Medical Reform, and an investigation on the root of the problem

[wowzewow]

PREAMBLE

So. I've been mulling over this for quite a while now. I'm a self-proclaimed medical main, but I've stopped enjoying playing it. Well. I still love the department though, RP'ing in it. I think it's really time we get to the heart of the problem. We can talk day and night about nerfing certain chemicals, damage values, and absolutely stupid BULLSHIT like chemical names and what not, but the crux of the issue hit me like a freight train after yet another discussion about medical metagaming the hell out of systems. I want to make my point clear, but also, please *do* read the entirety of this topic, because it's important.

The Return of the Powergame, and Why

After BrainMed, one of Matt's magum opuses, and a bunch of tweaking, it solved a lot of growing pains Aurora had with antag-crew interactions and firefights.

Although after the novelty of BrainMed wore off, a lot of the old problems plaguing medical reared it's head again. Those who where there, I'd like to name a certain player that decided the best course of action to deal with patients is immediately sedating them with chloral hydrate in order to *operate* most effectively.

Medical got back to business trying to *beat the system*. Zero mortality rate. Not there's anything wrong with that, but it revived the problem of basically nullifing any progress the antagonists made by boiling down the stakes to how long til' Security gets back on their feet again.

I don't blame them though. It's not their fault, and they have a just reason to do so, which is :

"People die too fast, and dying is bad. Dying means people don't get to play the game, and RP."

Dying is Good, actually - but it's only one part of the solution

Again, I still believe Matt is justified in his sharp course of action for BrainMed. Firefights were basically taking enough shots til' the other side ran out of patience or bullets. Death was literally the coup de grâce this stalemate needed. It brought drama, it brought stakes. It literally got fresh blood back into the scene.

But, unsurprisingly, it got a lot of medical mains absolutely *livid* when it first came out. Because "dying is bad".

But now, death rates are sharply going down. Medical's "winrate" is going back up again, and people are dying a lot less.

Which then again returns us to the issues that plagued medical pre-BrainMed.

The Two Ways People Interact With Medical

- Please fix me up NOW so I can get back to roleplaying elsewhere.

- Please fix me up slowly so I can get some roleplay here.

These two are in complete opposing sides of the spectrum. Push for one side, and the other suffers. Stay in the middle, and no one's satisfied.

Currently, medical is just railroaded to "fix everything and get the next patient in as soon as possible". And it's hard to break out of.

Even if the patient wants to do the latter, there's not much they can do without actively resisting treatment and fighting the actual mechanics.

Which then returns us to the rather unfortunate chloral hydrate moment.

The Solution

Alright, enough rambling. So, we've got two ways people want to interact with medical in entirely different ways and are in opposition to each other and mechanics.

So, here's my proposal. There are two gameplay paths for medical in dealing with a patient.

1. 100% Health Zero Damage

The current gameplay that medical has. Full scan, chemicals, and surgery. With one major change.

A recovery period. After surgery, people can't, and shouldn't walk out of medical. Surgery "heals" much slower, but will return the body to basically 100%.

(If they do choose to do so, make it so it they'll have a chance to re-break their bones, re-open sutres, and a lot of nasty things if they aren't fully recovered.)

It makes sense, and it will benefit roleplay. On the old Aurora, there was an entire sublevel dedicated to recovering patients.

Unfortunately people recovered so fast that it was rendered ultimately useless. Same with the nurse role basically, there aren't really *anyone* to look after.

Imagine this - your good friend just got out of a firefight, and just finished surgery. They're recovering in a ward, and you have some time together for some soulful RP.

Maybe you'll get a wheelchair and bring them to the kitchen for a meal.

2. Get Me Back In There, Now.

Featuring the forgotten middle child of the Medical equipment, the Splint.

Basically, advanced trauma kits, burn kits, splints and combat stims, and that's all. This is supposed to go by quickly, and will return you to about 80-90% back to health.

