Gang War feedback

Ikarrus · Post by **Ikarrus** » Tue Jun 16, 2015 12:53 am #96126

Bottom post of the previous page:

Okay, I'm not going to be seeking an administrative solution to this --I consider needing one is a result of bad design.

I'm considering adding some form of implant removal tool. Specifically an implanter that kills all implants inside a given target. The sort of implanter that needs the target to remain still for about 3 seconds. It would cost about 10 influence, but only has a single use.

In theory this should make it easier to remove implants from people without needing to use medbay, without while keeping implants just reliable enough to use.

invisty · Post by **invisty** » Tue Jun 16, 2015 1:50 am #96133

You could make an EMP of high severity kill implants? EMP might be too accessible in the form of singulo, though.

Arete · Post by **Arete** » Tue Jun 16, 2015 1:52 am #96134

invisty wrote:You could make an EMP of high severity kill implants? EMP might be too accessible in the form of singulo, though.

I do kind of like the image of gangsters dangling captured officers over the singulo in order to scare them into turning crooked.

Tunder · Post by **Tunder** » Tue Jun 16, 2015 2:24 am #96136

AI Law changing at the onset of gang is pretty shitty, and seems to happen in every Gang War round.

EDIT: Also, in the face of validhunting Sec, possession of spray paint and nothing else should only be punishable with brig time. Implanting because they have paint but no weapons, or implanting people with nothing suspicious on their persons whatsoever is questionable, and does nothing but bad for the round.

Ikarrus · Post by **Ikarrus** » Tue Jun 16, 2015 3:41 am #96149

Pull Request: Loyalty Implants and Gang Mode
https://github.com/tgstation/-tg-station/pull/10004

Tunder · Post by **Tunder** » Tue Jun 16, 2015 3:49 am #96150

Ikarrus wrote:Pull Request: Loyalty Implants and Gang Mode
https://github.com/tgstation/-tg-station/pull/10004

Good shit. I hope it adds a solid balance.

Amelius · Post by **Amelius** » Tue Jun 16, 2015 5:05 am #96163

Just sayin', making implants no longer deconvert, it means you're going to see a whole lot more executions/harmbatonning, generally speaking, for major crimes especially. Dunno if that's intended usage.

Ikarrus · Post by **Ikarrus** » Tue Jun 16, 2015 5:31 am #96169

I also removed tommy guns for a bit to see how it affects the game. To see if a high-end weapon is even needed or if they just detract from the game.

Either they were too weak and pistols become way better than them, or their high cost demands high power that might not be very fun to play with (2-click death). A middle ground may exist, but I want to see if it's even worth it.

Pistols and switchtools are pretty robust. Gangsters working together is fun. Encouraging gang bosses to save up their points to spend it on a super weapon that only a few people can use might not be the best way to do things.

At the very least it will soften the nerf security is going to get. Not having to fear the instant death from tommy guns might be a good tradeoff.

Post by **lumipharon** » Tue Jun 16, 2015 6:14 am #96172

The thing with the tommy is that it's VERY high capacity, with a 4 round burst.
This makes it essentially a spam cannon.

Could you put limits on items (ie: gang can only spawn 1 tommy per uplink etc)?
One guy with the bulky tommy would be alright, it's just every time you see them, it's a whole bunch of fucker with them, and they just blow away sec.

Grazyn · Post by **Grazyn** » Tue Jun 16, 2015 9:45 am #96203

Arete wrote:
invisty wrote:You could make an EMP of high severity kill implants? EMP might be too accessible in the form of singulo, though.
I do kind of like the image of gangsters dangling captured officers over the singulo in order to scare them into turning crooked.

What about a special, one-use item to recruit someone with a loyalty implant? So gang bosses could have their own crooked cop

DemonFiren · Post by **DemonFiren** » Tue Jun 16, 2015 11:23 am #96227

>nab captain
>convert captain
>suddenly, all-access gang with riot armor

Lumbermancer · Tue Jun 16, 2015 12:08 pm

How about instead of removing Tommyguns completely, enable them only after takeover countdown started. And maybe make them bit cheaper.

Is the dominator coutdown even binary, i.e. either gang takes over or they don't and game ends, or does the round keep going even if they lose?

hanshansenhansson · Tue Jun 16, 2015 12:43 pm

If you destroy the dominator, they (or the other gang) have to try again with a new one.

Not-Dorsidarf · Tue Jun 16, 2015 6:38 pm

Tunder wrote:AI Law changing at the onset of gang is pretty shitty, and seems to happen in every Gang War round.

