[feedback] Removes changeling from secret rotation

[kyres1]

https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/17070

Requested here;

Don't know what to say as OP. It sucks. Don't like it. Trying to see it less. That's the logic, basically.

[meep109]

Personally I believe that the problem lies in the adredaline sac abilities and other shit like that. I think ling's played best as a stealth antag where you actually use identity changes and morphs to make for a fun experience. If we retool or remove the abilities that make the ling sooo strong in upfront combat, I think ling would be so much more enjoyable, instead of just straight up removing it from secret

[naut]

Aagh. I'm torn - on the one hand, I know ling has the potential for fun RP if the stealth aspect is played out and actually used to the full extent. But on the other, as I'm sure everyone who played that massacre of a round with two lings on the Intrepid would feel, having people go murderbone and ravage the entire crew within 30 minutes - before being permakilled by security and leaving the rest of the round as glorified extended  - is not fun at all.

As Meep said, if we're to go the route of keeping ling we definitely need to change the way it works. Right now the gameplay loop is this: absorb one person, be discovered by security, firefight ensues, fake death, resurrection, hide in maints, firefight again, repeat until horror form and/or head is destroyed. The way seemingly everyone plays it right now is as just, outright, The Thing, something that works on more traditional SS13 servers, where the entire crew can contribute to stopping lings. But on Aurora, RP is key, and lings, as they are right now, are just not RPed well at all. Making lings be better at stealth while being worse in outright combat would benefit the gameplay loop massively.

On the other hand, I'm simultaneously in the club of advocating for just outright removal from rotation. Again, the Massacre on the Intrepid soured everyone's minds in that regard, and mine too. The round was completely hands-off for everyone who wasn't on the Intrepid, and was particularly extremely disappointing for me, the CMO, as we had struck a motherlode on carpotoxin, and were practically swimming in bottles of rezadone which we'd have loved to have used. But, instead, everyone dies on the Intrepid, even the Rangers got no gameplay out of that round (I felt extremely bad telling them that they were no longer needed honestly), medical was entirely deserted and the rest of security only got their kicks in with a brief firefight that ended in the destruction of the last ling. I'd love to say this was an isolated case, but it isn't - many ling rounds go this way; people end up being killed or vanished so quickly that a whole bunch of people are left feeling robbed of a round, either from being dead or just being starved of things to do.

TL;DR, ling needs to be changed in some way. There are a few arguments for nerfing and a few arguments for removal. I'm honestly fine with trying out either direction as long as we take a turn and don't just keep heading down the status quo, because ling, as it is right now, is flat-out not fun for me, and I imagine not for a lot of people either.

[Sparky_hotdog]

Ling is a complex mess. There are several appealing fantasies that the gamemode tries to play into - Body horror, gene-stealing, shapeshifting - But in doing so, it kind of fails to deliver on any of those. As is, most rounds basically boil down to maybe absorbing one person (with often questionable amounts of RP), then the loop of "dying" to security, then reviving, until someone gets bored and takes the permanent option. It's not fun to play as security, no scientist ever wants to be handed a captured ling to study, and it has been a long time since I played a ling round that I actually remember being different to any other.

Personally I'm not a huge fan of ling stealth either, but I don't have many solid reasons for that beyond having never enjoyed the, admittedly few, rounds I've experienced of that.

All in all, as much as - as ever - I would like to see ling fixed, I don't have, nor do I see anyone else offering, any good alternatives outside of just nerfs (which I honestly don't think would solve the problem really). So I think I would rather see it gone from secret until then.

[Carver]

Changeling's a relic of the past, when rounds averaged 40 minutes long so getting silently killed in the first 10-15 wasn't the epitome of feelsbad. It's quite predictable in every case: Someone gets murdered and the body is either never found or the ling is caught early on, if never found repeat the process until Sec catches them and it becomes a 40 minute back-and-forth of revives and armblades; until invariably the changeling either gets their head blasted off with a shotgun or they're sent off to xenobiology/xenoarch for Science to suffer instead. I'd prefer a full removal, but this is just as effective at making the mode avoidable while leaving it for those few who do enjoy it.

