Eyestabbing

[PKPenguin321]

Currently an issue report is up on the github that suggests rebalancing eyestabbing.
I am making this thread so that this potential rebalance will be more in the hands of the playerbase than the codebase.

Eyestabbing is a special method of attack limited to screwdrivers and forks when aiming for the eyes. It doesn't work if the person you're attacking is wearing any eyewear or any other item that covers the face, head, or eyes. After a few hits it will blind you and has a chance of making you drop down to clutch at your eyes, effectively stunning you. In addition, it will deal a small but noticeable amount of brute damage.

Is it balanced, and should it be rebalanced? Discuss.

Edit: New PR up, see the thread bump for details.

[PKPenguin321]

Posting this as a reply since I want to keep the OP unbiased, I think it's a fine feature and should stay as-is. It is powerful, yeah, but it's so easily countered by any form of headgear that it's hardly an issue, the stun is unreliable and you can get disarmed easily, the weapons that can do it are fairly limited, all kinds of things.
Before you tell me that screwdrivers are in massive abundance, remember: You can get disarmed long before the person you're hitting is stunned or blinded, and if your screwdriver's gone, you no longer have anything to eyestab with (who carries two screwdrivers).
I like that this is a unique method of attack and I would prefer to have it in the game rather than have it removed, or more likely, nerfed to the point where it may as well have been removed.

[Fragnostic]

From my personal experience, nearly half the crew has some sort of protection against this because of the race to get eyewear or a mask. This is because flashes got nerfed, so the only thing you have to watch out for is flashbangs and pepperspray. This leads people to race for a gas mask, or science goggles, or straight up sunglasses.

What about this?
If it does manage to blind and/or stun someone, it is embedded in their eye socket and cannot be removed by the attacker, but can be yanked out by the victim. That way you can't keep someone stun locked, but hey, you fucked them up and probably have enough time to get a toolbox or two in.

[lumipharon]

I'd say just have a chance to miss and nerf the stun chance.
Aim at the eyes, has a chance to miss the eyes and just hit the head for it's normal shitty damage - not like someones goin to hold still to let their eyes get poked out.

[MMMiracles]

A lot of jobs have eyewear by default/in stock (security, medbay, cargo, science, anyone with theatre access). The problem is that the attack itself is stupidly overpowered against anyone who doesn't need/isn't wearing eyewear. After about 4-5 stabs you can essentially stunlock them as they become blind and can do absolutely nothing to stop it. It doesn't exactly help that its a guaranteed hit instead of some percentage (how do you manage to hit such a small target 100% of the time on a moving target?) only adds to the bullshit.

Forks, screwdrivers, and surgery drills can do eyestabbing, have no blatant attack message/sound, and can be spammed. I'm actually willing to bet that someone with a screwdriver could totally down a traitor with an esword if they can manage to get 1-2 stabs in before the esworder strikes.

Pretty fuckin' silly that something so powerful is so widely available to 90% of the crew at all times, doncha think?

[Fox McCloud]

Definitely support this being nerfed in some way; the code is horrendously snowflake and other things like it (suitcases, etc) have been removed before.

Here's the problems I have with it:


- No attack animation
- No chance to miss and hit another body part
- No Attack Sound
- fifty (50%) chance to paralyze someone for a full cycle and weaken them for 2

With the duration and such a high chance, you can generally permastun people more often than not.

Compare this with the esword, which has a 40% chance of knock down if targeting the chest---that said, it hits its zone only 85% of the time, so it's actual knockdown chance is 35.6% (This factors in missing and hitting the head and its adjusted weaken rates).

A screwdriver shouldn't have greater crowd control potential than a high end blunt force trauma weapon.

While it is countered by gas masks, glasses, and a few helmets, I hardly think it's a good thing to encourage this kind of behavior.


My suggestion for balancing it:

- it's subject to the same hitsound, attack animation, damage, miss, and weaken rates as regularly stabbing someone with a screwdriver
- It can deal eye damage at a similar rate as to what it does now

Essentially it's just a regular screwdriver attack with the benefit of dealing eye damage if they're not wearing protection of some kind.

[PKPenguin321]

Yet another terrible PR on a long list of terrible PRs that isn't needed but will be pushed through regardless of discussion.

It's not really a PR at this point, just an issue report.

- No attack animation
- No Attack Sound

While I don't believe eyestabbing needs to be truly rebalanced, these sound like their own bugs that need to be fixed.

