Cult Conversation

[carshalash]

At the moment with the changes to security that have happened over the last year cult has become some what of an unstoppable monster, being able to successfully fend off the cult is a somewhat impossible task where the only real option with them is to try and force a shuttle call asap. With the antag freeze at the moment nobody can really do anything so I figured i'd make a thread for people to be able speak about possible things that can be done to cult once it's over.

The fact that it is currently strong enough to be able to do this is just, extremely fucked.

[Shadowflame909]

Yeah I was there that round.

And I was there last round when cult brutally lost to a well enforced security team, and a lack of maints on kilo station.

Checkmate strawman

[Dr_bee]

Cult has been a shitstorm of poor balance decisions primarily because of the problem of the escape shuttle. The absolute power of having every cult member being the equivalent of a headrev means that there is very little point is fighting a cult as attrition will always be in their favor. Instant shuttle calls lead to low cult winrates, and because of these winrates being read very shallowly cult got buffs so they can outrun the shuttle call.

These buffs just made the problem of the shuttle call worse, as now there is almost no reason to do anything but call the shuttle ASAP and make sure it cant be recalled. Security has no incentive to fight a cult as more often than not they are the sacrificial target. All it takes it one stun or knockdown and the instagib runes cult get for free makes the fight over.

In short, Bloodcult has two major problems with it.

1. The conversion mechanic itself is too powerful
2. The shuttle call is the only logical choice to actually fight it.

The problem with fixing these is basically you have a shittier version of revs where everyone is a wizard. Blood cult doesnt have much going for it over revs.

[Reyn]

Cult has been a shitstorm of poor balance decisions primarily because of the problem of the escape shuttle. The absolute power of having every cult member being the equivalent of a headrev means that there is very little point is fighting a cult as attrition will always be in their favor. Instant shuttle calls lead to low cult winrates, and because of these winrates being read very shallowly cult got buffs so they can outrun the shuttle call.

These buffs just made the problem of the shuttle call worse, as now there is almost no reason to do anything but call the shuttle ASAP and make sure it cant be recalled. Security has no incentive to fight a cult as more often than not they are the sacrificial target. All it takes it one stun or knockdown and the instagib runes cult get for free makes the fight over.

In short, Bloodcult has two major problems with it.

1. The conversion mechanic itself is too powerful
2. The shuttle call is the only logical choice to actually fight it.

The problem with fixing these is basically you have a shittier version of revs where everyone is a wizard. Blood cult doesnt have much going for it over revs.

Well, Other POTENTIAL ways to fight it are lethals and extreme options such as crew militia or mass holy watering, but... yeah, as of recent sec debuffs, and as of cult still having an instastun while sec doesn't, culties can get a pretty strong start VERY early on, and can potentially summon within 14 minutes or less.

This might also be a problem related to a lack of sec, But I see why cult is problematic right now.

[Dr_bee]

Well, Other POTENTIAL ways to fight it are lethals and extreme options such as crew militia or mass holy watering, but... yeah, as of recent sec debuffs, and as of cult still having an instastun while sec doesn't, culties can get a pretty strong start VERY early on, and can potentially summon within 14 minutes or less.

This might also be a problem related to a lack of sec, But I see why cult is problematic right now.

The problem with those ideas is the cult can convert even dead people with their instagib runes, and can still irrevocably murder and convert people with mindshields with the same fucking rune.

There is nothing the crew can do to the cult that the cult doesnt have an answer for.

[Reyn]

Well, Other POTENTIAL ways to fight it are lethals and extreme options such as crew militia or mass holy watering, but... yeah, as of recent sec debuffs, and as of cult still having an instastun while sec doesn't, culties can get a pretty strong start VERY early on, and can potentially summon within 14 minutes or less.

This might also be a problem related to a lack of sec, But I see why cult is problematic right now.

The problem with those ideas is the cult can convert even dead people with their instagib runes, and can still irrevocably murder and convert people with mindshields with the same fucking rune.

There is nothing the crew can do to the cult that the cult doesnt have an answer for.

There's always the nuclear self destruct

In all seriousness, the converting the dead is pretty stronk, not going to lie, and with constructs and the sharded bois being able to assist in summoning and such? Yeah i see your point.

Now the question. How do we fix this?

[Taylork2]

Well, Other POTENTIAL ways to fight it are lethals and extreme options such as crew militia or mass holy watering, but... yeah, as of recent sec debuffs, and as of cult still having an instastun while sec doesn't, culties can get a pretty strong start VERY early on, and can potentially summon within 14 minutes or less.

This might also be a problem related to a lack of sec, But I see why cult is problematic right now.

The problem with those ideas is the cult can convert even dead people with their instagib runes, and can still irrevocably murder and convert people with mindshields with the same fucking rune.

There is nothing the crew can do to the cult that the cult doesnt have an answer for.

There's always the nuclear self destruct

In all seriousness, the converting the dead is pretty stronk, not going to lie, and with constructs and the sharded bois being able to assist in summoning and such? Yeah i see your point.

