Shadowlings (Gamemode suggestion/replacement)

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Sat Jan 24, 2015 3:00 pm #62275

Bottom post of the previous page:

The only difficult part in making a straight Shadowling game mode is getting rid of the ability to change your appearance, not having your appearance change when you absorb someone and reviving someone who is absorbed into a underling/thrall.

AnonymousNow · Post by **AnonymousNow** » Sat Jan 24, 2015 4:12 pm #62299

We've had complaints recently that newling is boring, as it lacks the overt threat and lethality of oldling (which I hated, because it's essentially a roundtype where people get removed from the game for as long as possible). This could be the ticket for a revitalisation.

Xhuis · Post by **Xhuis** » Sat Jan 24, 2015 11:44 pm #62481

I'm working on coding this now.

danno · Post by **danno** » Sat Jan 24, 2015 11:50 pm #62484

I don't get why people don't like newling. I love it. It's versatile as fuck, you can do so many different things.
I don't like the idea of replacing gamemodes. New gamemodes are always great though.

Post by **PKPenguin321** » Sun Jan 25, 2015 1:49 am #62527

What Danno said. I absolutely love the entire concept for this gamemode, but removing ling feels a little unnecessary since it does function really well. I don't see why it gets so much flak.

Xhuis · Post by **Xhuis** » Sun Jan 25, 2015 3:36 am #62561

I don't intend to remove it.

Post by **lumipharon** » Sun Jan 25, 2015 3:38 am #62563

It's not so much that newling is mechanically shit, it's that players will naturally take the path with the least risk/highest chance of success.
With ling this happens to be the dullest, most boring, shitty path possible.

Shit like round start armory blitz with as many lings as possible is fun as fuck, but it's not usually going to end in greentext.

Now that I think about it actually, a big part is that lings always get gibbed/cremated/occasionally debrained when caught. So essentially getting caught means getting round ended, where as traitors you're far less likely to get executed.

That said, it's still better then old ling 'parasting, drain, round ended.'

AnonymousNow · Sun Jan 25, 2015 11:38 am

danno wrote:I don't get why people don't like newling. I love it. It's versatile as fuck, you can do so many different things.
I don't like the idea of replacing gamemodes. New gamemodes are always great though.

I basically agree with this, though Oldling felt like it needed removing.

Newling rounds should be tested for feeling an indicative amount of time in and then acted upon - by which I mean, if we're half an hour/45 minutes in, and a changeling hasn't made a significant play, an admin should be happier to press a button.

Miauw · Post by **Miauw** » Sun Jan 25, 2015 2:51 pm #62676

lings could do with being a secondary antag rather than their own gamemode.

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Sun Jan 25, 2015 3:54 pm #62686

Replace Changelings with Shadowling and make Changelings a secondary antag in TraitorChan

Xhuis · Post by **Xhuis** » Sun Jan 25, 2015 4:23 pm #62691

I don't like the idea of replacing changeling and have shadowling as the new gamemode. I was thinking having the weight for ling/traitorchan lowered and shadowling have the old weight. I don't know how the playerbase would react to shadowling so I'm tentative about even that.

DemonFiren · Post by **DemonFiren** » Sun Jan 25, 2015 4:29 pm #62694

Give it a week of test running in replacement, shorten that time if the reaction is poor, keep a poll open allowing for people to specify whether they'd like it to replace ling completely, exist alongside it (higher or lower probability than ling), or didn't enjoy the mode.

That is, once it's in a working state.

Xhuis · Post by **Xhuis** » Sun Jan 25, 2015 4:30 pm #62696

Countless things have been merged for "testing" and never reverted. I don't know how well that would work. At the very least it's gonna be a long time before this works anyway, so we have plenty of time to debate...

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Sun Jan 25, 2015 4:32 pm #62698

We do need a solid test phase, new game modes are a very rare thing even if it is based off of another antag.

I think having it up for a week or two, and having constant feedback/polls/whatever on it is a good way in going forward.

AnonymousNow · Post by **AnonymousNow** » Sun Jan 25, 2015 8:14 pm #62740

Xhuis wrote:Countless things have been merged for "testing" and never reverted. I don't know how well that would work. At the very least it's gonna be a long time before this works anyway, so we have plenty of time to debate...

