Gang War feedback

[lumipharon]

Bottom post of the previous page:

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.

[Ikarrus]

Xray guns being OP are debatable but that's more of an issue with xray guns. What I do have is Dominators taking half damage from xrays, but any further balance considerations need to be made to the gun itself, which affects more than just gang.

IMO, Defending gangs cannot be stubborn and they will have to come out of their hidey hole to take care of them. The Xray gun+vision combo are hard to attain and shouldn't be made completely useless.

[Ikarrus]

New update is ready: https://github.com/tgstation/-tg-station/pull/10069

It looks like a lot, but they're mostly small tweaks. Hopefully they're just going to get smaller now as we near a sweet spot.

The most pressing issue to me right now is making the game mode simple and intuitive enough for new players to understand. I know you guys that have been following development are pros at it now, but it's important that we make sure newbie gang bosses learn as fast as possible to minimize the chance of them fucking up the round for everyone.

[Arete]

Pinpointers will no longer point to active dominators. Instead dominators will emit a loud beeping similar to syndicate bombs

A round earlier tonight showed that this might have some unintended consequences. One of the gangs used the CE's blueprints to rename the engineering SMES room "Bar Maintenance." None of the searchers would even have been close enough to hear the beeping. If that strat isn't patched out, then the pinpointer should probably remain a way of reliably finding the dominator (in addition to the beeping).

[lumipharon]

That's pretty clever.

[Ikarrus]

Yeah, just found that out. I've fixed it to always report its original name now.

It's too much of a cheese tactic to allow, and I'd rather not place so much emphasis on the pinpointer for this game mode.

[invisty]

Ikarrus can you lower the pop limit for this or is it out of your hands?

[Ikarrus]

I could, but there's the danger of it being horribly unfun. But I haven't tested that so maybe I'm wrong.

It's set to 20 now, but the technical minimum population needed to run it is 2.

What I could do is force it on bagil for a couple of rounds and see how people receive it and maybe set a more appropriate minimum population. I'll try to get around to this sometime this week, if bagilites are up for it.

[invisty]

It's set to 20 now, but the technical minimum population needed to run it is 2.

I think that must be 30, because it wasn't listed in a 20-30 roundstart just an hour ago.

Also I had a strange bug earlier where I got implanted and lost my [G] tag, but then I didn't receive a deconversion message until I was facebattoned. Seemed pretty weird.

[Not-Dorsidarf]

Remember that you can't see readyups anymore IIRC, only the number of people logged on

[Ikarrus]

Yes, minimum population is based on the number of ready players, not the number connected.

Also I had a strange bug earlier where I got implanted and lost my [G] tag, but then I didn't receive a deconversion message until I was facebattoned. Seemed pretty weird.

I tested it, and it looks like the implant icon covers the antag icon if you get implanted. Same goes for cultists and nuke ops.

I'll see about getting this fixed.

[Oldman Robustin]

That's pretty clever.

I figured it out since I saw that engineering had gang activity, bar maintenance was desolate and undefended, and the CE had put engineering on lock down.

I announced it on bridge console but I was a clown so I could only watch as the derpcurity tried to raid engineering without even grabbing tools first, and then mother fucking Steve Leaf the nonantag CMO murders me FNR.

[Amelius]

That's pretty clever.

It was a collective effort. I think it was Tim Ebow's idea, or even another noname engineer's. Regardless, despite only having 20% control of the station, a 1000 timer, and only a modestly-sized gang we still managed to evade detection until the last 5~ minutes, and, even then, we had set up the typical engineering defenses (emitters, field gens, anti-breach shields, and so on), so it was only in the final minute or two did they even breach us, with the help of a hulk. We were a smallish gang, and the validhunters (the other gang killed itself at roundstart by rushing an uzi and murderboning) outnumbered us in size and equipment, but we still held the fucking line, at a massive cost. I think the only gangsters left alive at the end were me, Ronald, and one other dude in space/the SMES room, but we still eked out a victory.

My only regret is not placing the second shielding projector in the SMES room, because, as we discovered, there were quite a few folks who just knocked down the rglass and R-wall opposite the SMES room, and pushed their way in alongside getting a hulk to whack down the r-walls. Furthermore, to avoid the whole 'hulk getting around the defenses 100%' thing, perhaps I might align the field gens one unit south, with an emitter shooting to the west on the east side of the net. That way, they'd have to knock down far far more rwalls to get inside, and even then, if they knock down the intuitive rwall, they'd just be shot by the emitter. Fortifying the area like an AI core (i.e. big fucking welded/bolted doors with cut power), and hitting up the RCD might help too.

