Cult rework - Corruption cult

[Nero07]

Hello Aurorafolk,

You don't know me, but I'm about to make your life a whole lot better. Well at least the part of your life where you sit and play Aurora station on cult mode. But that's something, right?

 

So, cult. What's the problem with it? In my opinion, it's the goal of the cult members. They explicitly want to either murder you or turn you into one of them so you can murder others. Being murdered can be fun (Quote me on this), but tends to be very unfun. Just the same "Kill everyone" isn't the most interesting of goals as an antag. So what to do?

Introducing: Corruption cult

How it works: Round starts with the old amount of cultists. Big difference is they are not out to recruit you. They just want your sanity. Every crew member gets a new hidden stat called "corruption". Interacting with the cult in various ways increases this corruption stat, which will have tangible consequences for you like so:

1-10 corruption: slight headaches

10-20 corruption: worse headache. Slight nausea.

30-40 corruption: Headache and nausea gone. Hear quiet, incorporeal whispers and giggling from time to time.

40-50 corruption: Start to hear voices. Mental illnesses start to appear.

50-60 corruption: Voices more pronounced. Visual hallucinations. Slight damage to body as deeper corruption takes hold.

70-80 corruption: Bleeding from eyes and ears. Hear commanding voice urging you to do things (destroy property, self-harm, harm other crewmembers, kill animals)

80-90 corruption: Severe derangement sets in. See other crewmembers as monsters that want to kill you. Stigmata appear on your body.

90-99 corruption: Gibbering madness. Can't tell real from unreal anymore.

100 corruption: Death by heart attack/brain stroke. Or give in to the madness, get healed of your ailments and become a cultist yourself.

(Symptoms open to suggestions) Being corrupted to the point of death/conversion should take about an hour, give or take.

Cultists have a variety of ways to tag you with corruption. Some examples:

Cursed artifacts - Eldritch tomes. grotesque figurines, occult artifacts like sacrificial daggers. Corrupt you through touching/holding/reading them.

The words of madness - Can be written with blood on the walls/floor or on special papers. Special font. Reading them corrupts you.

The blood of Nar'sie - Red, viscous liquid, that can be mixed into food and drinks or injected into people. Corrupts you as it processes in your body.

Foul totems - can be constructed by cultists. Corrupt everyone within a certain radius of the totem.  Even through walls. The longer you are around it, the worse it gets. Edit: Will be made somewhat easier to find. For example by dimming the lights in the affected area.

Corruption rune - conversion rune replaced with corruption rune. Will quickly corrupt you to the point of no return if you stay on it.

 

Cult members retain access to all the tools they currently have (minus conversion rune) to remain robust enough to not be easily dispatched by the crew. They have to be more careful though, since they cannot replenish their numbers.

 

The aim of this whole thing is to make the cult more interactive than "join or die" or in many cases just "DIEEE!!!!". Cult members have a variety of ways to corrupt the crew they can chose from and the crew gets an extended amount of time to roleplay their descent into madness or stop the cult before it gets too late.

 

Open questions:

Should there be a way to reduce corruption? If so, what?

 

Looking forward to hearing your opinions/suggestions on this!

 

Update - 06.12.2019: Added conversion option at 100 corruption, removed foul totems ability to work through walls - line of sight required, removed corruption rune, as it would just be the same as conversion with the new choice at 100 corruption.

Edited December 6, 2019 by Nero07

[Roostercat]

I really like this idea, though there are some things I would change about it, chief being a way for the cult to get followers. Maybe instead of death at 100 corruption it turns to conversion? This would make it so that the cult isn't fucked bc one of the roundstart guys is an idiot. Maybe a cap of 3 to 4 cultists at one time, so that you can replace dead members but nothing past that.     As for ways to decrease corruption, I would say that hypno or crystal therapy should lower it ( meaning the psyche is actually important now) and maybe giving the chaplain something to decrease it. Overall I like this idea.

[Nero07]

Could maybe give an option at 100 corruption to convert to cultist or die, same as with the current conversion rune. Edit: but then I'd have to remove the corruption rune or change it someway. Otherwise you can just use it like the conversion one to recruit at will instead of slowly corrupting people.

 

Hypno and crystal therapy sound good and should be easily hooked into. Chaplain is a bit harder. Guess I would have to give him a new item that would be useless unless it's a cult round? Or give him a verb to bless people... I don't know.

Edited December 4, 2019 by Nero07

[wowzewow]

You know, let's make holy water a lot more powerful, ala reagent-style, it neutralises any narsieblood or corruption or what have you, a lot like medicine for corruption.

Psychologist can also play an anti-cultist role, albeit a bit more "sciency" through crystal therapy and whatnot.

