Cult Rework: Actual Blood Magic

[Kaed]

I really like the idea you have going here, and I really feel that cult is in need of a rework. However I feel that the issue with IPC's and Non-Blooded creatures, is a problem. Personally I feel they should be excluded from the cult gamemode all together, due to the lack of blood. Otherwise, I like it.

+1 from me!

 

I agree with you in principle, largely, but players need a way to participate rather than just being murdered for being incompatible with the cult. I probably will not let them join the cult, but there will probably be some way to use them. Right now IPCs are turned into constructs when you convert them, but with the removal of conversion runes that won't be feasible anymore.

I'll probably think of something to do to them that can turn them into a minion. It will probably be horrible (for the IPC).

Hmmm... right now off the top of my head, I'm thinking you can use a filled soulstone with an IPC in a special ritual that turns the IPC into a special kind of construct that serves the cult but has two minds and voices and are in constant tortured agony. Both of them have specific abilities, the IPC steers the body, while the soul inside has some stuff it can do. It will be pretty strong, because of this, but since it necessitates two people and a murder, it makes up for it.

Also, speaking of soul stones, I'm thinking on reworking those, and the general tone of cult to make it so that they only can get souls/power/strength through RITUALS that kill the target. They therefore incentivized to take prisoners and drag them back to their lair to have their souls or hearts ripped out rather than just murdering all opposition. Dead bodies will be useless for their purposes of progression, and there will be no more cultblading people to the floor and soul stoning them over the span of 7 seconds.

[Itanimulli]

Why didn't we just leave everything as-is and have blood-vein overlays for all of the non-bleeding beings?

What this rework does is make everything really confusing and creates issues that originally weren't even present before.

With all this rather over-the-top changing in mind, every cult being that doesn't have red blood should have their own rune color, since we want to go fro 'muh realism.'

The only thing I feel this will allow in terms of goodness is anti-meta-gaming, as now people coming in for low blood won't make medical scream inwardly about the vamp that they now know is on-station.

Edited May 29, 2018 by Guest

[Itanimulli]

So, some changes resulting from feedback:

Now, a normal (non-diona) player will have to create a ritual wound upon themselves the first time they craft a rune, dealing a hefty chunk of damage that CAN cause bleeding. Upon doing this, they then draw blood directly from this mystic wound through Blood Majjicks, allowing them to create runes. This normally happens to one of your hands or arms, but if you have no valid arms (missing or mechanical) then you instead create the ritual wound in your chest.

 

This is literally what people were saying about IPCs, but you didn't want to agree to that.

[Kaed]

ipc stuff

 

None of anything I am doing in this update so far as even the slightest bearing on IPCs being cultists. I plan to tackle their interaction with the cult much farther down the line, because 'they turn into constructs' is a passable stopgap while I'm working on making something more solid. Frankly, I still don't think they deserve to be in cult, but I recognize that there are some ooc stipulations about player antag participation that need to be met for 'fairness' on the server.

Now for the rest.

 

Why didn't we just leave everything as-is and have blood-vein overlays for all of the non-bleeding beings?

 

Because what we have is a steaming pile of half decade old, poorly coded garbage that needs more fixed than 'a blood vein overlay to justify muh ipc cultists'. It's completely stagnant and one of the least popular round types for a reason.

 

What this rework does is make everything really confusing and creates issues that originally weren't even present before.

 

I don't see what significance that has. Confusion is a result of not understanding something and that is corrected by learning about it and experiencing the new thing. "It will confuse people for a while" is not a reason to never innovate.

With all this rather over-the-top changing in mind, every cult being that doesn't have red blood should have their own rune color, since we want to go fro 'muh realism.'

 

Good idea. I'll put it on the list.

[Itanimulli]

ipc stuff

 

None of anything I am doing in this update so far as even the slightest bearing on IPCs being cultists. I plan to tackle their interaction with the cult much farther down the line, because 'they turn into constructs' is a passable stopgap while I'm working on making something more solid. Frankly, I still don't think they deserve to be in cult, but I recognize that there are some ooc stipulations about player antag participation that need to be met for 'fairness' on the server.

Now for the rest.

 

Why didn't we just leave everything as-is and have blood-vein overlays for all of the non-bleeding beings?