Xhuis, as the dev, this'll essentially be your baby, with Nalar as the father and Steelpoint as the godfather. If you yourself are receptive to commentary and are willing to take it down yourself if it goes badly, then I don't forsee anything going wrong with a testing phase.

Xhuis · Post by **Xhuis** » Sun Jan 25, 2015 10:53 pm #62801

AnonymousNow wrote:-snip-

You've convinced me. If the PR goes well and it eventually ends up in a workable state, I can see about a testing phase.

NOTE: I used to spoilers to prevent wall-o-textiness
All right, here's what I've got so far, in a really weird list format.

1. There is one shadowling on the station.
2. The shadowling starts in a completely dark lair on the CentCom z-level and can choose where to spawn.
3. The shadowling has a stun reduction in the dark and heals 3 of all conventional damage types while in the dark.
4. The shadowling takes 10 burn damage every tick while in the light.
5. The shadowling can 'enthrall' crew members, which slaves them to the shadowling. The shadowling can talk to all thralls from anywhere via a hive chat, but the thralls can not respond unless in person.
6. Thralls, while bound to the shadowling, are not affected by light, nor are they affected by the dark. They do, however, gain night vision.
7. The shadowling has one of two objectives: to enthrall 10 crewmembers or eat 10 crewmembers (this number may scale with population).
8. The round ends when the shadowling does or it completes its objectives.
9. Like an adamantine golem, the shadowling has unremovable clothing that protects against space and slipping.
10. The shadowling is just a human with a modified shadowperson mutant race.
11. The shadowling has the following abilities:

Spoiler:

Here's some code-related questions (if you can answer these, please do!)

Spoiler:

This is a very early rendition, and things may be far from optimal. I appreciate all feedback you have to offer, constructive or otherwise.

DemonFiren · Post by **DemonFiren** » Sun Jan 25, 2015 11:02 pm #62805

Suggest increasing Glare effect duration as opposed to Screech in order to justify the high cooldown against a single target.

Remie Richards · Mon Jan 26, 2015 12:23 am

Xhuis wrote: 1. What are the various 'ticker.mode' statements used for and how can I make them?
2. Where are antagonist types/flags declared?

1. ticker.mode is the gamemode the game is currently in, the ticker is a controller/subsystem that keeps the gamemode (and some misc stuff) running. ticker.mode.name is used instead of istype() in gamemode code because it would lag like absolute arse otherwise.

2. https://github.com/tgstation/-tg-statio ... erences.dm

Cipher3 · Post by **Cipher3** » Mon Jan 26, 2015 1:23 am #62845

If you need alpha testers Xhuis I'd be happy to help.

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Mon Jan 26, 2015 9:41 am #62963

The Underlings should essentially be weaker variants of the Shadowling, they should have only some of his basic powers (Such as no Ethereal Jaunt).

Phalanx300 · Post by **Phalanx300** » Mon Jan 26, 2015 10:08 am #62970

Really sounds like some sort of vampire being haunting the station. Sounds good so far. Only thing that might be worrisome is how there is still a devour ability rather then just the convert.

Cheimon · Post by **Cheimon** » Mon Jan 26, 2015 1:20 pm #63021

How are you going to balance night vision with the ability to see what's dark and what isn't?

Unless I misunderstood you when you said thralls will get night vision (I assumed you meant the shadowling would get that too).

Bombadil · Post by **Bombadil** » Mon Jan 26, 2015 4:52 pm #63074

Cheimon wrote:How are you going to balance night vision with the ability to see what's dark and what isn't?

Unless I misunderstood you when you said thralls will get night vision (I assumed you meant the shadowling would get that too).

You can toggle night vision

Could just give them thermal and get it over with

dezzmont · Post by **dezzmont** » Mon Jan 26, 2015 5:18 pm #63083

Couple of thoughts:

As other people said a 10 second light break is way too fast and negates the shadowling's damage pretty hardcore and reduces their need for thralls.