- No chance to miss and hit another body part

If it does end up being nerfed, this is the nerf I'd like to see. It makes it better than standard bashing and punching by allowing blinding and stunning, but isn't completely stupidly good by never missing (which makes no sense, how are you able to reliably hit someones eyes but not their chest?). It's also arguably a bug as well.

- fifty (50%) chance to paralyze someone for a full cycle and weaken them for 2
... Essentially it's just a regular screwdriver attack with the benefit of dealing eye damage if they're not wearing protection of some kind. ...

Good. The stun is good and should remain good. It's not perfect and can be easily countered, as well, meaning it has significant downsides.
As for wanting to make it a regular attack + eye damage, please no. This is the nerf I was talking about in my earlier post when I said "nerfed to the point where it may as well be removed." It will become so situational if this happens that it would only be used for grief or for pointless torture.
The only way I'd change my opinion on this is if the stun chance for screwdrivers was lowered a little bit, since they're the most common item that can eyestab, and while it's unreliable, they can stunlock (though generally not infinitely). That, and leave forks/drills with the original stun chance.

[Not-Dorsidarf]

PKP, once you've succeeded on the 50% knockdown rate (for 2 seconds, I might add),the stunlock is so totally reliable that person is as good as dead and unless they have an adrenal implant, all they can do is ;halp greytider screwr-glorf

[Fragnostic]

Screwdrivers are sharp, or sharp enough to blind/incapacitate.
Yet, metal rods can get embedded inside a mob's body. They don't look very sharp to me and make a loud 'thwunk'(almost like a dry cough) when you beat someone.
Screwdrivers appear much sharper and are smaller, with the logical advantage of a handle.

What if screwdrivers have a chance to embed when stabbing someone or throwing it?
This way, they aren't spammable and make more sense. It'd be even better if they always embed if they blind or stun. If you stab someone hard enough in the face/eyes to the point where they can't see or collapse from pain, it'd make more sense for the damned thing to get stuck.

It's a tool, not a proper weapon. Besides, these are 2 things AFAIK that can blind/stun when targeting eyes. What about pens, lit welders, broken bottles? These can easily blind IRL. Especially a welder, since it burns, the impact, and the brightness of the flame searing your eyeball. If you stab someone in the eye with anything, getting stuck in the ol' eye socket would stop all of this.

And maybe for another issue, nettles are nerfed with the amount of times you can it someone, why not bottles, too? Bottles are already frail, and even more so when broken AND you're bashing 'n slashing someone with it. The reason they're so deadly is because they get filled with chems or flammables and then they stun and splash the target with the hit along with some damage. Then while the target is down, the assailant is free to slash away at their face because of the safety of the handle the bottle provides. It'd make more sense if nettles get whacked apart, that busted bottles eventually crack into a glass shard in your hand after 3-5 hits.

[Cheridan]

whining

Christ, shut up.

This is something that's actually been
https://github.com/tgstation/-tg-station/pull/1901 proposed
https://github.com/tgstation/-tg-station/pull/1901 before
and shot down specifically because the author didn't ask the community in a poll.
But I guess that doesn't fit your narrative of how /tg/station developers are nerfing bullies.

[Malkevin]

No, this is literally the last bastion of old skool simple man's robustness left in the game.

[Cheridan]

^ basically.

Granted there are some valid non-nerf points brought up, like it should have the attack animation and probably a sound to go with the attack.

[lumipharon]

Other people around you (and the guy DOING THE STABBING literally get no text feedback that a eye stabbing is occuring. That's surely a bug.

[Xhuis]

A sound and visible message definitely seems warranted.

[iyaerP]

The presence of this bug makes me think that if/when ninja is ever actually fixxed/updated, if it is a ninja who is doing the eye-stabbing, the silence and lack of animation should definitely be a thing. Ninjas are so sneaky that they can stab your eyes out and you won't even notice until the blindness sets in.

[lumipharon]

oh god, if I get ninja again I'm doing that.