You'll still need to come back to be fixed up to 100%, but you'll still be healthy enough to go back into combat. (with some very minor pain messages, of course)

For example, any fractures will be basically functionally inert, but have the potential to get much worse if you get hurt again. Also, you're probably going to die rather than be incapacitated again (which is, uninutivitely, a plus : fragmeisters would much rather die a martyr's death than be stuck in the medical cuck-box - they chose their bed to make, so, why not let them lie in it?)

Out of firefights, miners won't have half of their round ruined because they had an unfortunate fall - they can basically get a quick look-over in medical and get back to playing the game instead of being stuck somewhere they'd rather not be.

This also has an added benefit to expeditions, so people can still participate and get back to playing instead of being buckled to a roller bed for the rest of the round.

 

This is so both medical AND the patient has a choice in how they want to interact with the medical system.

 

Incapacitation AND Death, rather than just the latter.

With this new system in place, there also needs to be a change in the mortality rates - people need to be incapacitated, rather than dead,

It's just that death was more convenient at the time because it was far too easy to get someone who got down back on their feet in a couple of minutes.

This works two-fold : the wounded and incapacitated aren't there to throw off the balance of the combat going on, but also, more importantly, aren't just flat out dead so they're just out of the round entirely.

Edited December 14 by wowzewow

[N8-Toe]

People should die, when it makes sense, they would die. Billy catches 6 rounds of 7.62 to the chest, if he dies? well.. Billy was gonna die. People dying is not the end of their gameplay experience on Aurora. They can be a ghost role, they can respawn (and the respawn timer should be lower), they can spectate with the other ghosties. But death is not something to be avoided. you bring up a good point of the move to "Zero mortality" being an issue, both pre and post brainmed. Death should be embraced as a consequence of risk and combat. Gunfights are cheap if everyones just gonna live, big massive dangers on an away team is cheap is everyones just gonna be... fine? no matter what. 

 

on option 2. I feel that will just incentive people constantly ignoring injuries if pushing it isn't putting them at an action disadvantage. Otherwise, its gonna turn into nuke rounds having people slapping splints and meds on, going back to fight. I like your idea of a recovery period though.

 

So I got my proposal, and to build off features we already have. And hit a sweet spot between 1 and 2. 

Scarring and how I learned to love risk - Organ scarring, we should lower the threshold for it, and increase the debuffs. If you catch bullets, a knife, or a critical wound your effective total organ HP should be lowered in proportion to how bad it was. Your still in the round, but your weakened from your injury and getting harmed again drastically raises your chance of death. Sec officer McGee doesn't get 3 open heart surgeries in a merc round. This lowers the attrition advantage the ship has in a way that is tactile and intuitive. You got injured once, getting injured again will be worse. 

The case for lethality and damage. - Guns should hurt. Getting shot should be a life-threatening experience, getting stabbed is messy, violent, and lethal. People getting killed by the antag isn't an issue. If I am the Captain and the antag turns the corner and puts a grouping of bullets into my chest or head while shouting "die corporate pig!", its likely I should die or be badly wounded. And thats perfectly ok. We are an RP server, but Roleplay is not the opposite of violence. Conflict and action can be as much story and roleplay beats as the best of emotes or words at the bar. It would be a shame for us to move away from death that will lesson our ability to tell compelling stories. Incapacitation should have a place, but real actual death should not be more rare, if anything, we need it more. 

[wowzewow]

On 12/12/2024 at 06:43, N8-Toe said:

They can be a ghost role, they can respawn (and the respawn timer should be lower), they can spectate with the other ghosties.

This seems fine on paper, but in practice, Mid-round joining is very rare, ESPECIALLY in a HRP enviroment on Aurora. MRP-LRP servers can just throw you back into the action, because generally SHITS FUKD! But on Aurora, you need to IC'ly know what's going on. You can't really do that unless you're actively metagaming.

On 12/12/2024 at 06:43, N8-Toe said:

I feel that will just incentive people constantly ignoring injuries if pushing it isn't putting them at an action disadvantage. Otherwise, its gonna turn into nuke rounds having people slapping splints and meds on, going back to fight.

The action disadvantage is that they are going to die without chance of recovery in the next fight.