I don't like the idea of shadowling as a solo antag to start with. Unlike the wizard the idea is that he should be subtly haunting the station right? The problem is a solo antag needs to be robust enough to effortlessly win a small scale fight, which creates an incentive for the shadowling to just port into security round start to win. The risk of the round being over super quickly is very real and probably not really necessary.

I feel like a group of shadowlings keeps the paranoia alive for both sides and keeps this from being a mashup of wizard and rev. Killing a shadowling early should raise paranoia rather than just end the round.

Convert/kill 10 people is a pathetically small number. Ideally the round shouldn't end based on covert rate. Take a page from cult and instead give the shadowlings some big round ending thing they can trigger, like punging the entire station into darkness and causing global damage as people get devoured by grues.

Shadowlings could stand to be station based antagonists, as moving them off station would make more than half the game modes have off station antags. The game is mostly balanced around internal paranoia and works best with that. Shadowlings could start in human bodies with only two powers: Enthrall and Hatch, with hatch permanently turning them into a shadowling. This would allow subtle shadowlings to convert people just like the alien in the original Thing and reduces dependance on an overwhelmingy powerful shadowling that is capable of winning from shadowling form the entire game.

Also rename the game mode to Grue.

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Mon Jan 26, 2015 5:28 pm #63086

We could start by having the Shadowling only be able to appear in a limited amount of areas, such as maintenance or a more disued location (Chapel, Arrivals, Construction Site) and disallow them to teleport at round start to high security areas.

Also we could look at restricting their usage of certain fire arms if need be.

Ultimantly we would need to playtest the Shadowling on server in order to find these things out, but from all the prior play tests of the Shadowling to date, its been generally well liked and balanced.

DemonFiren · Post by **DemonFiren** » Mon Jan 26, 2015 6:28 pm #63124

Firearms create light. Just about all of them, anyway.
They can fire, but the muzzle flash is bright enough to dissipate their grip on the gun and make them drop it.

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Mon Jan 26, 2015 6:38 pm #63126

That's actually a good idea, making it that firing a gun will drain a bit of health and make you drop the gun.

DemonFiren · Post by **DemonFiren** » Mon Jan 26, 2015 6:40 pm #63129

Tasering someone in a pinch to run like hell (or advance) is viable that way.
It just won't help you against mobs.

Also, flashbangs should hurt like a real motherfucker.

Snakebutt · Post by **Snakebutt** » Mon Jan 26, 2015 8:03 pm #63156

how will shadowling deal with botanist growing 100 potency glowberries that light up the entire screen to full light? And then growing a million and scattering them everywhere?

DemonFiren · Post by **DemonFiren** » Mon Jan 26, 2015 8:11 pm #63159

Hit botany first, is how.

If you give the main 'ling Alien-level APC fucking powers...

Xhuis · Post by **Xhuis** » Mon Jan 26, 2015 11:14 pm #63239

Great feedback, folks! I really appreciate it. Here's a question: should the shadowling be a human with a mutant race or just its own mob? With a mutant race it'd be hard to handle a lot of the effects but with its own mob it might be more simple (of course, the obvious limitations still apply).

Tue Jan 27, 2015 12:32 am

I always envisioned it as a mutant race. If it being it's own mob makes this easier to code, however, then go for it since this has been due to be coded for ages.
Actually it's not due at all I just really want this because it sounds so cool so the sooner the better you know?I love you for coding this

Xhuis · Post by **Xhuis** » Tue Jan 27, 2015 1:25 am #63273

About to wrap up for the day.

Things accomplished:
1. Multiple shadowlings!
2. Round does not end when shadowlings accomplish their objectives!
3. Shadowlings start out disguised as crew members and can use the Hatch ability to explode into their true form!
4. Creepy sound effects!
5. NO COMPILE ERRORS!!! \o/

To do:
Make it actually functional
Add Ascending
Add all the abilities
Add enthralling

Scones · Post by **Scones** » Tue Jan 27, 2015 1:54 am #63282

I trust the sounds are sufficently horrifying.

This sounds like a ton of fun, I can't wait to see it. Flashbangs SHOULD be a serious weapon against them, though. In contrast, I wouldn't mind them having some temporary 'area of darkness' aura that costs a ton of chems (Maybe health?) for brief stints of rushing through lit areas.