 

Because what we have is a steaming pile of half decade old, poorly coded garbage that needs more fixed than 'a blood vein overlay to justify muh ipc cultists'. It's completely stagnant and one of the least popular round types for a reason.

 

What this rework does is make everything really confusing and creates issues that originally weren't even present before.

 

I don't see what significance that has. Confusion is a result of not understanding something and that is corrected by learning about it and experiencing the new thing. "It will confuse people for a while" is not a reason to never innovate.

With all this rather over-the-top changing in mind, every cult being that doesn't have red blood should have their own rune color, since we want to go fro 'muh realism.'

 

Good idea. I'll put it on the list.

 

1: You've addressed this twice in one post for no reason. It was more nitpicking about dionea, which are often the reason cult rounds are so unfun.

2: Never said don't innovate. I for one don't disagree with a majority of these reworks, and if the server had actual roundtypes that focused on species types and could be mushed together with outher antags more often, I'd have no issue with half the tings you rework about cult.

3: I'm glad you're actually going to do this.

[Sytic]

Let me try and explain why revamping diona for Cult doesn't work proper, compared to IPC's:

dionacode sucks man

[Garnascus]

https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/4803

Full rework in progress. Most details are strewn throughout the thread.

Progress:

-Make runes take blood instead of damaging the user.

-Add special diona bloodless runemaking process

-Add function that marks cultists with a ritual wound the first time they make a rune.

-Add a ritual dagger that comes packaged in their tome, and that only cultists can retrieve and store in said tome, or use in battle.

 

All of these tweaks are fine and i do not see any issue with them.

 

Rework sacrifice to be useful.

Rework pylons to be better and require the result of sacrifices to activate.

Remove the communicate rune and add a general Commune verb available to all cultists.

Remove the summon tome rune and add a general Summon Tome verb available to all cultists

Rework how conversion works to be less awful

Remove rune words and replace it with updated functions.

Sprite new runes

Add supporting tools and functions to make conversions more feasible under the new system

Make the standard endgame for cultists to be turning one of them into the Avatar of Nar'sie

Cult base building.

Add something for IPCs, since they won't be convertable in this new system.

Rework all murder related cult mechanics to require rituals, rather than just clicking on someone until they're floored and using an item.

 

you are being infuriatingly vague on the changes you want. Why is sacrifice not useful? Why is conversion currently awful? Why do all murder related cult mechanics require a rework? The onus is on your to defend these positions.

 

-I will be removing conversion runes. This will be replaced with the following mechanics:

You can give these unbound arcane tomes to people, and let them borrow your knife too. Reading the unbound tome basically instructs them how to give their blood to the tome to empower it, and when they use the knife on the unbound tome, THEN they get a prompt asking if they want to do that. It takes like 5 seconds and then they stab themselves in the hand or w/e and now they art a cultist and have a proper arcane tome with it's own ritual knife in.[/color]

 

I get that you probably dislike cultists kidnapping people and forcing them to convert but this process is going to needlessly complicate things. Currently cultists have to either pull of some gimmick to get people to willingly stand on the rune or they kidnap people slowly and in secret. The former is very risky as it quickly attracts attention and if everyone just says "no" then you're straight boned and forced to go loud. The process you are submitting seems to require the consent of whoever you are trying to initiate into the cult. What if they click no? If players have a more limited option to compel people into the cult then they will be more inclined to take the path of least resistance. They will kill people. I personally am not going to sit around and meet every players different expectation of "Roleplay needed" just to get them into the cult.

 

-Nar'sie summon rune is going to be completely removed and replaced with the following

--The end game for cultists involves 9 cultists, but instead of summoning Nar'sie, the cultist in the middle becomes the Avatar of Nar'sie, gaining superpowers and extreme durability, and super cool equipment and/or sprites. They don't necessarily need to be devoted to murdering everyone, either, and can do anything they want with their powers (though if you become the Avatar to peacecult I will gib you through a secret backdoor verb just you watch). Keep in mind that the cult has no hard coded leader or person who gets to become the Avatar. Cultists will need to cooperate with each other and agree who gets to become the Avatar or they aren't going to have a chance to get there. There will be a method for the Avatar to sacrifice himself to bring the Geometer itself into the world, but it will be extremely difficult and probably won't show up in most rounds, similar in rareness to a Supermatter Cascade, and requiring very specific, unusual circumstances.

