Unapologetic Cult Buff Ideas

[canon35]

As it says on the title. 

Change The Cult Rune Drawing Messages: 

To better aid recruitment and make it a little less obvious to non-cultists or those not attuned to the veil/magic whatever, change the message that appears when a Cultist is drawing a rune from "X slices open their hand..." to "A rune begins to appear underneath X!". Seeing someone deadass cut open their hand and draw something with blood is going to turn anyone immediately away from what is more than likely some crazy-ass dude and might get rid of the ";PSYCH NEEDED!!!" (Exaggeration.) messages. Plus, it helps if a cultist is trying to convince someone to join if they don't need to self harm themselves to get the person to come join. 

Now in the case of a fellow Cultist, Wizard, or Vampire, they would see a message along the lines of "X's shadow shifts and morphs underneath them, clawing at their own hand and using the blood to write a rune on the floor.". Still a blood cult, just not as obvious at first. 

Allow a Cultist to Temporarily Memorize a Rune: 

A cultist with a book can choose a rune to etch into their mind. This will allow them to write that rune ONCE provided they have free hands. Once the memorized rune is put onto the floor, they will forget it. Your brain can only memorize a rune once without combusting from our lord and savior Nar'sie's granted knowledge, so make the one chance you have count! 

[Estoytrucha]

Or just fix transcribe rune. Please. Though I do like Canon's additions. They would prevent ICly turning off other players.

[Karhast]

Could we just see cult swords become actually dangerous? Please? The last few months have seen ranged combat be immeasurably more powerful than melee, and cult only has access to the latter. The swords are very, very, very weak, and I'd appreciate it if they were viable at all.

[DronzTheWolf]

9 minutes ago, Karhast said:

Could we just see cult swords become actually dangerous? Please? The last few months have seen ranged combat be immeasurably more powerful than melee, and cult only has access to the latter. The swords are very, very, very weak, and I'd appreciate it if they were viable at all.

Culties can still make/steal guns. Recruit scientists or security so you can swipe/make weapons to carry into combat. Or, y'know, arm up with crossbows and craft makeshift guns. 

[Karhast]

34 minutes ago, DronzTheWolf said:

Culties can still make/steal guns. Recruit scientists or security so you can swipe/make weapons to carry into combat. Or, y'know, arm up with crossbows and craft makeshift guns. 

What cult rounds are you playing that anyone actually converts into the cult?

[canon35]

On 08/08/2020 at 09:17, Estoytrucha said:

Or just fix transcribe rune. Please. Though I do like Canon's additions. They would prevent ICly turning off other players.

Players can already be ICly turned off by their character's pre-existing beliefs or the fact that some shady guy in robes with a big sword is trying to convince them to step on weird-ass glowing runes. This is a small change that can help with the initial conversions and people who try to convince others to convert. 

On 09/08/2020 at 09:43, Karhast said:

Could we just see cult swords become actually dangerous? Please? The last few months have seen ranged combat be immeasurably more powerful than melee, and cult only has access to the latter. The swords are very, very, very weak, and I'd appreciate it if they were viable at all.

I won't disagree on you with that or the fact that it's hard as balls to get a convert in round, which is sort of why I suggested this in the first place. There's been attempts by devs to try and grant cultists more equipment to level the playing field and if you try to write up your own suggestion, perhaps a dev will take it up. 

[MattAtlas]

On 08/08/2020 at 18:17, Estoytrucha said:

Or just fix transcribe rune.

what is transcribe rune? genuine question because i can't find it in the code

[MattAtlas]

On 09/08/2020 at 18:43, Karhast said:

Could we just see cult swords become actually dangerous? Please? The last few months have seen ranged combat be immeasurably more powerful than melee, and cult only has access to the latter. The swords are very, very, very weak, and I'd appreciate it if they were viable at all.

They still do 30 damage, that's quite a lot

[Cnaym]

Buffing the cult sword is one of the worst ideas one can come up with. It's a free weapon, which you can spam, store even in public hallways and does enough damage as it is. If you use it alone you are playing cult wrong. About the recruitment, I fear it's an age restriction. I had some seriously good tries at converting my characters fail just because people forget the basics like: It is painful, it is weird.

Get someone drunk, bet with a unathi that they cannot withstand the might of the cicle and so on. The reason nobody joins your cult may have to do with 1:55 of silence followed by "Hail Nar'Sie"

Spoiler

Disclaimer: The "you" used in the above is interchangable and not aimed at a specific person, we all fucked up cult, I am aware it is hard. Having a better tutorial for cultists on the wiki may go a long way, although many ignore that it exists until proded about it.

The transcribe rune puts other runes on papers, not sure what it is called ingame or code wise, but it did not work recently and may still be broken.

Revolutionary idea, but cult may, as malf, profit a lot from not being a lone gamemode, but instead cooperate with wiz / ninja / rev.

[Karhast]

Could we get a buff on cult's EMP array? The runes and talismans both? They have ranges of 2 and 1 currently, which is laughably low. Ballistics will still remain something cultists can't do anything against, but at least it'd mean that lasers are less of a win button than they are today.

[Carver]

If the rather potent swords aren't doing the trick, turn to blood boil. I'm for the OP's suggestions of buffing the 'image' of the cult's recruitment attempts, and I love the one rune memorization - but completely disagree with buffing anything else they have available.

[MalMalumam]

@canon35 Temporarily memorize a rune - like, be able to draw a rune without having to have the book in your hand?  For instance, you could memorize "Tome Summoning" and walk around without a tome?  Would the memorized rune be able to be deployed instantly, so that you could use it e.g. like memorize Wall then deploy it immediately while being chased down maintenance by Sec?  You could even just start the round with "Tome Summoning" memorized, and have all new converts start with it memorized too.

I also agree that the rune drawing message could use a bit of work.  At the very least, remove mention of a sacrificial knife from it- there's no knife anywhere near cultists.  Perhaps a cultist could store a vial of their blood inside the tome, and have like a quill to draw the rune with?

[MalMalumam]

I am working on a PR to change the rune drawing message now.

[MalMalumam]

https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/9852

There, a PR to make runes more sneaky, and also a little more religious, cause why not?