AnonymousNow · Post by **AnonymousNow** » Tue Jan 27, 2015 2:04 am #63286

What about possible "endgame" powers? If you devour (or if we think of something better) or enthall enough people, you get the ability to walk like the head of a wave of rolling darkness, like the harbinger of black mist itself.

Xhuis · Post by **Xhuis** » Tue Jan 27, 2015 2:43 am #63309

AnonymousNow wrote:What about possible "endgame" powers? If you devour (or if we think of something better) or enthall enough people, you get the ability to walk like the head of a wave of rolling darkness, like the harbinger of black mist itself.

This is covered in the objective. In the latest version you can't devour things but you gain power from enthralling. If you enthrall enough people, you can use the ability Collective Mind which exists solely to unlock Ascendance. Ascendance is your round-ending ability and the objective of every shadowling is to Ascend.

Basically, you become a monstrous shadow-creature. For all intents and purposes, you're invincible. When you Ascend the entire world gets a message and the shuttle is called for 5 minutes, similar to Nar-Sie rising. I haven't determined what the details of it are, but the thralls are still their normal mortal selves and still bound to the shadowling (who is now incapable of verbally communicating outside of shadow chat). I haven't decided what I want to use for the sprites, what you can do, and what powers you get, but it's definitely a round-ending thing, even more so with multiple Ascendants.

Earlier I mentioned shadow chat; that's basically a way for shadowlings and their thralls to communicate. Functionally it's identical to changeling hive chat except that thralls can't speak on the channel, only hear. Shadowlings can speak freely on there.

Question: should thralls be bound only to the enthralling shadowling or should they be bound to all shadows? I've started referring to shadowlings as shadows, so forgive me if that causes confusion.

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Tue Jan 27, 2015 3:01 am #63315

I think that if we're going with the end game "ascend" ability that any active Thralls should die and come back to life. This will give the crew one last chance to fortify the escape wing and get off the station. Once the Shadowling has ascended, by all technical accounts its won. However the shuttle offers one last opportunity for the crew to escape.

For Thralls, I think they should be bound to all Shadowlings, meaning the original ones. But they are allies of all other underlings/thralls.

Xhuis · Post by **Xhuis** » Tue Jan 27, 2015 3:14 am #63318

I never thought about reviving all the thralls. I do intend for the shuttle to be available to the crew; however, once the shadowling has ascended, unless by some way they all die, shadowlings do not need to escape on the shuttle, so it's up to them and their minions whether or not they let the crew survive or just kill everything in sight.

I will probably have some sort of UI indicator for shadowlings and thralls. Having thralls not able to recognize each other seems stupid, and shadowlings need to recognize each other before Hatching.

By "Die and come back to life" do you mean removing them from being enthralled (making them normal crew)? Like the shadowlings consumed the power of their thralls in order to ascend?

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Tue Jan 27, 2015 3:22 am #63324

Yeah, when I say make the Thralls (I'm going to refer to them as Thralls from now on) come back to life when the Shadowling ascends I mean that they lose their "enthralled" status and become a living human once more. The point to this is to give the surviving Humans one chance to get off the station, because I will assume that once the Shadowling has gotten to the point to ascend that the crew are unable to fight off the Shadowling.

Meaning that a Ascended Shadowling, plus a small army of Thralls, will make it impossible for the crew to get on the shuttle alive. However the crew versus just a single Ascended Shadowling might offer them enough of a opportunity to survive.

Phalanx300 · Post by **Phalanx300** » Tue Jan 27, 2015 10:10 am #63378

Making the Thralls come back alive doesn't sound good. Make when the Shadowling ascends it kills all the living Thralls, with the number of Thralls killed determining its power.

Post by **Jacquerel** » Tue Jan 27, 2015 10:33 am #63380

Flipping alignment from crew to antagonist can be annoying enough, if you were working hard to repel the enemy team and are now part of it.
Flipping back again afterwards so you don't even get antag status out of it would be real shit.
Alignment changing is a dangerous thing.

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Tue Jan 27, 2015 10:39 am #63382

My main concern is that some crew members will run up to Shadowlings and ask to get thralled in order to get antag status.