Also smacking people with bibles should still be a thing.

[Nero07]

Ohh, holy water is a nice idea. How about it cleanses you of corruption, but gives you burn damage proportional to how corrupted you were.

Smacking with bible just temporarily resets your corruption to <20 for a minute. Apply directly to the forehead (joke. Unless..)

[Roostercat]

I also had a thought. What does this do to constructs? I think soul stoning can still be a thing if someone is 70 corruption or higher, give or take. And there is a new construct that has the sole goal of turning people insane. ie hitting people causes corruption instead of actual damage or their presence does it over time.

[Nero07]

They can still be part of it. Like the idea that you need to have a sufficiently corrupted victim. Don't like hitting corrupting people. Corruption is supposed to be creeping insanity. A monster hitting you and dealing damage directly to your sanity sounds a bit abstract to me. They could be walking corruption beacons though. corrupting anyone within x tiles of them so looking at them turns you insane like in amnesia:dark descent.

Edited December 4, 2019 by Nero07

[NewOriginalSchwann]

How will this impact IPCs, which experience emotions and fears differently from other species?

[Nero07]

A good question. After I have a working framework with organics, I will work together with the IPC lore team and any other aliens that need adjustments to make sure it provides an immersive experience for them.

[Xelnagahunter]

I second the concepts on IPCs but form the perspective of Dionae. Both of these races lack pain messages, but Dionae still feel fear. But headaches and heart attacks can't happen in either of these cases so outright killing them would be hard to justify. I also don't want to see another game mode where I'm basically just immune to the antag. Dionae and IPCs are already ignored by vampires and changelings because they offer nothing useful to those antag types.

[GreenBoi]

This reminds me of my dumb cult idea dartboard post from a while back. Might have some useful stuff that could merge with this, otherwise I like it and my only suggestions would be everything I put in that other post anyways.

[Nero07]

Will definitely take a look at that post.

I currently need ideas for cursed items that could  corrupt the crew. For now I have a grotesque idol, that corrupts you when you pick it up and keeps doing it while you carry it around and a goblet full of the blood of Nar-Sie. Can either be ingested, or injected and corrupts as it metabolizes.

[Doxxmedearly]

1 minute ago, Nero07 said:

goblet full of the blood of Nar-Sie.

Perhaps it would be best not to call it the blood of Nar-Sie, so a cult can choose a gimmick that isn't revolving around her (But can if they want). I feel like stepping away from Nar-Nar would allow for more flexibility with cult gimmicks. Anything to help it get away from being so same-ish. The item idea itself is fine, though. 

[Roostercat]

2 hours ago, Nero07 said:

Will definitely take a look at that post.

I currently need ideas for cursed items that could  corrupt the crew. For now I have a grotesque idol, that corrupts you when you pick it up and keeps doing it while you carry it around and a goblet full of the blood of Nar-Sie. Can either be ingested, or injected and corrupts as it metabolizes.

Alright ima hit you with some ideas

- Blood amulet: Amulet that is wearable and constantly covers the wearer in blood. IF the wearer is not a cultist, VERY high corruption gain, if cultist, no real change. Anyone that can see the person with the amulet slowly gains corruption. Taking the amulet off someone causes 15 burn to the hand and makes them drop it. Does not go through walls.

- Door trap: A talisman that rigs a door to scare the fuck out of the next non cultist to open it. Upon opening it will play a loud ass noise and spawn a fake construct on the other side briefly that disappears soon after. Causes moderate corruption gain that fades away unless they gain another point, at which point the number stays where it is.

- Body Stand: Allows you to put a corpse on it and act as a constant source of corruption. Any who see it will gain corruption over time.

- Chaos Orb: Small orb that can be turned on. When on, anyone within a small radius will hear whispers and gain very slight amounts of corruption. Destroyed when turned off, applying 10 burn to the one that turned it off.

More ideas to come... Maybe

 

[Shenaanigans]

I reaaaaaally love the concept behind this. I do enjoy cult, but it's hard to break out of the same-y gimmick types with how "murder death" focused the mode itself is and so the concept of a gradual, madness based system like this is something I can definitely get behind. Very lovecraftian, darkest dungeon-esque horror. 

[Nero07]

- Blood amulet. It's a good concept, but what would move anyone to even put that on and then not immediately rip it off when they're covered in blood? Counter proposal: Cursed ring/bracelet/whatever wearable. Once put on cannot be taken off. Continuously corrupts the wearer and has other effects depending on the item. Only way to get rid of it is to cut off the affected body part. (Like shoes that make you faster, but you have to cut of your feet to get rid of them or they turn you mad. Or a ring that shines like a flashlight, but you have to cut your hand off to get rid of it). If it's an amulet or a tiara or something... well tough.