Now the question. How do we fix this?

Easy, add delays/action bars for all cultists involved in converting when using the conversion rune. If converting a dead body(mindshield or no) make it 3 seconds, converting someone who doesn't have a mindshield 6 seconds, mindshield is 8 seconds.
Anyone who conversion starts on is incapacitated/asleep like how are for the first few seconds after being converted right now.
If Holy Melon/magical immunity the rune fails as normal.
This specifically slows down the Cult's rate of conversion and makes it significantly harder for a cult to convert groups of people, as the cult will have a very hard time converting 2/3 people at the same rate as before since they can't move either of the three cultists converting, makes conversion interruptible by someone wandering in forcing a cultist to stop the ritual to deal with them(or for the person to drag/push a cultist).
1v1ing cultists is still just as bad of an idea, but it'll take longer for a 3v3 to turn into a 1v5.

I don't know how much of a mess coding this would be, but it seems like the most direct treatment.

[oranges]

there's only one good conversion mode, and it's rev

what if we just made cult a dangerous situation so the shuttle won't leave, and then rebalanced them so they're more like a rev slog fight

[Critawakets]

Honestly i feel as if rev should be the mid-round antag instead of cult. It fits more and requires lower levels of setup.

Also want a good and easy nerf to cult? Remove or change the flagellant robe. The extra damage is pathetic when you can basically instantly get up to the face of anyone and stun them. Making it not have the damage penalty but be an occasional tiny burst of speed to catch up with fleeing targets could be good. It could also be like a very light armor that has one slowly recharging use of what the e-katana's dash effect does.

[Cobby]

Conversion is bad, you can just crit someone and convert and tada no problem

Sac is bad, you can just kill someone and sac them then use the metal provided en masse in every station to build an army

like lol who thought "you did not do a good job but now every instance will allow you to easily stack the odds in your favor"...

[Dr_bee]

like lol who thought "you did not do a good job but now every instance will allow you to easily stack the odds in your favor"...

Robustin.

[Shadowflame909]

I say it and I say it again. Cult just got armor nerfs, and they just got the meth speed robe nerf.

The round right before OP had was a cult wipe out.

Something Something Cult loses more then it wins.


But my personal opinion is that cult is too "RAGE WAR LOUD NOW REE" like literally any other conversion mode. IE Revs and Gangs in the past.

It should be more shadowlings and hidden. No armor, No deadly blades. Just pure dark heresy magic.

And as we all know, mages have slower attacks in exchange for them being more fierce.

Tldr; Cult losing but Cult is too much like revs and old-gangs to really be anything new. Also remove the abillity to turn metal into shells with twisted construction, and add shell making onto runed metal-making. IE: You can only make shells with plasteel.

[wesoda25]

I said it in another thread, but I'll reiterate (and elaborate) here.

Basically I think cult should be gutted. You might remember pyo1's PR here: https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/pull/45713. They basically tried to completely remove a majority of cult content and rework its summon. What I suggest is similar but not as drastic (in certain areas).

Part One: Cut/Nerf Content
Basically, we should remove a lot of unnecessary and niche spells from cult. Stuff like Spirit Realm, Summon, etc. As it is, cult has way too much content and is effectively a new game for new players.

Part of this is that cult powers should definitely be significantly nerfed. Barrier runes shouldn't be 5 second-craftable unbreakable walls, spells such as stun should be weakened and less effective. Definitely remove items such as unholy water and void torches and stuff. Maybe remove offer rune, I'll get into that in the next part.

Part Two: Rework Objectives/Conversion
So basically I think the greatest issue with cult is summoning. Try as we might its very hard to balance, not only this but it is incredibly disruptive to other antagonists and events especially in modes such as dynamic, which is supposedly the future. Therefore I say we should straight up remove cults ability to summon Nar Sie, at least in the sense we have it now. Cult should instead have such objectives as to sacrifice x crewmembers, sacrifice some specific dangerous crewmember, convert x crewmembers, and have x cultists escape aboard the escape shuttle to "spread the faith". If we want to be especially ambitious we can completely scrap the offer rune and conversion capability from cult, and in place have a few more people be roundstart cultists. This would keep cult from being as similar to revs, and encourage a lot more teamwork and use of revival spells (if we dont remove).

TLDR: Remove lots of niche cult spells and content, gut the mode to its core and rework its objectives so that they can't summon. Shift cult more to a stealthy group side antagonist than a dangerous main antagonist.

At the very least I think it would be interesting. Might try my hand at coding it.

[Shadowflame909]

Removing the cult's goal to summon nar'sie has been done to success before on other servers.

Like, I think on paradise the cult can have the goal to cause an apocalypse.

This being, it summons baby demons (The same imps from devil mode) to terrorize people. The station nukes, the game ends.

But you can just kill all the demons and it's GG. But you usually don't have time to do that before the nuke hits.

Edit: I'd still be happy if all that was left from the "new" cult was the abillity to convert and blood-rites. Blood-rites is really really cool and rarely used to its full potential since it's so hard to gather enough blood.