[Noble Row]

I have seen some absolutely superb changeling rounds, where the ling leaves a trail of bodies they've stealthily absorbed, but does it so it's like a serial killer leaving breadcrumbs so they can be caught. But, having said that, it has been a long time since I've seen that level of care or creativity. Either sec bodies the ling, or the ling does the previously mentioned back and forth that is so exceptionally stale. What's frustrating is that ling, as a gamemode, CAN be good given the right people on both Security's side and the Ling's, but that combination has become so rare you have to ask yourself what even is the point?

Perhaps something can be done to ensure a more rewarding antag system to encourage more experienced players to play antag. I'm of the firm belief that a good antag can make any gamemode the best gamemode, and bad antags can lead to something like this very thread. We might just be applying a band-aid to a much deeper problem with this.

[SilverSZ]

I agree with a lot of sentiments in this thread that Ling has to change as a gamemode. It just doesn't work super well either stealthily or loudly. And whilst I absolutely love the themes it plays into and agree that a skilled antag with a good concept can really make any type of Antag work. I believe that Ling (and I would say Vampire here as well.) are much harder to get that experience with and even more so with people who might not have the best ideas or experience at playing Antag.

Removing it from secret until a supposed rework happens is the decision I would favour. I personally dislike the antag despite really liking the themes because as a whole it's very railroaded into being one thing, similar to vampire. As opposed to their on-station brethren Traitor, who can really be anything they want to be. You really only see ling played as this killer organism sort of thing rather than playing off potential other lore or ideas.

But, what matters is that it needs a rework of some kind, and until it's reworked I'd rather not deal with it in it's current state.

[Lent23]

My biggest gripe with changelings is absolutely the ceaseless respawning that every single ling seems to do. The round is almost always nothing going on until either:

a) A body is found drained of all its fluids in the cargo bay

b) A corporate reporter busts out an arm blade in front of the bar

After this, you see a standoff with security, more arm blades are drawn, and one side gets absolutely bodied.

a) The changeling gets bodied, gets brought to the morgue, comes back to life, start back at step 1.

b) Security gets bodied, and the crew armory is opened so the changeling can body more inexperienced people.

If the changeling has been bodied twice, throw it out the mass driver or cut its head off.

This cycle usually doesn't include more than security and medical, it doesn't include any storyline for the rest of the crew, and the progression system of the changeling itself is literally taking people out of the round - I can count the ling blobs on one hand that I've seen stay in the past month. Not to mention the amount of people that cryo when the first "It's got arm blades!" comes out on the common radio channel.

When you see something every day, the cinematic value is cheapened by a lot. Changeling could be a really cool concept, it's just too oversaturated right now - a good portion of the rounds are changeling rounds. I think @SilverSZ said it best with this:

2 hours ago, SilverSZ said:

Removing it from secret until a supposed rework happens is the decision I would favour. I personally dislike the antag despite really liking the themes because as a whole it's very railroaded into being one thing, similar to vampire. As opposed to their on-station brethren Traitor, who can really be anything they want to be. You really only see ling played as this killer organism sort of thing rather than playing off potential other lore or ideas.

But, what matters is that it needs a rework of some kind, and until it's reworked I'd rather not deal with it in it's current state.

[LordPwner]

Changling has lead to some good rounds in the past, I'm sure. Yet, none of which I can actually recall. I can recall merc rounds where they've made my character into a war criminal and he krills. But most changling rounds are: get stunned injected ---> They apologize and try to be believable that they don't want to do this, but have too or go 'FEED, I NEED TO FEED RA RA RA RA RA' ---> You get absorbed and try to assist them to RP as you? (Which so rarely happens) Or they murder you and you are just done.