I'd also move the eastern defenses one unit south, using the same methodology as in the west side. The cost is that we can be entered from space, in engineering, but that's easily knockable by welding/cutting wires and bulding walls. Really, engineering itself being accessible to a minority (spesssuited folks with insuls) is not as important as having nigh-foolproof defenses against hulks and chemists (thermite).

Anyways, it was fun, and it made the best of a bad situation. Early on the first lieutenant the boss made (myself) was gunned down in the engineering hallway with an uzi by the other gang leader. The boss stuck around getting me fixed up, cryo, blood, and so on for several precious minutes, not converting anyone in the process (guards in medbay), despite being the only one with a pen at the moment, which, while it was a really nice thing to do, it meant that we were behind on recruiting and security was ahead on arresting, so we rushed the dominator and did anything we could to try to win with only 10~ gangsters and a little gear.

Very fun round, I'll just say. Almost as crazy as the one in virology.

[ChangelingRain]

The best trick would be to use four emitters powering four field generators, all in a circle(3x3 area) around the dominator, which would make it nearly unassailable; you'd need to take down all four emitters to turn off the shield to get at the dominator, which would take a large amount of time.

[Ikarrus]

Gangs are getting C4 next update, so maybe not as much any more.

[TheNightingale]

The best trick would be to use four emitters powering four field generators, all in a circle(3x3 area) around the dominator, which would make it nearly unassailable; you'd need to take down all four emitters to turn off the shield to get at the dominator, which would take a large amount of time.

http://prntscr.com/7k09lg How about something like this?

The emitters are inside the containment, thereby powering it and leaving the emitters untouchable. You can't C4 the generators without being zapped by them.

[Durkel]

This is really fun to play as a gangster, but for security it's a harder to fight revolution. I rarely even see two gangs fighting it out, it always security getting attacked by both sides.

[hanshansenhansson]

From the other side, it is rarely gangsters charging brig. It is mostly shooting sec that raids departments or abducts people in the back.

Unrelated: Feels a bit underwhelming to win with the dominator. No sound, no fancy. Not even a "gg" and that's it

[Antimattercarp]

I am of the opinion that what gang currently needs is a policy clarification rather than a refinement of coding. All sides at the moment seem to treat gang as a team form of rev rather than it's own special roundtype and from my own (singular) experience, that is what it tends to turn into. I think what needs to happen is that one cannot execute or perma a ganger for being a ganger or tagging things(which happened to me) but rather that sec has to actually arrest people for the crimes they commit. Lower risk on that part should lower the intensity of the sec-gang conflict. My current wishlist is as follows:

• 1. obscuration of gangheads from loyalty implants
  2. Admin clarification on the differences between gang war and revolution as gamemodes with how sec should respond differently to gang. If this goes through it should include an expansion of space law to cover more gang activity like defacing NT property in exchange.

edit: out of date info

[Arete]

Making sec unable to kill people who are 100% known to be allowed to kill sec sounds like it would make things even less fun for sec players. The whole principle behind antags being valid salad is that since antags are allowed to do anything to you, you should be allowed to do anything to them.

[TheNightingale]

Simple solution: make everyone, regardless of job or even current gang status, able to be ganged. You can now recruit the Captain for your precious all-access... but the enemy gang can convert them too, even after they're on your side.

[Amelius]

Simple solution: make everyone, regardless of job or even current gang status, able to be ganged. You can now recruit the Captain for your precious all-access... but the enemy gang can convert them too, even after they're on your side.

Sans lieutenants, I hope.

[TheNightingale]

Mmmmaybe. Nobody is above corruption! Not even the gang bosses themselves!

[lumipharon]

Just spit balling here, but what if loyalty implants worked on gangsters as before, except bosses/lieutenants, where it works as currently (implant doesn't reveal them). And give them an item in their upload thing to apply that implant immunity to someone else?
So then the leaders could, if implants are looking like an issue, make their thugs implant immune, at the cost of X points per guy.

Maybe pointless but eh, just a thought.

I also wish the HoP was immune to gang - one gang getting all access fucks over sec and the other gang pretty hard.
Same with subverting the AI, especially if it has a few borgs.

[Luke Cox]

Just spit balling here, but what if loyalty implants worked on gangsters as before, except bosses/lieutenants, where it works as currently (implant doesn't reveal them). And give them an item in their upload thing to apply that implant immunity to someone else?
So then the leaders could, if implants are looking like an issue, make their thugs implant immune, at the cost of X points per guy.

