Handcuff Resist Trauma

[Crozarius]

People spamming resist and slipping their cuffs over and over again is stupid. There is absolutely no downside to doing it, and it leads to a very toxic playstyle.

 

Let me explain with an example: George Melon just got arrested and is in processing with handcuffs on. He spams resist at every moment he gets, constantly. While buckled into his seat while he's searched and charged, George Melon slips his cuffs and instantaneously begins bashing the officer in the room with him and attempts to murder them. He gets subdued and re-cuffed. And he does it again. And again. And again. He's taken to Medical to be treated for injuries sustained in the brawl to restrain him and he does it again, breaks out of his restraints and starts attacking the officer there. What are our handcuffs made of? Plastic? And yes, I've ahelped people who have done this and it's the position of administrators that antagonists get leeway with this sort of thing.

 

It's too easy to break out of handcuffs, and there's no penalty for doing so. Sure, handcuffs being unbreakable would suck, but as Warden I'm sick to death of these people who wordlessly spamresist their cuffs repeatedly with no consequence. So:

 

Make slipping cuffs give you trauma. I'm thinking a moderate chance to break your hand, and a guaranteed dislocate (Let's not delude ourselves here: All of the shitters ignore dislocated limbs and just pop them back in without pain RP. Dislocation isn't that bad.) Maybe brute damage and bleeding from scraping your wrist off. Everything I've heard from both admins and players is that we cannot enforce pain/fear RP or expect a standard of RP from people - it has to be enforced mechanically.

[GreenBoi]

First: harm-resisting cuffs already dislocates limbs.

 

Two: I won't support this at all unless moving people no longer stops cuff-break timers because I'm not having one-sided, bullshit cuff mechanics for people to powertrip with.

[Crozarius]

13 minutes ago, GreenBoi said:

First: harm-resisting cuffs already dislocates limbs.

 

Two: I won't support this at all unless moving people no longer stops cuff-break timers because I'm not having one-sided, bullshit cuff mechanics for people to powertrip with.

First: I have seen someone harm resist out only once and they immediately re-popped their joint with no adverse affects (they were just being a delinquent). Everyone else doesn't harm resist, so we already know that people avoid doing it because it's not as robust and exploitable.

 

Second, people are able to slip cuffs anyway while unattended with current mechanics. It makes no sense why an officer wouldn't be able to actively restrain someone in cuffs and prevent them from being able to uncuff themselves.

[GreenBoi]

Most people don't know to harm-resist because they don't know it shortens the timer by 50%. The dislocation is meant to be a very temporary problem that the escapist can either fix away or later.

 

The main problem with cuffs right now is if a single person notices you try to escape while they're in the area, they can instantly end your entire by progress by moving you around. Even if you're 75% of the way there, if they just feel like you're trying to escape- one move and you're done for. So no, I wouldn't say that cuffs are easy to escape, they're the exact opposite and it's even more painful when you're bucklecuffed which is a very common method people use.

[Crozarius]

8 minutes ago, GreenBoi said:

Most people don't know to harm-resist because they don't know it shortens the timer by 50%. The dislocation is meant to be a very temporary problem that the escapist can either fix away or later.

 

The main problem with cuffs right now is if a single person notices you try to escape while they're in the area, they can instantly end your entire by progress by moving you around. Even if you're 75% of the way there, if they just feel like you're trying to escape- one move and you're done for. So no, I wouldn't say that cuffs are easy to escape, they're the exact opposite and it's even more painful when you're bucklecuffed which is a very common method people use.

Counterpoint: If they don't see the initial resist message there is no indicator at all that you're breaking your cuffs. And come on-- Handcuffs are designed for literally one thing and that's to restrain someone. Why should they be easy to break out of with no penalty. Throw us a bone here: What precisely is security supposed to do about these people who spam resist and try to murder us over and over again? I'm pretty sure I'd get bitched at by admins if I dislocated both their legs after the third time they try to slit my throat. The issue is that Security does not have a method of keeping resist shitters detained other than babysitting them and moving them around. I'm standing here as Warden trying to RP while they're in processing and because I'm a nice guy I don't constantly move them off and on the seat- what do I get? Spampunched, grabbed, or murdered by these people who have no right to be breaking out of cuffs so easily and without penalty. It's absurd.

[canon35]

There is absolutely no reason for this. Sec has a entire arsenal of stun based and less than lethal weaponry, are able to call for others to aid them with handling some prisoners, and can carry numerous cuffs or simply grab the discarded pair. There is also buckling people to objects like chairs or roller beds. This addition would do nothing but make removing handcuffs in every situation a even bigger pain. I'd rather not have my hand busted because I slipped from sec control as a antag or got out of the merc's clutches. 