More often than not, the RP level is close to 0 which is odd for a gamemode for a HRP server. Now, some changlings are very top tier, and they rock it hard. But most often it is "I AM ALIEN LIFEFORM, RA RA RA RA RA, I WILL KILL AND EAT YOU RA RA RA RA RA" 

There's not really anymore depth than that, which is my biggest issue with it. Honestly just feels like an excuse to go fragging- which there are servers for that. I play on aurora because I want to engage with a story and arguably blind, mindless murder is not story 9 times out of 10

Most of the time I leave changling rounds with a 'well, that felt like a waste of my time' which I never want to leave a round like that (By leave, I mean making it to the end or when I am krilled). It's just so low effort. Maybe adjusting the changeling death state? Making regening take more time? Maybe sacrificing something when they heal? Or pushing to add 'storyboards' that appear in a verb for antags, like a rotating batch of 'ideas' they can see and go 'Yeah, I could base this off an infectious disease- Lets draft up some stuff and go' 

As for now though, taking it out of the secret rotation sounds alright with me. 

[EJJ]

I would love ling to be rebalanced to be less focused on fragging people. But a significant amount of ling rounds I play, see, or die in are rounds where the ling is sprinting around at mach ten smashing lightbulbs and killing people that aren't even security with the armblade. I feel like Ling either needs a rework to not be a roll between die and wake up in medical/security and try to kill a surgeon/investigator, KILL EVERYONE YOU SEE or fuck all because the ling is doing a gimmick where they get shoved in the brig/science all round.

I hate getting Lings foisted onto me when I play science/RD as well because half the time I don't know what to even do with them. If I go dissect them they're DEFINITELY going to run. If I lock them in a room in xenoarchaeology then what? Its the same as being brigged all round and they either have to wait for all the scientists and security people to leave or try to escape while they're there which just ends up in the blast doors going down and even less RP for them.

[Doxxmedearly]

This back and forth has gone on for years. Just put it to rest and get it out. +1

[Gem]

i'm fine with this and i also support it.

[Flpfs]

Do it. I don't like the semi-immortal gameplay of ling and the immersion drop it causes.

[BravoBohemia]

I'm also a big fan of pruning changeling as it is now until it can be reworked in such a way that meshes better with the server 'culture'. Having an antag whose entire drive is to stack as many bodies as it can within a timeframe of two hours isn't exactly driving a fun and engaging narrative, and as many people have noted before in this thread, most people playing changeling don't even put in that effort. 9/10 times when you get a ling round it's going to be chasing someone flying down the hallways at the speed of sound while they hit you with a drive by arm-blade. Eventually, one side or the other is going to lose that war of attrition but it is the most mind numbingly boring back and forth I can think of.

[La Villa Strangiato]

Just rip it from secret until it can be reworked (whenever that happens).

[OolongCow]

Changeling should be a stealth antag. I know that's a shocking opinion, but that's what its fantasy has always felt like it should be: a stealth antag that becomes increasingly more difficult to deal with the longer you leave it alone. Something that has a natural escalation, instead of getting its two best abilities literally second one of the round because why would you ever not take adrenaline sacs and armblade are you dumb? Do you like losing? But since nobody ever really finds a satisfactory answer for HOW to make it a stealth antag, yeah, I get it.

Changeling revive is terribly designed and just needs to go. I would not care if you compensated ling by having them just turn into a mildly nerfed horror form on braindeath, for free: current revive just has to go in an environment with metaprotections. There isn't a single other antag on the server that is handheld as much, and given so much leeway to fuck up and still get a free way back into the round, as changeling is. There's no motivation to play intelligently, or do something smart. I have never seen lings bolt people into a room with them using signalers as they change into horror form, or just make the same chems adrenaline sacs gives them. I've never seen lings use their powers to socially manipulate people, or swap between disguises in order to fool security. They always just... Sit in maintenance, or their department, gank people, drag them to deck two port if they're smart, and then turn the guy's sensors off, drain them, and toss them in a crate. Sometimes the person they do it to doesn't care, sometimes it ruins their round. Does the changeling player usually care? Not really, judging from the many people testifying that their attempts to RP with the ling from inside the hivemind are almost always ignored. That player is just an obstacle to getting more genome points. Nobody really had any good roleplay, nobody really did anything character-driven, nobody actually interacted with the gamemode.

