about ahead of time, which is not fantastic game design in the format of tgstation rounds imo. if the average cult player actually abused the ridiculous amount of overpowered gear they have properly, i think the winrate would skyrocket once again. currently it's basically just obfuscated so only the biggest powergamers abuse it and solo carry their cult.

in my opinion the win conditions for cult need to be more intuitive for the average player to understand and achieve, and then the gear and spells and runes can be nerfed accordingly. i'd also like to continue cutting some of the bloat out.

[somerandomguy]

No gamer what I mean is, the soul-stone construct could literally murderbone against the cult and the cult would have no hard-tell to know about its true motives.


It can use their teleport ruins, and is also immune to blood-boil so the cult is gonna get fucked

There wouldn't be a "this is a cultist" icon on the cult's antaghud

[Atlanta-Ned]

cult is terrible and the parties responsible for making it that way (ROBUSTIN) should be fired into the sun.

[PKPenguin321]

cult is terrible and the parties responsible for making it that way (ROBUSTIN) should be fired into the sun.

>me, headmin
>fight to readd gang to the rotation in the hopes that somebody will improve it
>the primary contributor to "new gang" is none other than robustin
>gang gets removed again

[Shadowflame909]

No gamer what I mean is, the soul-stone construct could literally murderbone against the cult and the cult would have no hard-tell to know about its true motives.


It can use their teleport ruins, and is also immune to blood-boil so the cult is gonna get fucked

There wouldn't be a "this is a cultist" icon on the cult's antaghud

I thought about that, but then I remembered that I'm pretty sure constructs don't get that antaghud

[subject217]

all antagonists that have an antag hud get it regardless of their mob type

[oranges]

you, a brainlet: cult is unbalanced and needs work
me, a patrician of the arts: cult is a poor mans clone of rev with worse mechanics and should not exist at all

[Steelpoint]

Revolution is the only good TDM gamemode.

Cult is, ok, at best. But at the end of it, the gamemode is just a more complex variant of Rev.

[Yakumo_Chen]

Cult is just rev but they get better gear and also the crew gets an antag hud when the faction gets too big

rev is better though

[subject217]

stylistic variety is still interesting and worth keeping around

you can be reductive and say "oh, it's the same thing with extra steps" but those extra steps look pretty damn cool

[Dr_bee]

you, a brainlet: cult is unbalanced and needs work
me, a patrician of the arts: cult is a poor mans clone of rev with worse mechanics and should not exist at all

Oh my god I agree with oranges on something.

Cult is basically revs but the only way to fight them is to call the shuttle because robustin doesnt understand win statistics dont tell the entire story.

Oh no, cult keeps losing because the only way to fight them reliably is to red alert call the shuttle at 25 minutes, better buff them more so that statistic gets to 50% despite not understanding the actual problem in the first place!

[DemonFiren]

sounds like competitive ss13

[oranges]

stylistic variety is still interesting and worth keeping around

you can be reductive and say "oh, it's the same thing with extra steps" but those extra steps look pretty damn cool

all flash and no substance

rev says, here's a mode, use the entire game to acheive your goal
cult says, here's a mode, use these predefined small set of things to ignore the rest of the game

boneheaded if you ask me

[Incomptinence]

So would xenomorphs by having their predefined small set of things while being mechanically locked out of many regular game options be a better designed group antag by your reckoning?

Honestly the added complexity has largely made cult fail more than rev does over the course of the game.

Yup for past year still weaker than rev. A downright monument to KISS that's what this is.

[SaveVatznick]

sounds like competitive ss13

this reminds me of League of Legends forums. The talk of win rate pick rate ban rate and whether each skillset has the proper amount of skill expression across elos.

What if we just had 10 to 15 man stations and a matchmaker to seal the deal.

[PotatoMasher]

To this day I still wonder if putting the bullet to paper cult in favor of Robustin cult was actually a good thing or a bad thing.

[Dr_bee]

To this day I still wonder if putting the bullet to paper cult in favor of Robustin cult was actually a good thing or a bad thing.

The inability to disarm a cultist of their spells without holy water or literally dis-arming them is probably the single worst change to cult ever.

[Xeroxemnas]

The inability to disarm a cultist of their spells without holy water or literally dis-arming them is probably the single worst change to cult ever.

I dunno I find slapping cuffs on them pretty easy. Just smack them with a baton or something.

[Steelpoint]

Xenomorphs are a side antagonist, they are not a primary game mode.

[somerandomguy]

The inability to disarm a cultist of their spells without holy water or literally dis-arming them is probably the single worst change to cult ever.

I dunno I find slapping cuffs on them pretty easy. Just smack them with a baton or something.

you can't detain them without cuffs (perma) because they'll just teleport out

[Shadowflame909]

Xenomorphs are a side antagonist, they are not a primary game mode.

What side antagonist has the ability to spawn with 3 different methods and end your round

this is not a side antagonist, lol

[NecromancerAnne]

Cult's main problem is pretty much just a test of how much do you powergame, how much do you validhunt and how robust you are. If you consistently pull the stops and powergame as hard as possible it is likely you'll succeed but this honestly favours cult more than it does crew simply because fucking wizard spells, in addition to its powerful gear.