>completely invisible
>walk into crowded room
>stab peoples eyes out
>no one knows what the fuck is going on

[PKPenguin321]

Bumping! Please read this, will add a link to this post in the OP.
New PR up on the github that addresses this old thread (without actually consulting it!).
PR on the github at the moment: "Directly nerfs the screwdriver"

Increases the amount of stabs it takes to make a character nearsighted (from 3-5 to 5-10)
Decreases the amount of blurriness received from eyeball stabs (previously it could reach the hundreds within thirty seconds, and take between five or ten minutes to remove)
Fixes getting the nearsighted or blind message while already nearsighted or blind
Adds a hitsound of the same volume as screwdriver stabs to other body parts
Lowers the chance to get stunned by stabs from 50% to 20%
Makes it so you can't stun people with stabs who are already stunned
Lowers the chance to go blind from eye stabs by half

Post feedback and thoughts on this new PR below, please.

[Malkevin]

I ded, plz nerf

[Wyzack]

They closed the PR. Seriously why do people think that if something is good enough to be worth using then we should nerf the shit out of it

[Oldman Robustin]

No, this is literally the last bastion of old skool simple man's robustness left in the game.

Seriously.

This is down and dirty fighting where there's virtually none left. If you're planning on tangling with assistants then get one of the nearly infinite forms of eye covers available.

Only "nerfs" that should be considered are giving it a proper sound and attack animation, but even then someone running up to you with a sharp object in their hands and you getting hit/taking damage usually gives you all the warning you should need to get your robust on. Disarm with a quick pickup will always let you win these fights anyway, and having ANY kind of actual combat weapon will also always win.

This feels like someone is just LOOKING for a problem and it reeks of the kind of short-sighted coder kneejerks that have gutted many facets of this game without proper consideration. Some coder got his eyes gouged out and lost a fight, that's what I'm seeing here.

Edit: Its closed, huzzah. Next up: Fire extinguishers, 15 brute damage OP weapons available all over the station, you can literally pull them out of the wall and knock someone out, 1 hit stun KO bullshit plz remove. Also fire extinguishers 2 OP for fire, literally one-shots fire, make it like fire suits so that it only "kinda" stops the fire and requires multiple sprays to remove a single flame tile.

[Malkevin]

They closed the PR. Seriously why do people think that if something is good enough to be worth using then we should nerf the shit out of it

Because everything else that was worth using got nerfed, so now anything left is 'OP' - its the reverse power creep effect I used to mention a lot

[Cik]

GO FOR THE EYES BOO!

SQUEAK

[Cheridan]

don't worry, i'm dedicated to bullying those who would nerf screwdrivers

[Tornadium]

No nerf pls,

Managed to stab an idiot HoS to death with a screwdriver because he had no glasses. Became new HoS.

Working as intended.

[Babin]

>issue closed, not even sounds/feedback added to screwdriver attacks

Wat really

[Wyzack]

Pretty sure that is the price you pay when you try to bundle bugfixes with unwanted bullshit. A sad side effect

[PKPenguin321]

Nerf PR got closed, bug fixing PR is up.

[Amelius]

It's fine. We wanted a more lethal station, what does nerfing eyestabbing, something that's ridiculously easily counterable (most departments and folks will have it countered with default gear) AND requires multiple consecutive hits to down someone do? Code is snowflakey, but shit, it's fine.

I mean, something that's easily counterable OUGHT to be powerful to justify it's usage.

Also, keep in mind that removing this is removing yet another way for antags to dunk someone without relying 100% on antag equipment. Greyshirts are probably the least scary they've ever been in the history of /tg/ right now, why nerf them even harder?

[Xhagi]

Other than sound and animation, screwdrivers and forks are, as is, fine and don't need a nerf. I hardly ever see this anyway, but it should be a decent method of damaging/stunning your enemy over just using the toolbox the screwdriver came from.

[John_Oxford]

Wear glasses.
Doesn't need to be sunglasses, you can get normal glasses from a clothes o matt.
Its balanced, and makes sense

[Jacough]

Nerf PR got closed, bug fixing PR is up.

As long as the stabbing sound is meaty and cringe inducing. After all, you're stabbing a dude's eyes out. Shit should make you shudder a bit.

[Oldman Robustin]

People here say "bug fix" but the comments there indicate you can't chain the stun anymore.

That is still a nerf, not a "bug fix". All other stuns in this game can be chained. Why is someone flipping their shit about screwdrivers. I'm going to find these people and give them a stunprod fire-extinguisher wombo combo every round until they wake the hell up and realize how stupid these changes are.

[ChangelingRain]

No, those comments are from the guy who tried to remove the chainstun and wants to sneak in more nerfs.

[Wyzack]

Yeah, the only actual bugfix was adding a sound