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

Just now, Crozarius said:

Counterpoint: If they don't see the initial resist message there is no indicator at all that you're breaking your cuffs. And come on-- Handcuffs are designed for literally one thing and that's to restrain someone. Why should they be easy to break out of with no penalty. Throw us a bone here: What precisely is security supposed to do about these people who spam resist and try to murder us over and over again?

If you have the perp in your sight when they make the attempt you will see it. As stated you can foil their entire process by moving them a single tile or bucklecuffing them. They are not easy to break out of unless you make it easy.

Bucklecuff them if they are being too crazy.

[Crozarius]

Nevermind then. Breaking cuffs should be a LRP affair that can be spammed by shitters with no repercussions, and I should just powergame more to counteract it. Got it. 

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

12 hours ago, Crozarius said:

Nevermind then. Breaking cuffs should be a LRP affair that can be spammed by shitters with no repercussions, and I should just powergame more to counteract it. Got it. 

When should someone stop trying to escape?

[Carver]

12 hours ago, Crozarius said:

Nevermind then. Breaking cuffs should be a LRP affair that can be spammed by shitters with no repercussions, and I should just powergame more to counteract it. Got it. 

Unfortunately, this is how it has been and likely will always be.

[Kaed]

What if I implemented a cooldown timer between escaping cuffs? Something not huge, like 30-60 seconds, but large enough that you can't just spam escape attempts for all eternity instead of trying to roleplay.  It would also probably deal a small amount of damage to them with each attempt, and when you get to a certain level of damage you have to wait for it to heal before continuing. And while I'm not as confident of this part, I think it would be a little more immersive if instead of moving the player or batonning them to interrupt their mechanical do_after() action (this is the term in code for effects that only happen after an interruptable timer completes its course), there could be an action taken on handcuffed people like 'check cuffs' that interrupts the handcuff breaking. 

I would also probably change the George Melons is attempting to break out of his handcuffs! message to only display for people 1-2 spaces away and to be something that's not in huge bold italic red text that catches the attention of everyone in the area, like "George melons begins shifting his arms around." 

Ideally, this would shift the culture away from clicking resist over and over and into officers just occasionally coming back to Check Cuffs if they haven't been keeping watch over the cuffed antagonist.  If you left them alone too long or weren't watching close enough? That's YOUR fault. 

The antagonists will have to be more judicious with attempting to escape, because if they just use it every time it comes up, eventually they're going to fuck up their wrists enough that the pain will stop them from continuing for longer. We should never have to deal with situations where the officers are just so exhausted with the constant resist spam that they start disregarding it and then the perp escapes because they missed one message in the slurry of resist spams that all blended together into a haze of red text.

 

My primary goals here are to reduce immersion shattering game-y behavior that exists with current cuffcode, such as:

-It's weird to have to push someone around or beat them to the floor to stop them breaking handcuffs.  I've literally seem officers who just walk in a circle dragging someone as if this is normal behavior, when we all know it's to cancel resist spam, a mechanical issue, not a roleplay one.

-It's weird that there's no penalty to constantly resisting, both because breaking out of handcuffs is not a simple act, and because it leads to this culture of pressing resist instead of roleplaying, because you can.

-I don't like that that breaking out of cuffs is so highly telegraphed, because it causes situations where people can actually interrupt interactions by filling up the text box with bold red letters even though they are 6 tiles away and no one is looking at them because they are discussing lunch. If you want to guard someone, actually stand guard over them during processing, don't rely on bold redtext to alert you from across the room.

Edited November 19, 2019 by Kaed

[Fortport]

You could playtest that to see what the community thinks, Kaed. Most of your points I feel are valid, same with Crozarius. Having to hop-skotch antagonists around because you both know they're trying to escape isn't necessarily realistic. It's the meta, but neither the restrained person or the officer enjoy it. If an officer is actively participating in watching you and can interrupt you at any moment, why must it be done so rapidly? Again and again? It's not fun. It's laborous.

Keeping someone restrained has never looked right. And it can blow way out of proportion with the shuffling that eventually evolves into downright stunning when they're already in cuffs and just standing there. I agree. Make it easier to hide what you're doing and counteract that by punishing spamming should they be caught more than once.

Besides. It really hurts to wriggle out of cuffs, in real life. And it usually requires something other than just your bare hands, but that's infringing on game balance.

Edited November 19, 2019 by Fortport

[Nantei]

12 hours ago, Marlon Phoenix said:

When should someone stop trying to escape?