Maybe pointless but eh, just a thought.

I also wish the HoP was immune to gang - one gang getting all access fucks over sec and the other gang pretty hard.
Same with subverting the AI, especially if it has a few borgs.

Once the HoP is a gangster they've basically won. Get sec access from him, rush armory, gun down all of sec, close all the shutters and set up dominator in the brig, and you win.

[Antimattercarp]

Making sec unable to kill people who are 100% known to be allowed to kill sec sounds like it would make things even less fun for sec players. The whole principle behind antags being valid salad is that since antags are allowed to do anything to you, you should be allowed to do anything to them.

So we are back to the issue of sec existing as loot pinatas? That does not sound like an issue with gang, sounds like an issue with sec.

[Ikarrus]

If the HoP problem becomes a genuine issue I can exclude his participation. What we could do is implant the HoP at round start, or exclude all heads so the HoP isn't some alone as the bizarre exception.

But this is assuming it's actually that big of a problem. It could just mean he's just another resource to fight over. It could mean that anyone could steal all-access from the ones who stole all-access. It could mean security just needs to step up their game and secure the HoP early on.

[Ikarrus]

Also, Basil doesn't seem interested in playing gang so I'm not going to force them to play it. Maybe grab me on IRC/BYOND sometime when the mood changes and I'll force run it.

[lumipharon]

The thing with the hop is, he's hardly got a bodyguard, certainly not from round start. Sure if sec finds out there are gangs they'll implant the HoP, but by then it's often too late, since he is the single highest priority convery target in the game.

And once he's converted he can just stay in his office like a good hop and just happen to give all of his own gang all access while doing his normal shit.
o

[Amelius]

The thing with the hop is, he's hardly got a bodyguard, certainly not from round start. Sure if sec finds out there are gangs they'll implant the HoP, but by then it's often too late, since he is the single highest priority convery target in the game.

And once he's converted he can just stay in his office like a good hop and just happen to give all of his own gang all access while doing his normal shit.
o

Honestly, you folks are playing up the HoP far too much. I've been gang boss / lieutenant (typically boss) 4-5 times thus far, and won every time, despite only converting the HoP in a single round. The access isn't really important given that any good, successful gang are primarily departmentally-based with some other convertees that you can let in. All the access lets you do is attempt to raid the armory / security effectively, and improve freeflow of gang members in your department of choice (which isn't that crucial, given you should have converted most of a department from the start).

Furthermore the HoP isn't easy to get to. He's in a secure area that he hardly leaves or lets anyone in, has no excuse to leave sans HoPcurity, an attempted assassination, to look at the bridge computers, or to promote himself to Captain in lieu of having none.

[lumipharon]

Converting the hop isn't a magic ggnore, but having all access objectively gives you a huge advantage over the enemy gang. You can run into other departments/secure areas straight from maint, you can unlock crates at cargo etc etc.

A shit gang with the hop will lose to a good gang.
But a good gang with a hop will more likely then not beat an equally competent gang without it most times.

[callanrockslol]

HoP needs an implant, solves this and many other issues.

[Amelius]

HoP needs an implant, solves this and many other issues.

Don't like this solution, since it also means that HoPs can no longer be roundstart traitors and whatnot. Meaning, no more 10+ clown slots, or other HoPly abuse.

[Ikarrus]

it also means that HoPs can no longer be roundstart traitors and whatnot.

No, it doesn't. Game mode code explicitly excludes the Captain and Security. The HoP could easily be implanted without being added to this list.

[hanshansenhansson]

Honestly, most of the HoPs leave their ID in the console anyways. Doesn't change much if you poke the HoP when he leaves, or just hack in. Rarely a traitor/clown round where I did not get myself all-access like that. Hell, even the few that usually pay attention to the ID you just need to be startled with a small explosion and they suddenly forget about it.

Also, most situations where you would be able to convert the HoP, you could also just kill and loot him.

[Oldman Robustin]

>People pretending Hop gangster has a counterplay

Unless you're there when it happens, by the time you figure out the enemy has the HoP, it's too late. Once the access is out the enemy boss/LTs are able to convert any heads, spread like wildfire, and either get cargo weapons or just rush the armory.

Your only hope is that the HoP/enemy gang are so unrobust they hand out IDs with job title captain and sec proceeds to poop on them.

[Ikarrus]

They're not denying that, they're arguing that it's less of a resource and more of a game-winner that trumps everything else above and beyond.