- Door trap. i like it. Should be single time effect only though or it'll cease to be scary and become "that wacky hallucination door"

- Body stand. Solid concept, but won't corrupt people over time, because it will immediately be taken down. I currently plan to adapt the cult pylons to corrupt around them after they have been activated by a blood sacrifice. I think people are more likely to let a curious glowing pylon stand and maybe congregate around it to study it than a corpse.

- Chaos orb. I like it. Will implement

 

Additionally, I will keep the summoning of Nar-Sie as a round finisher, so you don't get rounds that never end because one guy is hiding out in a closet somewhere and as a definite win condition for the cultist. The mechanism of the summoning will be changed as follows:

- Has to take place on desecrated holy ground - meaning the chapel, but every floor tile in it has to be covered in blood.

- Takes a ritual with more than the starting number of cultists, So they have to corrupt at least one victim completely and they have to join.

Aim is to make it impossible to stealth summon in maint somewhere and to cement it as either a round-ender after the cult has won or a desperate last ditch gamble for the cultists that basically means they lost if it fails.

Edited December 5, 2019 by Nero07

[Roostercat]

Thr main idea with the blood amulet would be for a cultist to wear it and take a stroll down main hallway, slowly corrupting everyone that sees them

[Nero07]

Ahh alright, that makes more sense.

[Nero07]

To show I'm actually doing something besides fancy talk

 

https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/7606/commits/c2fbd938e4818081b9d686c056c3aa26b4736b08

 

If anyone wants to provide some sprites that'd be great. I can do them myself, but I'm not the most talented and it'll take longer

Edited December 5, 2019 by Nero07

[Aticius]

I do not like this, and I think this entire rework is based around a flawed concept from the very start.

 

This gamemode turns "Avoid the Cultists, because they will gank you." into "Avoid the Cultists, because they will annoy you to shit, while ganking you."

 

The ability to passively, and secretly, afflict players with messages indiscriminately that force people into "Insane RP" opens so many bad doors and will encourage horrible RP from all those involved. People will be extremely likely to just use Corruption as an excuse to chucklefuck and grief, possibly all the way up to murder people because "Im insane, lol"

 

On a gameplay side, the ability to indiscriminately and corrupt people without a clear source will lead to people metagaming the shit out of this rework, particularly foul totems. E.g. "Wow, I suddenly have a headache, I should check maintenance, so I don't get forced to do Insane RP and be forced to have constant hallucinations." Everything, mechanically, seems to be pushing players to not engage with the cultists in any way or form.

 

Unless the concept behind this is changed, I don't see any way this could be supported in place of the Murder-Focused cult we have. 

[Kaed]

I agree with all of Aticius's points here, and also want to add my dislike for 0 conversion mechanics.  This defies the basic principle of cults, to be unable to induct new members, never mind all the other issues.

[AmoryBlaine]

1 hour ago, Aticius said:

I do not like this, and I think this entire rework is based around a flawed concept from the very start.

 

This gamemode turns "Avoid the Cultists, because they will gank you." into "Avoid the Cultists, because they will annoy you to shit, while ganking you."

 

The ability to passively, and secretly, afflict players with messages indiscriminately that force people into "Insane RP" opens so many bad doors and will encourage horrible RP from all those involved. People will be extremely likely to just use Corruption as an excuse to chucklefuck and grief, possibly all the way up to murder people because "Im insane, lol"

 

On a gameplay side, the ability to indiscriminately and corrupt people without a clear source will lead to people metagaming the shit out of this rework, particularly foul totems. E.g. "Wow, I suddenly have a headache, I should check maintenance, so I don't get forced to do Insane RP and be forced to have constant hallucinations." Everything, mechanically, seems to be pushing players to not engage with the cultists in any way or form.

 

Unless the concept behind this is changed, I don't see any way this could be supported in place of the Murder-Focused cult we have. 

What does the current form of Cult do to encourage engaging with cultists?

[Aticius]

25 minutes ago, AmoryBlaine said:

What does the current form of Cult do to encourage engaging with cultists?

It doesn't. I'm not a fan of cult to begin with, but this simply won't help.

[Nero07]

Sorry to hear you don't like it. Especially because getting the cult to engage more with the crew was one of the main goals of this.

How about I completely take out the stuff that corrupts people without a cult member present? So cult members have to talk people into accepting and carrying around items and whatnot. Would that be better in your opinion? If that doesn't help... Hey, you didn't like cult before and you won't like it after the rework. So no change for you. But other people may like it better this way, so it'll be improved for them.