EDIT: Also, in the face of validhunting Sec, possession of spray paint and nothing else should only be punishable with brig time. Implanting because they have paint but no weapons, or implanting people with nothing suspicious on their persons whatsoever is questionable, and does nothing but bad for the round.

This. I had to very firmly chainstun the heads of staff as an AI when they bum rushed the upload three seconds after I informed them the murder spree was being carried out by gangs

Oldman Robustin · Tue Jun 16, 2015 8:10 pm

Enabling TommyGuns for the gang that isn't using a dominator would be interesting.

I think the implant change was appropriate, but I worry about sec quality of life during GW now. Riot suits dont block bullet damage as well as melee damage right?

In the rounds I've seen, once a gang gets the upper hand almost nothing will bring them down. Loyalty implants were one of those last hopes. Sec needs an ace in the hole when they're outnumbered 3:1 by a gang.

One thing I think would be smart is making the dominator have 100 more HP but one-use only. If both dominators are destroyed, station immediately wins. Once a gang has its dominator destroyed, it is incapable of getting a victory. Currently if a gang is confident enough to drop a dominator, they've already established supremacy. Running in and destroying the dominator is only going to delay their victory another 5 minutes. The stakes SHOULD FEEL HIGH when a dominator goes down.

I'm also not a big fan of "first gang to poke the HoP wins". I'm also not in favor of him getting an implant because of how it affects other gametypes. I'd honestly favor him having some snowflake status that requires removal of a special implant or something that only comes into play in Gang. But even that would trigger a wave of whining by people getting dunked by HoP after jabbing him with a pen.

Ikarrus · Post by **Ikarrus** » Tue Jun 16, 2015 8:33 pm #96346

I don't think it's particularly if dominators are placed only after the gang has a guarantee they can hold it though. It'd just be a pointless 5 minute wait.

Dominators already have a slight downside to them, however. Having one active cuts off your influence income while it's in progress and transfers them to bonus time reductions instead.

I'd rather go the other direction and find ways to encourage them to place them early while there are still people who can oppose them.

Tommy guns are OP regardless. I might look for a way to get Uzis in should there be need for a stronger weapon.

Tunder · Post by **Tunder** » Tue Jun 16, 2015 9:46 pm #96371

CosmicScientist wrote:
Not-Dorsidarf wrote:
Tunder wrote:AI Law changing at the onset of gang is pretty shitty, and seems to happen in every Gang War round.

EDIT: Also, in the face of validhunting Sec, possession of spray paint and nothing else should only be punishable with brig time. Implanting because they have paint but no weapons, or implanting people with nothing suspicious on their persons whatsoever is questionable, and does nothing but bad for the round.

This. I had to very firmly chainstun the heads of staff as an AI when they bum rushed the upload three seconds after I informed them the murder spree was being carried out by gangs
I would have thought trying to change the laws of the omnipresent AI would be a valid tactic in trying to stop gangs from murdering people so much? Why wouldn't the heads want to crack down on gangs with everything available if they started to shoot up the station's crew?

Because the laws usually end up being metagamey as fuck, like 'Anyone using spraypaint is nonhuman and must be killed'.

Post by **lumipharon** » Tue Jun 16, 2015 10:12 pm #96378

Bullet proof armor used to be good against tommy guns (80% resists means 16 damager per burst instead of 80), but that got cut in half, which means 48 per burst. Combined with rng chance to hit limbs, it's now essentially always going to 2 click kill, where as before if the HoS was smart and geared his men properly, they could face tank tommy's pretty well.

Wyzack · Post by **Wyzack** » Tue Jun 16, 2015 10:28 pm #96385

Wait did bulletproof armor get nerfed?

Ikarrus · Post by **Ikarrus** » Tue Jun 16, 2015 10:32 pm #96387

Yeah if it got nerfed I don't know if they're even worth using any more.

Might remove/swap it out for something else.

Tunder · Post by **Tunder** » Tue Jun 16, 2015 10:36 pm #96388

Ikarrus wrote:Yeah if it got nerfed I don't know if they're even worth using any more.

Might remove/swap it out for something else.

Just go with your first idea and incorporate the new shitty bulletproof armor values into gang outfits, since nobody will waste points on actual bulletproof armor now.

Ikarrus · Post by **Ikarrus** » Tue Jun 16, 2015 10:38 pm #96389

I'd rather see to rebuffing bulletproof vests.

They only protect the chest which is RNG enough. Can't be any more OP than ablative vests.

Ikarrus: Kor I want to rebuff bulletproof vests to 80
Ikarrus: I need them for gang
Kor: sure wynaut

It's happening.

Post by **lumipharon** » Wed Jun 17, 2015 12:10 am #96411

The thing is, with our server, all antags are VALIDSALAD all day every day.