 

This will lower the power of cult. Unless the avatar is absolutely broken overpowered beyond even a lich-terminator amalgamation. Currently the round ends when nar'sie gets summoned. It triggers an emergency shuttle and all you need are nine cultists. We do not allow cultists to silently zerg nar'sie. On the whole players are generally pretty responsible in only summoning him when the round should end anyway. I suspect Getting an entire cult team to agree on one guy becoming an avatar will be nearly impossible. This will promote conflict within the team and could even fracture it. This might sound like good role play but its actually awful. You are to act as an opposing force to the station and its crew. That is the expectation of antags. I am horrendously skeptical of this making cult any better and experience has taught me that when an antag team starts fighting among themselves its already over. Though i admit the idea of one guy becoming a demigod sounds kinda neat.

 

--A number of special talismans that are not make from sheets of paper do things like disable radios, stun people, function as an escape teleport, call other cultists to you.

--New weapons, including ranged, and not all of them will just be for killing, some of them will apply debuffs or special effects

--Base building mechanics, including a new version of pylon charging that will completely replace what we have now.

 

This all sounds fine. Debuffs and special effects sounds especially cool.

In conclusion you have some good ideas. Unfortunately the main bulk of your ideas seem to be you strongly disliking murder-cult and you want to mechanically disincentivise it. no good for reasons stated.

[Kaed]

I get that you probably dislike cultists kidnapping people and forcing them to convert but this process is going to needlessly complicate things. Currently cultists have to either pull of some gimmick to get people to willingly stand on the rune or they kidnap people slowly and in secret. The former is very risky as it quickly attracts attention and if everyone just says "no" then you're straight boned and forced to go loud. The process you are submitting seems to require the consent of whoever you are trying to initiate into the cult. What if they click no? If players have a more limited option to compel people into the cult then they will be more inclined to take the path of least resistance. They will kill people. I personally am not going to sit around and meet every players different expectation of "Roleplay needed" just to get them into the cult.

 

You're misunderstanding some of my intent. I don't intend to make murdercult impossible. I'm mostly trying to phase out the godawful way that cult is done mechanically with something more organic. The popup "Sell your soul y/n" is awkward, interrupts what you are doing, and sometimes if you are typing, it selects an option without you meaning to. It also encourages anxious cultists to spam the rune repeatedly, racking up preposterous amounts of hallucination and fireloss. Finally, it's entirely location based and the rune is incredibly obvious on any camera view or passerby that something is up.

But let's be clear here. People are either going to join the cult, or they are not. No amount of punitive measures for refusing are going to stop them from refusing to be the cult. And if they want to join, they'll basically say yes on the first prompt with the current conversion rune, or might hold out a little bit for some pain roleplay before 'capitulating'. What I am doing is shifting the responsibility for dealing with people who refuse to convert away from a static object that you just click to damage and make a popup. Instead, the responsibility for choosing to join or taking care of people who won't join falls to the players themselves. I will give them tools to facilitate having to 'convince' someone to join, or flat out murder them if they threaten to squeal. with things like a talisman that blocks radio calls for help, something that stuns the target if they try to run for help, possibly even something that temporarily makes their cult daggers soundless, so they can cut you down without anyone overhearing.

The point is, murder is still a viable option for cultists in this system. They'll have the tools for it, new powers and toys I bring in. But the conversion rune was never anything more than a hamfisted and sloppy tool for getting person to join the cult, and it was originally designed to just convert people, that's it. Adding a 'Do you want to convert' prompt was really more a concession to the higher roleplay environment we operate in than a fix, much like how making all books automatically start with all words known was a hotfix and lazy way of doing things when we could just rework the whole system to depart from word combos entirely (which is what I'm doing, also)

[Garnascus]

The popup "Sell your soul y/n" is awkward, interrupts what you are doing, and sometimes if you are typing, it selects an option without you meaning to. It also encourages anxious cultists to spam the rune repeatedly, racking up preposterous amounts of hallucination and fireloss. Finally, it's entirely location based and the rune is incredibly obvious on any camera view or passerby that something is up.

 

So Why are you exchanging one prompt for another one? Wont you have similiar issues?