The most exciting parts about changeling rounds? Have nothing to do with changeling. It's just the fragging. At least mercs usually do gimmicks before forcing a fight.

+1

[N8-Toe]

fully against this. Changeling is an interest concept and gamemode and we'd be left worst off without it. I think the discussion of how to change ling should be a different thread, but I also 100% believe if ling is removed, it'll never come back. and that would be a shame

 

-1

[AccointNaim]

I agree with N8 here. Ling, if removed, might never get reworked in exchange for other things. It's such a unique antagonist, and I'm a sucker for body horror and spooky space monsters but...

Well, it's just not in a good place right now. I'm not in a place to think why or why not. I'm neither against or for the removal, I just hope it gets some more love soon.

[LordPwner]

5 hours ago, N8-Toe said:

fully against this. Changeling is an interest concept and gamemode and we'd be left worst off without it. I think the discussion of how to change ling should be a different thread, but I also 100% believe if ling is removed, it'll never come back. and that would be a shame

The thread in PR in question is just removing the gamemode from the secret rotation. It'll only see a rework if ideas are given for such. It could still be voted for

[Sparky_hotdog]

7 hours ago, N8-Toe said:

if ling is removed, it'll never come back.

This is not a good argument for keeping a gamemode that seems to infuriate most on a regular basis. There might be interesting concepts, and a few good rounds once in a blue moon, but that a good gamemode does not make, and with how commonly ling rolls this basically holds the community at gunpoint arm-blade-point until someone comes up with a rework.

5 hours ago, AccointNaim said:

Well, it's just not in a good place right now.

It is not "just not in a good place right now", it hasn't been in a good place in the 3+ years I've actively played on this server. Ling needs more than numbers tweaked, an ability removed or new ones added; At best it needs a new coat of paint, at worst (And probably more realistically) it needs its guts torn out and built up from nigh-scratch. So I remain in support of this unless someone can at least provide an elevator pitch for an alternative rework.

[Carver]

If an argument is that we'll never see it again if it becomes a voted mode, then perhaps it isn't a very popular mode to begin with.

"We'll rework it" has been said for years now and curiously never has any real rework come to fruition - just minor changes to things like horror form, armblade, adrenaline sac and so forth. So while you can paint shit to look gold, it's still shit at it's core, and the guts of this mode have never truly changed from it's original LRP server implementation.

[OolongCow]

8 hours ago, N8-Toe said:

fully against this. Changeling is an interest concept and gamemode and we'd be left worst off without it. I think the discussion of how to change ling should be a different thread, but I also 100% believe if ling is removed, it'll never come back. and that would be a shame

 

-1

Except nobody here wants current changeling back anyway. Even you admit current changeling is bad and needs a total rework, which is just a different kind of removal.

Coders are not employees of the server and have no obligations to work on anything that they did not directly author or mess up. Saying "coders will fix it" just assumes that coders care about or want to work on things you want them to, which isn't true on literally any SS13 server. So keeping the gamemode around "because it's more content" when that content is regularly terrible and annoying and has no guarantee of being improved is not an argument. Antagonists that take ling and magically start providing a high level of roleplay while satisfying everyone are not going to fall from the sky and start gracing our rounds just because you "saved" changeling. Saying no to this PR is saying yes to the things that annoy the fuck out of half the server and actively make them have less fun, just so we can... keep an antag people don't even really prefer and that is barebones at best around? For a hypothetical total rework that no coder has expressed any interest in tackling? And that it's more likely to get out of secret anyway?

I just don't see the reasoning, chief. It's bad. It needs to go until a total rework, and it continuing to be awful isn't going to magically inspire coders (who may not even interact with it) to rework it. It's just going to annoy people and make them go out of their way to not touch it with a thirty-foot pole, as it has for years and especially recently. Even if a coder came into this thread right now and provided proof that they're totally reworking ling as we speak, I'd still advocate current ling being removed from secret. Because it doesn't change the fundamental fact that the gamemode causes way more negative moments than it does positive.