[wesoda25]

Yeah I was gonna say something about that but forgot. Apocalypse would remain as a large side quest of sorts for cult, however I think it should definitely be harder to pull off. An objective to do so would definitely be good. Also idk if it does so already but like an announcement as they start the apocalypse so that people can fight back would be neat. Like the endgame after a successful summon, cult can't just drop everything and try and pull off apocalypse, they need to strategize and ensure they have escape routes.

[oranges]

I feel like robustin really just wanted to play cult solo and that’s why he made the changes he made.

[deedubya]

Here's a somewhat radical thought: Remember our version of gangs? With the tagging, the rep system from wearing your gang's threads, it being an antag v antag v crew setup, and also having a "summon" wincon?

Why don't we rework cult to be more like that old game mode? It'll still be a conversion game mode. You can "tag" an area by scribing the runes of your specific cult (blood or clockwork) in an area. You can gain influence by having more of the station under your control and sacrificing people to your specific god, which you can spend on items such as robes, weapons, and a cult themed stun baton(removing stun hands as a spell). Likewise, summoning their god won't require a specific sacrifice anymore. Activating the summon rune will work the same way the overthrow machine used to work - based on how much influence you have over the station. Things like how many people you've sacrificed/how many people you have/how much area you control should all factor into this. I wouldn't remove the redeyes/halo mechanic, as that's a significant factor of counterplay against a cult, and should remain even after a rework. If a cult gets that many members, they should be forced to go loud. (Give yellow eyes and a cog to servants of Ratvar)

What this will do: Make the mode less analogous to Revs, since although it'll be a conversion mode, it'll be the only legit non-dynamic antag vs antag vs station mode on the server. It'll remove blood magic in almost it's entirety, fixing the balance issues related to it. Finally, it'll bring back the themes and aesthetics of Clock Cult, which was obviously well-liked by the general populace, even if the game mode they were tied to was not.

[Shadowflame909]

That's just Hand of God deedubya

Damn. Cult + Gangs is just Hand Of God...

Robustin can combine two game-modes he's revamped into one. Do it.

[Dr_bee]

The sad thing about cult is it went from a neat "maybe magic maybe mundane" style with the mind altering geometry in paper cult to straight up wizards.

Cult as it is now feels like it should be in a fucking fantasy roleplaying game. We already have that mode and its wizard, we dont need two of them.

Bring back the old papercult, including its objectives.

[deedubya]

That's just Hand of God deedubya

Damn. Cult + Gangs is just Hand Of God...

Robustin can combine two game-modes he's revamped into one. Do it.

Hand of God was a lot more complex than that, thanks to the whole omniscience and enforced chain of command setup.(dosen't help that it never actually got finished and used a bunch of OP admin-only shit as stand-ins) My idea is more to just take what works with cult and what worked with gangs, cut out the overpowered shit, and get the best of both.

[Tarchonvaagh]

I suggest removing the roundending climax, and adding an "x number of members on the shuttle" objective

[pugie]

I suggest removing the roundending climax, and adding an "x number of members on the shuttle" objective

EW

[NoxVS]

Right now cult is extremely overpowered. Instant RANGED stuns, EMPs which means all energy based weaponry is (even more) useless, meth speed armor, shield armor, swords that can delimb and do so much damage you can pretty much guarantee you won’t be winning against cultists in melee, and of course the ABILITY TO BECOME OMNISCIENT AND BECOME A GHOST TO HELP THE CULT. The only reason why cult doesn’t steamroll every time is because it’s entirely dependent on getting a handful of competent players. Convert like 3 people who know what they are doing? You win. Don’t? You probably lose.

[CPTANT]

The Ghost rune is horrible for balance.

It allows a single cultist to convert, which is insanely powerful. I think it should just be removed.

[CPTANT]

And as a more general solution:

I say remove cult conversions after they reach halo status and balance around that. Prevent Shuttle call and give cult a deadline in which they must summon after reaching this phase.

It makes the round distinct from rev and forces an endgame.

Rebalance as needed.

[Sandshark808]

And as a more general solution:

I say remove cult conversions after they reach halo status and balance around that. Prevent Shuttle call and give cult a deadline in which they must summon after reaching this phase.

It makes the round distinct from rev and forces an endgame.

Rebalance as needed.

That's an interesting idea. It would also mean targeted conversions to avoid hitting the line before you're ready.

[CPTANT]

And as a more general solution:

I say remove cult conversions after they reach halo status and balance around that. Prevent Shuttle call and give cult a deadline in which they must summon after reaching this phase.

It makes the round distinct from rev and forces an endgame.

Rebalance as needed.

That's an interesting idea. It would also mean targeted conversions to avoid hitting the line before you're ready.

I think it solves a lot of problems, like the cult just delaying and delaying until they have converted the entire station or the immediate shuttle call being the only viable strategy.

As long as unlimited conversion exists rounds will just play out as a variant of rev.

[wesoda25]

or we could straight up remove conversion like i said