 

What I am doing is shifting the responsibility for dealing with people who refuse to convert away from a static object that you just click to damage and make a popup. Instead, the responsibility for choosing to join or taking care of people who won't join falls to the players themselves. I will give them tools to facilitate having to 'convince' someone to join, or flat out murder them if they threaten to squeal.

 

And by doing it you are making it easier to resist the cult and you are allowing players to have different standards of "This cultist met my personal expectations of role play so i will accept". Currently i can stun someone with a talisman, cuff them and remove their headset and then stick them on a rune. If they resist or click no then they die and the round ends for them unless they become a construct. That is actually a good thing. We still have players who resist and ghost out of spite but at least they are no longer playing in the round. Its unhealthy for the game. Every player has different standards that they expect the antag to meet. In the process you describe they have a greater ability to resist. You do not get to fuck the antag over because they didnt meet your personal expectations.

 

Adding a 'Do you want to convert' prompt was really more a concession to the higher roleplay environment we operate in than a fix, much like how making all books automatically start with all words known was a hotfix and lazy way of doing things when we could just rework the whole system to depart from word combos entirely

 

I dont think there is any redeeming quality to a "do you want to convert" prompt in even a heavy role play environment. As someone who deals with players abusing the feature it is never for "the roleplay". It is always done out of spite. The most efficient way is not the laziest way. There are no glaring and outrageous issues with our word combos now other than "words of power" basically being moot. They do not really matter when you start with all of them. they are essentially spells. It was super annoying to spend 20-30 minutes on a dumb minigamebefore you can role play.

[Saudus]

Ok, thread has changed and expanded quite a bit so shitty "+1!" post in the beginning is too embarrassing now. Has gotten to be quite a few features and such, so will go through with a list.

 

• Love the blood drain rather than brute damage. Especially with current state of scars and visibility.
• Really like the first time wound thing.
  
• Really like the Tome Dagger.
  
• Similarily to Garnascus I find the vagueness of the entries on the feature list annoying. Will just add to the confusion. Maybe make spoiler fields at each or some and ramble out your innermost and darkest thoughts on the matter? Doesn't need to be nice and well written, but nice to have a better idea of what you think so people address what really is instead of speculating and inadvertently making straw men.
  
• Worried about the commune verb. Giving them all access to a hidden and secret team chat that is also convenient will most definitely be a buff.
  
• See no problem with removing rune words. Not like we're going to add back that awful mini game anyway and if it makes the coding easier and or neater, go for it.
  
• Really hope you'll change your mind on player Nar-sie avatar, quite like the round finisher that summoning currently is.
  
• Love the sacrifice idea, think it can become truly great.
  
• This might not make me any friends, but I quite like the current conversion mechanic. Sucks that I can't use /me and painRP a bit and such however. This new way you describe seems needlessly convoluted.
  
  The beauty of the current version is that it is very capable of dealing with different player's level of RP. Wordlessly stun and drag person into maint? Works. RP and convince person to join with words and a lot of ritual and such? Works.
  
  At least I view it as being actually three buttons instead of the two currently. 1, Refuse. 2, Willingly join. 3, Mind broken and bent into joining. Sounds like suggested new version would be more convoluted and limiting.

 

Finally, would like to add a suggestion. How about making cultists recognize which runes are what? Might be entirely wrong but currently the only way you can recognize them are by drawing/using one and remembering that pattern did that thing?

[Bauser]

I support the suggestion of cultists being able to read which runes are which after they're placed on the floor, but how would this be implemented without non-cultists being able to read them, too? If you change the "object" name of the rune, everyone would be able to see that. Is it possible to make an examine text read something different depending on whether or not someone is in the cult?

[Kaed]

The popup "Sell your soul y/n" is awkward, interrupts what you are doing, and sometimes if you are typing, it selects an option without you meaning to. It also encourages anxious cultists to spam the rune repeatedly, racking up preposterous amounts of hallucination and fireloss. Finally, it's entirely location based and the rune is incredibly obvious on any camera view or passerby that something is up.

 

So Why are you exchanging one prompt for another one? Wont you have similiar issues?

 

What I am doing is shifting the responsibility for dealing with people who refuse to convert away from a static object that you just click to damage and make a popup. Instead, the responsibility for choosing to join or taking care of people who won't join falls to the players themselves. I will give them tools to facilitate having to 'convince' someone to join, or flat out murder them if they threaten to squeal.