So from a logical perspective, you're not going to perma/beat to death some fuck for spray painting tags, but you would if they start shanking enemy gangsters or whatever.
In game though, there's no reason not to, nor any OOC restrictions stopping them, from dunking ay suspected gangster/other antag and perma'ing/implanting/killing/etc.

Which is why I wanted to see if we could change policy to make being a gangster not validsalad, instead basing it on their actions. But Ikky doesn't want that so, guess not.

Post by **lumipharon** » Wed Jun 17, 2015 4:19 am #96453

Basically it's the meta of an IC gang spray painting tags, as opposed to a antag gang spraying tags.

Ikarrus · Post by **Ikarrus** » Fri Jun 19, 2015 2:04 am #96940

Gang Update: Fashion War Edition
https://github.com/tgstation/-tg-station/pull/10031

This update primarily deals with gang outfits and expands on how they affect the round. The basic idea behind this is an extension of the idea that notoriety = influence.

Amelius · Post by **Amelius** » Fri Jun 19, 2015 3:09 am #96953

One thing I've noticed is that, regardless of sec's initial stance toward the gangs, the gangs have a tendency of treating it like rev and forcing sec into a situation where they must either perma-or-die.

I've tried twice, as Captain, enforcing a strict 'sentences fit the crime' policy for security, with gang equipment confiscation as the only caveat (no implanting), and opening up negotiations from first-contact. Despite continually letting the crew know that sec would be a neutral party in this affair, gangs still planted vines stationwide, most notably in the brig, killed power, murdered half of my officers, and so forth, forcing me into an awkward situation where I had to start mass-implantation, lest be overrun. And yes, only at this point did a single gang deign to try to approach me, but at that point things were far too far gone to attempt any sort of peace treaty or such.

The problem is not one-sided. Security tends to treat it like rev because gangs tend treat it like rev, and because security tends to treat it like rev, gangs treat it like rev. If you don't incentivize both sides to play nice with each other, it will continue to be mini-rev.

Amelius · Post by **Amelius** » Fri Jun 19, 2015 3:21 am #96956

Oh, one more thing - the pinpointer should point toward the dominator, or mesons should reveal it. Gangs have started putting it between walls (no false wall), sometimes in those sekrit 1x1 areas in maint, or, worse, in that tiny little area behind the cola, coffee machine, and a wall in the bar.

There was one round where a gang almost won because 5 sec guards could not find the dominator because of it. Not sure how fair that is, generally speaking, given how vague directions are (did you know 'bar maint' also refers to the area above the chapel?)

Post by **lumipharon** » Fri Jun 19, 2015 3:55 am #96964

Amelius wrote:Oh, one more thing - the pinpointer should point toward the dominator, or mesons should reveal it. Gangs have started putting it between walls (no false wall), sometimes in those sekrit 1x1 areas in maint, or, worse, in that tiny little area behind the cola, coffee machine, and a wall in the bar.

There was one round where a gang almost won because 5 sec guards could not find the dominator because of it. Not sure how fair that is, generally speaking, given how vague directions are (did you know 'bar maint' also refers to the area above the chapel?)

This. It's pretty cheese to hide the dominator like that considering you have a big ass anouncement to let people know roughly where it is.

Ikarrus · Post by **Ikarrus** » Fri Jun 19, 2015 5:20 am #96994

Okay, done.

@Amelius
I understand your concern but from what I've experienced, gang is a lot more fun when it's gang vs gang. Letting security use implants to deconvert means they are extremely powerful early in the game and often these kinds of rounds end up with one gang stomped by security, and then becoming security vs rev with guns due to a lack of the rival gang.

If the nerf ends up being too drastic I'll explore alternatives, but I feel that it is worth testing out.

Amelius · Post by **Amelius** » Fri Jun 19, 2015 5:43 am #97004

Ikarrus wrote:Okay, done.

@Amelius
I understand your concern but from what I've experienced, gang is a lot more fun when it's gang vs gang. Letting security use implants to deconvert means they are extremely powerful early in the game and often these kinds of rounds end up with one gang stomped by security, and then becoming security vs rev with guns due to a lack of the rival gang.

If the nerf ends up being too drastic I'll explore alternatives, but I feel that it is worth testing out.

It's not really just that, but the point is that all this is gonna do is have the crew wind up with alot more mass-executions and/or whacking people with sticks to 'deconvert' them, which will escalate hostility from the get-go.