Now, I've got a few suggestions on trying to mitigate this. (The person who gets thralled must become the thrall imo).

Give the Shadowling a few powers that absorb/gib a Thrall for a benefit, such as rapid healing/overtime regeneration or something similar.
Make Thralls die when the Shadowling ascends. We can assume that the Shadowling needs a certain amount of thralled subjects in order to ascend in the first place.
Alternatively the Thralls lose their Thrall status and become non-antag humans again. Given one final opportunity to get the hell out of dodge.

In addition, thralls must do whatever a Shadowling says no matter what. If he orders you to jump out a airlock, you jump.

DemonFiren · Post by **DemonFiren** » Tue Jan 27, 2015 11:35 am #63390

1) Consuming Shadow.
Assuming thralls are linked to the ling who created them, gives that ling the ability to remotely dissolve them over a span of time, or instantaneously absorb them in touch range. This has a healing/restoring effect on the ling.
Now whether those thralls just up and disappear or if they return to their uninfected state is not mine to determine.

2) "But what if that shitler thrall's ling master has gone braindead?"
You got me with that question.

Phalanx300 · Post by **Phalanx300** » Tue Jan 27, 2015 11:59 am #63394

Or maybe once the Shadowling ascends all his thralls will stop being humans and instead turn into shadowpeople, now also taking damage in the light:

Since Shadowlings will get a unique look right? Or will they use this look?

Xhuis · Post by **Xhuis** » Tue Jan 27, 2015 10:32 pm #63554

Phalanx300 wrote:-snip-

In the current stage, shadowlings use the mutant race sprite. However, once they Hatch, they have items like the golem that prevent them from equipping anything else. Most likely this will have its own sprite.

I made a poll to determine what happens when the shadowling Ascends - vote here. http://strawpoll.me/3502801/r

Post by **PKPenguin321** » Wed Jan 28, 2015 2:02 am #63609

Voting for Other, I think thralls should take the shadowpeople mutant race like Phalanx said

Xhuis · Post by **Xhuis** » Wed Jan 28, 2015 10:11 pm #63912

I've hit a roadblock here and want to know what you guys think.

I've gotten very far - the gamemode is functional, and so is the antagonist (some minor bugs aside). However, I can't do anything else without functional abilities, and I scrapped my earlier iteration of them since they didn't work. So here's what I want feedback on: how should the abilities be handled? So far I have three main options:

1. Mob procs (like innate communication in cultists)
2. Spells
3. A proc holder in the player mind itself, similar to changeling

Each of these obviously have their ups and downs, but the latter two would require either tons of effort or hacky code to get working. I'm leaning toward mob procs for now - what do you guys think?

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Thu Jan 29, 2015 12:40 am #63974

Whatever works best for you.

I personally think something like a spell system might be more user friendly though.

Xhuis · Post by **Xhuis** » Thu Jan 29, 2015 12:57 am #63979

I thought as much, for the cooldown indicators and whatnot. It'll be tough to work out, but I'll see if it might work.

EDIT (FEBRUARY 2): I apologize for the lack of progress updates - just remember that I am still working on it.

Hellafied · Post by **Hellafied** » Sun Feb 08, 2015 3:24 am #67178

Holy fuck i love this idea. I just imagine Safe zones with flashlight everywhere. God its like the first Alien movie. I cant wait to see this happen. But i think you could maby make it where sunglasses make it take slightly less damage in the light? and it should be able to pry open doors once it has evolved.

Xhuis · Post by **Xhuis** » Mon Feb 09, 2015 10:51 pm #67742

Hellafied wrote:Holy fuck i love this idea. I just imagine Safe zones with flashlight everywhere. God its like the first Alien movie. I cant wait to see this happen. But i think you could maby make it where sunglasses make it take slightly less damage in the light? and it should be able to pry open doors once it has evolved.

Prying open doors can be done, but not the sunglasses. Evolved shadowlings have undroppable but protective armor (similar to adamantine golems) and their skin is sensitive to the light.

On a more general note: I've been hard at work with this. Currently I'm trying to get the antagonist flags to work - if I can do that, the gamemode will be in a workable state.