Anyways I've just pushed a change to add C4 to make it a little bit easier to get around. If gangs need it I might add a door jack as well. This should make the HoP less of a steamroller.

[CPTANT]

I think gang already produces quite enjoyable rounds currently. What does seem to be a problem is gangs getting shut down instantly because the leader is an idiot and gets himself caught within 2 minutes. It might be an idea to have at least 2 leaders per gang at roundstart to ensure the gang actually gets of the ground and balance around that.

I also think it might be a fun idea to experiment with adding a third gang to the round and see how it turns out.

[invisty]

The absolutism presented by a lot of people here is rather overblown. In their own minds, they imagine every round will always play out as a predefined series of events dictated by the most powergamey approach to the game mode. This is almost never the case. There are so many variables and potential influences on the outcomes of team-based game modes - the biggest one being that not everyone who plays this game is a robust solo no-fun valid-hunter. Most people who play this game will not immediately pursue the easy-win conditions of a team-based game mode, instead opting for the fun approach that involves the most people. Do not ruin this game mode by removing potential avenues to success just because a few people say they're overpowered. Perhaps the HoP does need an implant. Perhaps she doesn't. I would suggest a month-long trial of pre-implanted HoPs to see how it influences the outcome of gang/rev.

IMO:

I think gang already produces quite enjoyable rounds currently.

[lumipharon]

Of course not everyone is maximum powergamer.

But it's a competitive gamemode.
In competitions you do what's most likely to help you win.

That in itself isn't an issue. What people do think is an issue, is elements that are too powerful/easy/hard to counter.

Gang is very fun right now, but as a meta settles, people can and will do 'powergamer' behavior to try and win. We just want to get rid of the cheese shit.
Just like renaming areas with blueprints, I believe the ease of converting the hop or AI gives an unfair, difficult to counter advantage.

[Ikarrus]

Invisty, I tried running gang on Basil when the population was 11 at round start. It didn't go so well, as the pool of neutrals to recruit was very limited and dried up very quickly, putting too much emphasis on conversion and the winning gang basically becoming a steamroller.

I think we all agreed that it was best to leave it at 20 players.

[lumipharon]

By the way Ikky, what did you remove vests from the uplink? It's not a huge deal either way, but it was nice because it made you more robust against other gangsters, not so much sec since they use lasers.

[Ikarrus]

The intention was to replace them with armored outfits.

[hanshansenhansson]

Two minor things I noticed:

I, a lieutenant, looted a pen of the enemy gang and poked myself with it because reasons. Got the message that said "dude can not be converted, he belongs to another gang already!". Did not try it on other people, though. Maybe you can win a gang round by replacing all of your enemies pens with your own, make them recruit for you?

While unconscious, I could still hear gang messages. Don't know if intended or not.

[Ikarrus]

The two of those are bugs. Thanks for bringing them to my attention.

Pens have no set gang affiliation. If you steal an enemy's pen you should be able to use it just as if it was one of your own. The error message needs to be updated to more accurately explain it if you poke someone who is already in your gang.

The second will will be patched out.

[Lumbermancer]

Apparently the only way to deconvert a gangster is by beating in the head and tossing a coin for lucky RNG? Meaning you can put someone to crit without deconverting him.

Unless you want me to kill every suspect, this seems pretty horrible.

[Ikarrus]

It's unlikely, as your chance of deconverting them goes up the more hurt they are.

So at 30% health with a 10 force weapon they'd have a 80% chance of getting deconverted.

[Cheimon]

Alright, well, looks like it's time to rev up those batons.

[lumipharon]

I don't think you can do much about it, but the last big fight I saw between a gang and sec (it was a fucking good one too), I saw atleast 2-3 gangsters get deconverted during the end half when sec started just brutalising the gangsters.
But they all got murdered by sec all the same, possibly since they didn't notice that they'd been deconverted (or just not cared, one of them was drilling the shit out of them...).

[Lumbermancer]

It's unlikely, as your chance of deconverting them goes up the more hurt they are.

So at 30% health with a 10 force weapon they'd have a 80% chance of getting deconverted.

As unlikely as it is, it just happened. I found a guy with spray can. Beat him up in head until he was in crit. No deconversion happened. I brought him to medbay, healed, then implanted at brig. Hilarity ensued in OOC after round ended, because I implanted him without deconverting, and he was a gangster all along.

[PKPenguin321]

So having played as a gang boss the other day and having been a lieutenant several times, I'd just like to say this is by far my favorite game mode of all time.
I have no real feedback aside from saying everything pretty much works perfectly and always ends in some kind of exciting action.