Basically, I'm saying, either go the full ten yards (remove deconversion from damage), or, go back to the way it was before. Removing deconversion from damage might wind up excaberating things though, forcing sec into a really awkward position of TDM-esque mass-executions, similar to how rev behaves with no implants. If the gangs themselves have a good reason to try to work around security until a dominator is activated, rather than straight-up confronting them early-mid, we might see some really interesting rounds.

Just my 2c, gotta say I do love the fashion update for what it's worth, as it increases visibility of hostile gangs, and so on. Perhaps you could make the hostile gang see you as a friendly if they're wearing the opposing gang's costume, predicated on you being a member of a gang in the first place? Might create some interesting intrigue.

Reimoo · Post by **Reimoo** » Fri Jun 19, 2015 6:58 am #97024

What if individual security officers could be "paid off" or something? Just so they turn a blind eye and don't interfere with gang business? Kinda like a crooked cop gameplay mechanic?

CPTANT · Post by **CPTANT** » Fri Jun 19, 2015 10:34 am #97052

Amelius wrote:Oh, one more thing - the pinpointer should point toward the dominator, or mesons should reveal it. Gangs have started putting it between walls (no false wall), sometimes in those sekrit 1x1 areas in maint, or, worse, in that tiny little area behind the cola, coffee machine, and a wall in the bar.

There was one round where a gang almost won because 5 sec guards could not find the dominator because of it. Not sure how fair that is, generally speaking, given how vague directions are (did you know 'bar maint' also refers to the area above the chapel?)

I think the dominator should be forced to have clear floor tiles next to it. You can still make a bigger cage, but this prevents it from being walled in with a ton of reinforced walls.

DemonFiren · Post by **DemonFiren** » Fri Jun 19, 2015 11:13 am #97056

Reimoo wrote:What if individual security officers could be "paid off" or something? Just so they turn a blind eye and don't interfere with gang business? Kinda like a crooked cop gameplay mechanic?

That's called RP.

Post by **lumipharon** » Fri Jun 19, 2015 12:17 pm #97072

xray laser + xray implant/genetic power makes defending a dominator impossible.

I used 2 xrays + the implant to single handedly take out the dominator (with 6 seconds to spare!) as we as ass fuck most of the gang. This was all from the safety of maint, and there was literally nothing they could do to stop me.
Ironically what did stop me from killing the entire gang, was sec boming them, taking me out also.

Ikarrus · Post by **Ikarrus** » Fri Jun 19, 2015 1:06 pm #97092

That's just xrays being OP.

If it becomes an issue I'll have to add a snowflake excpetion just for xray lasers.

TheNightingale · Fri Jun 19, 2015 1:16 pm

What if you just need to deconstruct a dominator (screwdriver, crowbar, wrench) or something? No more x-ray lasers, and shooting it a lot won't do anything.

Amelius · Post by **Amelius** » Fri Jun 19, 2015 2:02 pm #97108

TheNightingale wrote:What if you just need to deconstruct a dominator (screwdriver, crowbar, wrench) or something? No more x-ray lasers, and shooting it a lot won't do anything.

I like this idea, because I feel like you should have to engage with the gang to destroy it, rather than just destroying the dominator _and_ killing the entire gang from maint.

Ikarrus · Post by **Ikarrus** » Fri Jun 19, 2015 5:27 pm #97156

I'm going to invoke KISS here. Keep it simple (as in intuitive).

Cheimon · Post by **Cheimon** » Fri Jun 19, 2015 5:33 pm #97158

Just a quick question: what exactly is a dominator supposed to be doing, roleplay wise? Is it subverting the AI or something? Because gangs have subverted the AI before making a dominator in rounds I've seen. I'm just wondering what it represents, given that all the other game modes seem to make this fairly clear (some people are dead, or a god is summoned, or the nuke's been activated and we all die, etc). I suppose you can call this 'feedback' in that I'm not certain what this thing does.

Ikarrus · Post by **Ikarrus** » Fri Jun 19, 2015 5:36 pm #97163

The original concept was for it to either be a "Station Hack" device, a mind control device, or some combination of both.

The station hack concept was better received so I went with that, but it's a lot harder to show in game.

It's supposed to seize control the station's more secure systems, like long-range communication, remote controls, hidden subsystems, etc. so Centcom wouldn't have control over it any more.

hanshansenhansson · Fri Jun 19, 2015 7:22 pm

Add an expensive-as-fuck one-use converter thing that ignores implants. Would remove sec slightly from the equation.

rockpecker · Post by **rockpecker** » Fri Jun 19, 2015 11:40 pm #97298

Does EMP disable loyalty implants? If not, maybe it should.