But the large majority of the crew do not do this or want to do this. So most of the time it's the cult, who are antags with objectives, who are going to win in situations with complacent crew. And it is whatever force sec can muster (usually just sec and and the greyshirts they could arm) verses an ever growing cult as it picks off that complacent crew.

Time also favours the cult in the vast majority of situations (that's fine though but it does make it super snowbally) and the cult does not experience attrition like revs suffer from. Unless the entire cult is dead, a single cultist can actually swing back into a victory, where as a headrev will likely still die to an implanted crew.

It is because you can't starve a cult of resources because even implanting crew members does not stop them from being sharded and contributing to the final summon or the fight in general. The only way you could is...literally incinerating their body. Not to mention deconversion is well established to be just terrible in cult and in the vast majority of situations you don't even bother. Which means putting people permanently out of the round.

There are a lot of fundamental problems to cult that generally make it exhausting to have to deal with after the billionth time. Especially when you watch one cultist wipe the crew on their own because they have all the powergaming gear they need to do it, or the cult gets found out immediately and crushed seconds flat. And only a small handful are going to enjoy whatever else cult has going for it and the rest just get beleted from the round.

[Dr_bee]

Time also favours the cult in the vast majority of situations (that's fine though but it does make it super snowbally) and the cult does not experience attrition like revs suffer from. Unless the entire cult is dead, a single cultist can actually swing back into a victory, where as a headrev will likely still die to an implanted crew.

It is because you can't starve a cult of resources because even implanting crew members does not stop them from being sharded and contributing to the final summon or the fight in general. The only way you could is...literally incinerating their body. Not to mention deconversion is well established to be just terrible in cult and in the vast majority of situations you don't even bother. Which means putting people permanently out of the round.

I cant put enough emphasis on these two points. The fact that cult is an entire team of headrevs alone is bad enough but then you add the near uselessness of mindshield implants and the difficulty of deconversion vs conversion and you have the problems of conversion modes but on steroids.

Robustin thought cult was weak because it kept losing in his win% statistics. He failed to realize cult was losing because the moment cult was called people red alert shuttle rushed because fighting cult is a fools game that is only asking for a cult win. He then would buff them, making the problem of cult not being fightable worse.

Blood cult just needs to be removed from rotation. It is rev but with the idea of balance replaced with making every rev a revhead and then giving them fucking wizard spells.

[somerandomguy]

Just go back to papercult

[Dr_bee]

Just go back to papercult

It wouldnt solve the underlying problem of cult being too good at snowballing.

Cult buffs are just a way of dancing around the fucking issue that is the opportunity cost of calling the shuttle VS fighting the cult.

On revs you HAVE to fight the revs. Cult you are better off just leaving the station as fighting conversion antags and giving them more time to snowball is a fools errand.

Solve the shuttle problem and you can now actually think about balancing cult as a conversion mode.

Conversion modes are shit to begin with anyway.

[SaveVatznick]

What if people needed to RP to get people to willingly join the cult.

[PKPenguin321]

What if people needed to RP to get people to willingly join the cult.

i mean, people will already become miraculously incompetent around cultists and then "oh no im converted who could have predicted this woe is me i have free antag status now", so this would just exacerbate that a lot

[4dplanner]

stylistic variety is still interesting and worth keeping around

you can be reductive and say "oh, it's the same thing with extra steps" but those extra steps look pretty damn cool

[4dplanner]

stylistic variety is still interesting and worth keeping around

you can be reductive and say "oh, it's the same thing with extra steps" but those extra steps look pretty damn cool

all flash and no substance

rev says, here's a mode, use the entire game to acheive your goal
cult says, here's a mode, use these predefined small set of things to ignore the rest of the game

boneheaded if you ask me

Yeah, revs is better. That doesn't mean that cult isn't still cool/has potential for improvements, and variety in gamemodes is good in itself. Cult (for better or for worse) has its own specific playstyle, and so it's nice to shake things up every now and then.

Disclaimer: cult is very rare on Terry, which might be contributing to this. I don't know whether decreasing the chance on higher pop servers would keep it more fresh, but it's a rare treat over here.

[Dr_bee]

stylistic variety is still interesting and worth keeping around

you can be reductive and say "oh, it's the same thing with extra steps" but those extra steps look pretty damn cool

all flash and no substance

rev says, here's a mode, use the entire game to acheive your goal
cult says, here's a mode, use these predefined small set of things to ignore the rest of the game

boneheaded if you ask me

Yeah, revs is better. That doesn't mean that cult isn't still cool/has potential for improvements, and variety in gamemodes is good in itself. Cult (for better or for worse) has its own specific playstyle, and so it's nice to shake things up every now and then.

Disclaimer: cult is very rare on Terry, which might be contributing to this. I don't know whether decreasing the chance on higher pop servers would keep it more fresh, but it's a rare treat over here.

Conversion modes are entirely different beasts on lowpop. Highpop cult is hell becuase the snowball effect is impossible to control. On lowpop the max effect of the conversion snowball is limited because the amount of players is limited.