As for the bad madness rp. At least it's rp, right? It's not just getting jumped, stunned, dragged off to maint and force converted. So that's an improvement in my book. Sure, you'll get people that act like shitters because of it, but you can't expect me to make a gamemode shitter-proof. That's impossible. If people chucklefuck and grief, it'll have to be dealt with, same as in other gamemodes.

0 conversion mechanics isn't exactly true. Since corruption will make you go mad with time, every sufficiently corrupt crew member basically becomes a mini-antag that has to be dealt with, thus allowing the cultists to act more freely. In any case, I plan to offer a choice at 100 corruption to "give into the madness", get healed of your traumas and become a cult member or, alternatively, die in a horrible way. Will update first post with that.

Not much I can do against the metagaming I'm afraid. If you don't want metagaming you have to play extended. Otherwise it's always going to be "oh the ai is behaving strange 10 minutes in. Must be malf. Let's not do anything the AI says" "Oh there's red suited guys outside. Must be mercenary. Activate robust mode." "Someone is mysteriously missing half their blood. Sharpen the stakes"

 

Edit: Also keep in mind that you have to breach 40 corruption to get anymore than slight physical symptoms and text messages on a strict cooldown so they don't spam you. So you have to engage with/get hounded by the cult on a more than casual basis to get the more serious stuff.

Edited December 6, 2019 by Nero07

[Kaed]

2 hours ago, Nero07 said:

Sorry to hear you don't like it. Especially because getting the cult to engage more with the crew was one of the main goals of this.

How about I completely take out the stuff that corrupts people without a cult member present? So cult members have to talk people into accepting and carrying around items and whatnot. Would that be better in your opinion? If that doesn't help... Hey, you didn't like cult before and you won't like it after the rework. So no change for you. But other people may like it better this way, so it'll be improved for them.

As for the bad madness rp. At least it's rp, right? It's not just getting jumped, stunned, dragged off to maint and force converted. So that's an improvement in my book. Sure, you'll get people that act like shitters because of it, but you can't expect me to make a gamemode shitter-proof. That's impossible. If people chucklefuck and grief, it'll have to be dealt with, same as in other gamemodes.

0 conversion mechanics isn't exactly true. Since corruption will make you go mad with time, every sufficiently corrupt crew member basically becomes a mini-antag that has to be dealt with, thus allowing the cultists to act more freely. In any case, I plan to offer a choice at 100 corruption to "give into the madness", get healed of your traumas and become a cult member or, alternatively, die in a horrible way. Will update first post with that.

Not much I can do against the metagaming I'm afraid. If you don't want metagaming you have to play extended. Otherwise it's always going to be "oh the ai is behaving strange 10 minutes in. Must be malf. Let's not do anything the AI says" "Oh there's red suited guys outside. Must be mercenary. Activate robust mode." "Someone is mysteriously missing half their blood. Sharpen the stakes"

 

Edit: Also keep in mind that you have to breach 40 corruption to get anymore than slight physical symptoms and text messages on a strict cooldown so they don't spam you. So you have to engage with/get hounded by the cult on a more than casual basis to get the more serious stuff.

Look, I think if you put the work in for a significant content update like this, with new sprites and mechanics, it's worth at least a test merge to see if anyone likes it.

But I just don't think this mechanic sounds very fun. While technically it is an improvement over current cult mechanics (click until horizontal join or die mechanics are horrid, in general), much in the way that I'd rather be punched in the face than stabbed in the gut, both options are distinctly unappealing in nature.  Your idea involves almost entirely passive attacks upon other players, and while I can see that you have stars in your eyes about how much roleplay it will generate, as someone who added an update to changelings to help them not have to murder so much just to play the game, here's the facts:

People are in the game to get all the cool stuff and win. They will find a path of least resistance and then relentlessly cheese whatever exploit (or god forbid, actual bug) they find in your new mechanic to gain the most entertainment and benefit for themselves, at the least risk to themselves.  For instance, I guarantee you will find cultists who stand around brooding in crowded rooms, trying not to draw attention to themselves so they can spread as much corruption as possible before being caught.  No matter how much you think players will use the new tools you give  them to facilitate better gameplay, they will always disappoint you and find the path of least resistance to get what they want.

I think you would therefore be better served creating a mechanic that encourages interaction between players actively, if you want more roleplay. If you want conversion over time that is less forced instantly on players, you will have to find a way to do that that engages both parties, rather than this, which just slowly fucking everyone up over time in the hopes that becoming insane will generate loads of the delicious roleplays out of their reactions to becoming insane.

Edited December 6, 2019 by Kaed