Grazyn · Post by **Grazyn** » Sat Jun 20, 2015 8:35 am #97385

DemonFiren wrote:
Reimoo wrote:What if individual security officers could be "paid off" or something? Just so they turn a blind eye and don't interfere with gang business? Kinda like a crooked cop gameplay mechanic?
That's called RP.

Good luck getting someone to RP when they can valid. That's why I think there should be an (expensive) gang item to convert at least 1 cop (not heads, that would be retarded)

Oldman Robustin · Sat Jun 20, 2015 5:47 pm

Yea its pretty bad fighting gangs as sec now. Do head beatings still work?

Ikarrus · Post by **Ikarrus** » Sat Jun 20, 2015 6:12 pm #97450

Incomptinence · Sun Jun 21, 2015 2:18 am

Head beating deconversions without a pen near usually lead to just murder since the guy you beat up has reason to hit you back at the very least.

drovidi · Post by **drovidi** » Sun Jun 21, 2015 4:56 am #97582

Some of this was talked about in OOC, but my thoughts:

Currently, a gang boss or lieutenant can buy two pens, which allows their conversion output to be pretty close to a revhead, and even with only one pen, they can still convert pretty fast, so conversion should definitely be slowed down some. But a gang boss should still be able to secure a department to call home in the early game.
Reworking conversion to be based on a resource pool rather than a cooldown would let bosses take several important people quickly so that they can safely tag some areas and convert in peace, without letting them apply that speed indiscriminately to the whole station.
Resource-based conversion makes resource-based lieutenants seem a bit redundant, and it would make the balance of other things you can buy with influence much more complicated. Plus, it would mean the larger gang can snowball more quickly. If conversions were a second resource pool, it would be easy to balance with 2 or so starting conversions and another every three or so minutes, possibly more if you're behind, but that seems needlessly complicated.

The fact that trying to convert existing gang members screws you over is another issue. It would be nice if the method of converting were one that didn't alert anyone when unsuccessful.

Ikarrus · Post by **Ikarrus** » Sun Jun 21, 2015 5:48 am #97588

Started drafting up a new update. I will continue to add to this as I run more playtests over the weekend.

https://github.com/tgstation/-tg-station/pull/10069

Amelius · Post by **Amelius** » Sun Jun 21, 2015 10:16 pm #97707

I suppose another problem is that security almost always declares code red as soon as gangs are found, and busts any gangster congolmerates (or tries to), meaning escalation is very very quick, rather than gradual, similar to rev. The gang costumes are also metagamed pretty hard, and getting people to wear them is tough to begin with.

Really dunno how to fix it.

Ikarrus · Post by **Ikarrus** » Sun Jun 21, 2015 10:26 pm #97714

Gang costumes are supposed to be metagamed to an extent. The question is more if the benefits of wearing them often outweigh the cost of outing yourself.

If not, there are some obvious knobs we can adjust, like the armor value (More attractive for gangsters to wear) or the influence bonus (More attractive for bosses to hand out).

Post by **lumipharon** » Sun Jun 21, 2015 10:44 pm #97729

Need flashy boss outfits/bling, for when you don't give a fuck if people know who you are. Could give bonus points when a boss wears it.

Also back on NT we had a whole bunch of 'gang' weaponry. Shit like metal/wooden base ball bats, chains, brass knuckles, switchblades, butterfly knives etc etc.
If the sprites and whatnot for these could be recovered, it might add a bit of flavour if instead of just a switchblade, you get a random weapon from the gang weapon list. So a switchblade might have lighter damage since it's concealable, where as a bat might do a bit more since it would be a large item, etc.

Mainy the idea of a bunch of thugs all wielding different shit sounds neat, but eh.

The main problems I see in gang rounds are as follows:

The risk of penning enemy gangsters and outing yourself is very significant, and hurts weaker gangs. You're removing the prick message which fixes half of the problem, but the otherside is that you can know identify enemy gangsters, and they won't have a clue that you've done it.

The motherfucking AI. IfWhen the AI gets subverted (either by one of the gangs, or sec makes it validhunter 9000), it pretty much fucks over the round, because it gives such a huge advantage to who ever subverts it first.

Penning the HoP early give you a massive advantage over sec and the enemy gang, and because it's frequently done very early in the round, it's impractical to prevent.

Motherfucking xray lasers. I think(?) you made dominators now require simply tool steps to stop instead of damage, but the xray laser 'fish in a barrel' thing still exists.
Even if you cant kill the dominator through walls, you can still ggnore most of the gang on your own, while they're stuck there with no possible counter, and they'll typically all be compressed in a fairly small area, defending the dominator.
It's not the most common item (especially in gang, where often science and cargo belong to different gangs), but it's pretty shitty that this can be done at all.