 

And by doing it you are making it easier to resist the cult and you are allowing players to have different standards of "This cultist met my personal expectations of role play so i will accept". Currently i can stun someone with a talisman, cuff them and remove their headset and then stick them on a rune. If they resist or click no then they die and the round ends for them unless they become a construct. That is actually a good thing. We still have players who resist and ghost out of spite but at least they are no longer playing in the round. Its unhealthy for the game. Every player has different standards that they expect the antag to meet. In the process you describe they have a greater ability to resist. You do not get to fuck the antag over because they didnt meet your personal expectations.

 

Adding a 'Do you want to convert' prompt was really more a concession to the higher roleplay environment we operate in than a fix, much like how making all books automatically start with all words known was a hotfix and lazy way of doing things when we could just rework the whole system to depart from word combos entirely

 

I dont think there is any redeeming quality to a "do you want to convert" prompt in even a heavy role play environment. As someone who deals with players abusing the feature it is never for "the roleplay". It is always done out of spite. The most efficient way is not the laziest way. There are no glaring and outrageous issues with our word combos now other than "words of power" basically being moot. They do not really matter when you start with all of them. they are essentially spells. It was super annoying to spend 20-30 minutes on a dumb minigamebefore you can role play.

 

The new prompt is under an entirely different set of circumstances, it's initiated by the would-be cultist using a knife on a book, and exists solely to gate accidental cult conversions by people idly clicking on things. It's a confirmation, not an aggressive 'join y/n' prompt resulting from a rune activation by someone else. But for the sake of argument, what would you recommend as an alternative, assuming that changing or removing the conversion rune somehow was a given requirement? For instance, would you like a 'forced conversion' alternative to be available somehow, like by the cultist using the blank book on an injured person (injured because their blood is already out now, they don't need a knife to smear their blood in the book anymore). Sort of a 'standing over the bleeding person, holding out the open book and telling them they have one last chance to live' scenario.

Ok, thread has changed and expanded quite a bit so shitty "+1!" post in the beginning is too embarrassing now. Has gotten to be quite a few features and such, so will go through with a list.

 

• Similarily to Garnascus I find the vagueness of the entries on the feature list annoying. Will just add to the confusion. Maybe make spoiler fields at each or some and ramble out your innermost and darkest thoughts on the matter? Doesn't need to be nice and well written, but nice to have a better idea of what you think so people address what really is instead of speculating and inadvertently making straw men.
• Worried about the commune verb. Giving them all access to a hidden and secret team chat that is also convenient will most definitely be a buff.
  
• Really hope you'll change your mind on player Nar-sie avatar, quite like the round finisher that summoning currently is.
  
• This might not make me any friends, but I quite like the current conversion mechanic. Sucks that I can't use /me and painRP a bit and such however. This new way you describe seems needlessly convoluted.
  
  The beauty of the current version is that it is very capable of dealing with different player's level of RP. Wordlessly stun and drag person into maint? Works. RP and convince person to join with words and a lot of ritual and such? Works.
  
  At least I view it as being actually three buttons instead of the two currently. 1, Refuse. 2, Willingly join. 3, Mind broken and bent into joining. Sounds like suggested new version would be more convoluted and limiting.

 

Finally, would like to add a suggestion. How about making cultists recognize which runes are what? Might be entirely wrong but currently the only way you can recognize them are by drawing/using one and remembering that pattern did that thing?

 

-I can expand on them a bit later when I have time, this was just summary notes

-The commune verb will be on a cooldown (something like 10-15 seconds), require a setup time, and telegraph that you are doing something shifty to nearby people. Effectively, you will still need to go somewhere private to do it. The only difference is I've cut out the requirement to draw a rune first and tied it to the antag type. The same principle applies to summoning a new tome. You shouldn't need a piece of paper to give you a piece of paper to get your tome, or someone else to write you a rune so you can get your new book. It should be something cultists just know how to do, but can be stopped by someone who is watching them in their cell.

-The Nar'sie avatar is the part of the list I am least certain on. If I do it, it will absolutely be the last thing I add in, because it mainly arose from a suggestion I found cool. Since I'll be doing this in lumps over time, it might be dismissed entirely if I can't find a way to make it good.