When it's clear that doing so will only lead to them getting their ass beat more.

Everyone has to respect painRP to an extent. Even antagonists, although it's lessened for them. You shouldn't be spam resisting cuffs just to be obnoxious. Lots of people do this, ahelp if you see it, because it's not acceptable within our painRP rules. 

Basically nobody should be resisting cuffs over and over again without a good chance of succeeding.

Solving this mechanically is possible, but will hurt legitimate players as well. I'd rather it was handled administratively.

[Xelnagahunter]

I like Kaed's thoughts on this. I'm not often in this position, but the couple of times I have been escaping was impossible because I was just constantly being moved. I think a good counter to this (without creating a new verb for it) would simply be a grab(maybe even a blue grab). This takes up an officer's hand and would basically require getting out of the grab before you can leave the cuffs. The officer is actively holding you, ensureing you don't try anything funny and keeping you from getting your arms in a proper location to get the leverage required. Moving should not cancel the timer and both the officer and the cuffed person have at least one hand restrained. (To note, this all goes well with Kaed's area to lessen the broadcast and possibly to enstate a cooldown/damage effect.)

[Carver]

39 minutes ago, Xelnagahunter said:

I like Kaed's thoughts on this. I'm not often in this position, but the couple of times I have been escaping was impossible because I was just constantly being moved. I think a good counter to this (without creating a new verb for it) would simply be a grab(maybe even a blue grab). This takes up an officer's hand and would basically require getting out of the grab before you can leave the cuffs. The officer is actively holding you, ensureing you don't try anything funny and keeping you from getting your arms in a proper location to get the leverage required. Moving should not cancel the timer and both the officer and the cuffed person have at least one hand restrained. (To note, this all goes well with Kaed's area to lessen the broadcast and possibly to enstate a cooldown/damage effect.)

The issue with grabs is pulling someone with cuffs is already hardcoded so that some random shithead walking into you or the cuffed person won't break the hold. Grabs don't have this, which is why they're never really used for moving cuffed prisoners.

[Crozarius]

17 hours ago, Nantei said:

When it's clear that doing so will only lead to them getting their ass beat more.

Everyone has to respect painRP to an extent. Even antagonists, although it's lessened for them. You shouldn't be spam resisting cuffs just to be obnoxious. Lots of people do this, ahelp if you see it, because it's not acceptable within our painRP rules. 

Basically nobody should be resisting cuffs over and over again without a good chance of succeeding.

Solving this mechanically is possible, but will hurt legitimate players as well. I'd rather it was handled administratively.

You say that, but I've been told by administrators when I've ahelped over this EXACT thing that it's perfectly fine and that people have no expectation of painRP regarding repeated breakouts and resisting. The admins have decided that no, this can't be enforced administratively. And I guess that because we can't solve it mechanically, I'll just stop giving people second chances and dislocate both their legs after the first time they resist out and attack me.

[Scheveningen]

The only salient change I think handcuffs need right now is that spamming the resist button while already trying to remove your own cuffs should reset your cuff timer, like how CM does it. Though this is done to discourage log spam.

[Nantei]

4 hours ago, Crozarius said:

You say that, but I've been told by administrators when I've ahelped over this EXACT thing that it's perfectly fine and that people have no expectation of painRP regarding repeated breakouts and resisting. The admins have decided that no, this can't be enforced administratively. And I guess that because we can't solve it mechanically, I'll just stop giving people second chances and dislocate both their legs after the first time they resist out and attack me.

I have no idea who told you that, but that's definitely not how I have seen it ruled time after time. If someone is constantly resisting just to be a shit, knowing full well it will lead to them getting hit, they are breaking pain rules.

"Avoid pain. A sane, well-rounded character would not engage in actions that are overly painful, or put themselves in harm's way without consideration"

Getting beaten into paincrit is definitely what I think most people would consider, "Overly painful."

[Crozarius]

1 hour ago, Nantei said:

I have no idea who told you that, but that's definitely not how I have seen it ruled time after time. If someone is constantly resisting just to be a shit, knowing full well it will lead to them getting hit, they are breaking pain rules.

"Avoid pain. A sane, well-rounded character would not engage in actions that are overly painful, or put themselves in harm's way without consideration"

Getting beaten into paincrit is definitely what I think most people would consider, "Overly painful."

Inconsistent administration rulings. Who would have thunk it? At least the admins in the SEA/Oceanic timezones.

[Hendricks]

I like the mechanical change idea. I’ve seen the spam shutters and it’s such a pain to babysit 24/7. To have to move them around constantly is draining and not fun at all.