Edited August 14, 2023 by OolongCow

[Zelmana]

I've had bad Ling rounds. I've had a round recently where adrenaline sack was improperly used- as in it was broken in code perhaps. What resulted was a ling with a traffic cone on their head running at max speed, 4x the speed of running characters, way way faster than any response could muster. This thing was running faster than my character who drank an entire flask of espresso to try and keep up. It was just not working out. They came in, completely robust, push abused, punching their way out, and then ran as soon as enough response was coming together. Absolute chaos for half the round with SEC trying to keep up. That is just one Ling round out of a few I can remember in my history playing here since 2015.

I've had bad Merc rounds.
I've had bad Wizard rounds- I've had some technomancer rounds that were worse.
I've had horrible burglar rounds, I've had bad peace-antag rounds, I've had bad vampire rounds, bad Cult rounds, and bad rev rounds.

What I'm trying to say is, you get bad rounds. There are some antagonist options that tend to trend on the worse side of things. Cult, Vamp, Techno/Wiz, Ling, are those rounds, in increasing trending. What is the problem of Ling, and to an extent, some of these other off the rails antag types? They tend to fall into easy gimmicks of body horror or other cliché. We've seen them done a hundred times. 

Did changing Wizard to Technomancer really improve its roleplay experience? Slightly, yes, but the problem still persists.

There are roleplayers making bad decisions with gimmicks, target choices, stories, etc. Sometimes these are pigeonholed, sometimes these aren't. The problem is in many round types. If we simply remove all of these round types from voted secret we will continue to dull down our RP experiences overall. I love Chair/barRP, I do- but if we don't have something every few rounds I feel like I and a lot of players won't get a good headrush needed from a strategical HRP environment.

[Zelmana]

Now, let me assure you- I realize there is some problematic elements of this. As stated above, I feel like most of these problems lay on the player. We need to take responsibility for bad Ling gameplay. Allow me to use another round type to explain my feelings on this.

Mercenaries.
Believe it or not, Mercenaries are Nuke Ops at its core. The more tenured among us will know this easily. Far back in our timeline, when we were slightly looser in terms of RP quality, Mercenary was what it was on most other SS13 servers, and that is a multi-merc kill team with few goals and aspirations, other than a little green disc and a will to see the donut shaped station go up in flames. What changed with Merc? Was it constant rebalancing? Adjusting the Wiki? Changing the name? While some of these things did great to influence what Merc is today, what really changed was server culture. It's not acceptable anymore to just go for disc. In fact, in the past few years you'll get bwoinked for beelining it to armory. Everything is about a e-letter word, Escalation. Why do we not hold good Ling gameplay to the same standard that we put Merc to?

[Zelmana]

Advocating for its removal from secret.

Simply, no. There are more options here. Why has no one discussed adjusting its weighting in the roll? If we are tired of back to back Ling, that's because two things are happening-
1) Not enough players have antag options turned on
2) Not enough players
3) Ling rate is too high for being such a high-impact / high-stress gamemode

With Option 1 and 3 being the most adding factors for this it seems that gives the opportunity for a certain type of player to regularly take ling:
A player who, despite in low-pop or HRP, has almost all or ALL antag prefs enabled. Now, excuse me if I offend some of you, but those kinds of players typically are not great at coming up with HRP-friendly and roleplay-encouraging gimmicks. A sensible person might think "Oh, I would hate that my Officer play Ling or Traitor, it just doesn't fit the overall aesthetic.", so they disable it. Someone coming for headrush and not RP might enable all prefs regardless of their main's job role.

As I've posted 3 times on this discussion in a row, I'll summarize with my final input.

Ling is a player problem, compounded with high complexity, some minor code problems, and a tendency for gimmicks to fail in high-stress round types. It either needs a reduction in the weighting or an extended time-requirement or perhaps even whitelist. Additionally, I realize the latter of a time requirement is far fetched. This is a means to ensure that good players play Ling. A better action would be to hold Ling to the same RP quality as other gamemodes via admin intervention.