-See my reply to Garn above

-Making the runes convey what they are to cultists is definitely in the plans

I support the suggestion of cultists being able to read which runes are which after they're placed on the floor, but how would this be implemented without non-cultists being able to read them, too? If you change the "object" name of the rune, everyone would be able to see that. Is it possible to make an examine text read something different depending on whether or not someone is in the cult?

Yes, it is, and in fact it already happens with several cult items.

[Alberyk]

Cultists should still have an option to force people to join the cult or suffer the consequences, otherwise, most people will not just join out of their own will. There is nothing wrong with the "join the dark forces or die" method, besides the salt of having things you don't want to happen to your character (because roleplay is not only about having what you want). I am fine with cult having a more "peaceful" option of having people join the cult, but the conversion rune should stay as it is.

[Kaed]

Cultists should still have an option to force people to join the cult or suffer the consequences, otherwise, most people will not just join out of their own will. There is nothing wrong with the "join the dark forces or die" method, besides the salt of having things you don't want to happen to your character (because roleplay is not only about having what you want). I am fine with cult having a more "peaceful" option of having people join the cult, but the conversion rune should stay as it is.

 

Yep, I got that. I'm just against it being a rune on the floor you drag someone over and spam click on. Like I said here, how about:

 

Like by the cultist using the blank book on an injured person (injured because their blood is already out now, they don't need a knife to smear their blood in the book anymore). Sort of a 'standing over the bleeding person, holding out the open book and telling them they have one last chance to live' scenario.

 

All cultists start out with a dagger they can use to injure people with now, so they shouldn't need the rune to exercise punitive measures. They will also be able to perform a sacrifice by themselves, so if the person refuses to join, or ghosts in spite of you, just cut out their heart and use it as dark fuel for later.

[Saudus]

My worry on the dagger + book conversion is that I am giving a weapon to the person I'm trying to initiate. Because the idea is that I give them a (or my, not sure) dagger and an unbound tome, they do a small ritual, converted? I just can't shake the image of the mountains of salt when this person takes the dagger and does something like just walk away/attacks the cultist/generally turns the tables on the cultist. I might have misunderstood the concept however.

If that is the case, may I suggest the following:

Cultist activates an unbound tome, gives them the unbound tome, they read from it, as they read from it the tip of a knife appears from the book's pages beckoning them to join (or some other fluff, dealers choice, might even have a small list of options the cult can chose from) and they get the prompt whether to cut themselves with it and join or dismiss it (and probably face the wrath of the cultist(s) nearby.

[Kaed]

My worry on the dagger + book conversion is that I am giving a weapon to the person I'm trying to initiate. Because the idea is that I give them a (or my, not sure) dagger and an unbound tome, they do a small ritual, converted? I just can't shake the image of the mountains of salt when this person takes the dagger and does something like just walk away/attacks the cultist/generally turns the tables on the cultist. I might have misunderstood the concept however.

If that is the case, may I suggest the following:

Cultist activates an unbound tome, gives them the unbound tome, they read from it, as they read from it the tip of a knife appears from the book's pages beckoning them to join (or some other fluff, dealers choice, might even have a small list of options the cult can chose from) and they get the prompt whether to cut themselves with it and join or dismiss it (and probably face the wrath of the cultist(s) nearby.

 

Nah, I have plans to make it so non cultists can't attack cultists with the dagger, and with the new methods you'll have of stunning a runner, you can easily stop them from walking off with your knife. If they try to be a smart ass, then they'll suffer. I might even have a specific thing you can do to stun people who try to steal your dagger, where they have like a telegraphed message about the ritual knife in their hands humming ominously, and if they don't drop it within like 5 seconds, then it hurts and stuns them.

[Saudus]

Nah, I have plans to make it so non cultists can't attack cultists with the dagger, and with the new methods you'll have of stunning a runner, you can easily stop them from walking off with your knife. If they try to be a smart ass, then they'll suffer. I might even have a specific thing you can do to stun people who try to steal your dagger, where they have like a telegraphed message about the ritual knife in their hands humming ominously, and if they don't drop it within like 5 seconds, then it hurts and stuns them.

 

Worries calmed. On board, agree and psyched.