5 loyalists vs 10 cultists is a bit easier to handle than 10 loyalists vs 40 cultists.

[somerandomguy]

If cult snowballs too much now it probably didn't before, thus going back to what we had before would help reduce the snowballing

[4dplanner]

"5 loyalists vs 10 cultists is a bit easier to handle than 10 loyalists vs 40 cultists."
Cult has a minimum pop of 29

edit: but if cult is so much more fun when it can't snowball TOO far, why not give it a max pop?

[Dr_bee]

"5 loyalists vs 10 cultists is a bit easier to handle than 10 loyalists vs 40 cultists."
Cult has a minimum pop of 29

You know what I mean 4d. It is called exaggeration for the sake of making a point.

My point still stands, 30 player cult is a completely different beast from 60 player cult which is in a completely different galaxy from 80+ player highpop cult.

Conversion modes with no VIPs have scaling issues based on server population that conversion modes with VIPs dont necessarily have.

[oranges]

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[angelstarri]

just remove the fucking stun and lower the greatsword damage so it doesn't disembowel you in one hit okay

also revive and ghost runes but whatever those are a minor part of the problem

[Dr_bee]

just remove the fucking stun and lower the greatsword damage so it doesn't disembowel you in one hit okay

also revive and ghost runes but whatever those are a minor part of the problem

Disembowlment on living targets is a bad mechanic anyway, 1 hit kills suck.

[NecromancerAnne]

It's also unrelated to just the longsword. The chance of disemboweling someone with that sword and a circular saw is the same. It's just one pierces armor as well as does 30 force.

[Epic]

>be cap during cult round
>Calling shuttle
>Notice ce with hardsuit helmet on approaching
>Sus as fuck
>The moment I pull out my egun he insta stuns me
>Watch as he takes his time recalling then killing me while I can't so shit

>Be cap again in brig
>narsie summon in bridge
>Quickly gather all of sec,recent deconvets,chap,etc
>Ready to kick ass
>Raid bridge through only entrance (fucking donut station)
>At least 3 blood boil runes activate at the same time
> Most of us are near insta critted and die within 20secs while the rest get rekt by culties

Fighting the cult is mostly pointless as unless the cult is horribly unrobust as they will grow in numbers and revive. If your lucky you might force them into Lavaland which is a pain.

[subject217]

the first point seems more like you complaining about dying, how would it be any different than if he had used his baton?
hmmm, interesting idea actually, maybe the cult magic should make a sound when you equip it, like batons.

second point is totally valid, the summon is definitely too easy for cultists right now and a lot of the obscure runes and things of that nature are super broken.

[terranaut]

remember when you literally couldnt play cult when one guy was afk or didnt know how to communicate his word except if an admin told you the word of the last guy
really epic and great fun tbh. cults dont get any form of stun immunity, chucking a flashbang in a cult base will just win you the fight instantly, chaplain can whack a water tank once to produce 1000u of anti cult goodies and botany can mass-produce holymelons (i've never seen someone just turn a holy water smoke machine on outside of a known cult base or summoning ritual btw). as with all conversion gamemodes a mindshield will deny a cult hard, one retard is all it takes to blow the cover for everyone immediately which in turn will instantly bring the entire station up in arms and on alert, you can't convert on the go and you need to coordinate with someone else to convert. converting people is much more difficult than on rev but in turn you get some cool gear for it and are guaranteed to lose the stealth element at some point. i don't have the win statistics for now and earlier so i can't say if it's more balanced but it's definitely much more fun.

[subject217]

actually mindshields and cult aren't great. cultists hiding behind mindshields isnt really a problem with the whole rise/ascend thing but the issue is that if you are mindshielded and the cult captures you instead of becoming a normal deconvertible cultist you become at worst a really shitty pai for someone and at best a simple mob that can run around and smack stuff. and you can't ever be deconverted, only killed. so the cult can always produce allies out of mindshielded people and it permanently denies new allies to the crew.

[terranaut]

while thats true on paper in practice it ends up just cluttering cult chat with soul stones calling cultists retarded and yelling out their location all the time. constructs also can't be mass-produced as quickly as people can be turned into stones so it definitely helps if you need to buy time.
a mindshielded crewmember also needs 3 people to be offered unless they beat him to death first, which might just be enough time for him to shout out the location of the base before being gibbed.

[Dr_bee]

actually mindshields and cult aren't great. cultists hiding behind mindshields isnt really a problem with the whole rise/ascend thing but the issue is that if you are mindshielded and the cult captures you instead of becoming a normal deconvertible cultist you become at worst a really shitty pai for someone and at best a simple mob that can run around and smack stuff. and you can't ever be deconverted, only killed. so the cult can always produce allies out of mindshielded people and it permanently denies new allies to the crew.

I have been complaining about this for years. There is very little point to implanting people.

Cult constructs are a holdover from pre-everyones-a-wizard cult anyway, they dont need to be a thing anymore.

[cedarbridge]

Why is this in general and not coding feedback?