On 12/12/2024 at 06:43, N8-Toe said:

Organ scarring, we should lower the threshold for it, and increase the debuffs. If you catch bullets, a knife, or a critical wound your effective total organ HP should be lowered in proportion to how bad it was. Your still in the round, but your weakened from your injury and getting harmed again drastically raises your chance of death.

...Yes, this is what I'm implying from my post. This is the action disadvantage I'm talking about.

On 12/12/2024 at 06:43, N8-Toe said:

Guns should hurt. Getting shot should be a life-threatening experience, getting stabbed is messy, violent, and lethal. People getting killed by the antag isn't an issue. If I am the Captain and the antag turns the corner and puts a grouping of bullets into my chest or head while shouting "die corporate pig!", its likely I should die or be badly wounded. And thats perfectly ok. We are an RP server, but Roleplay is not the opposite of violence. Conflict and action can be as much story and roleplay beats as the best of emotes or words at the bar. It would be a shame for us to move away from death that will lesson our ability to tell compelling stories. Incapacitation should have a place, but real actual death should not be more rare, if anything, we need it more. 

You're missing the point here.

Death is supposed to be meaningful, and more death means the entirety of Sec dying isn't a tragedy, it's a statistic.

It essentially makes us a meatgrinder, which is stupid.

You literally see it nowadays as expected in canon events for large chunks of the crew to just fucking die.

People are joking about how much of a deathtrap canon events are.

Death is a powerful literary tool, but ONLY IN MODERATION.

Now you see it as people jumping to their literal deaths for shits n' giggles during a CANON EVENT.

 

Now, imagine this, for a moment. Sec finishes dealing with a team of mercs.

What is more emotionally impactful?

A. The entire Sec team dies. The mercs are dead too. The end! Time to call for round end!

B. Security is battered and bruised. One or two couldn't make it back. Most, if not all of them, are crippled, or irrepariably maimed in some way.

They are recovering in medical. They're thinking, and talking about their futures. Will they continue working here? One of them considers prosthetics.

The Head of Security goes to comfort and have a chat with them. He awards one with a medal for bravery.

 

This also, addresses the issue of non-player directed deaths. Sometimes, dying to RNG bullshit, like bad terrain, or some NPC mobs are simply not good storytelling.

For example, if a miner gets fucked by bad luck, they aren't relegated to throwing their hands up and say, "Well, I guess I can't play the game anymore."

Instead, at least they have a cool story to tell at the bar, "I got this scar when I was fending off a wild pack of Space Carp"

Edited December 12 by wowzewow

[Jasorn]

3 hours ago, wowzewow said:

This seems fine on paper, but in practice, Mid-round joining is very rare, ESPECIALLY in a HRP enviroment on Aurora.

You literally see it nowadays as expected in canon events for large chunks of the crew to just fucking die.

People are joking about how much of a deathtrap canon events are.

Can you tell me where exactly you're getting this information, because this is not the case at all nor has it been for a long time.

[wowzewow]

21 hours ago, Jasorn said:

This seems fine on paper, but in practice, Mid-round joining is very rare, ESPECIALLY in a HRP enviroment on Aurora.

Well, this is more on regular rounds. Should've specified. Anyway, there's really no point to join mid-round if, say, the expedition shuttle left, and there's just a skeleton crew on the Horizon. Yes - you still *can* play, but I don't think that would be very much fun, relatively speaking.

21 hours ago, Jasorn said:

You literally see it nowadays as expected in canon events for large chunks of the crew to just fucking die.

People are joking about how much of a deathtrap canon events are.

Forgive me, I should've specified that I was referring more to high-intensity events. Laid on it a bit thick with the hyperbole.

Although, still. It's a joke that event volunteers are just there to kill the crew.

Konyang isn't really a good example, it's relatively safe, and mostly just peaceful exploring with the occassional encounter. Well, barring a few Johnny Somali characters, but that's beside the point.

I'm talking more about the Adhomai event - where people decided to jump to the insta-death pit on a bet, and some dude literally went up to the massive beast that terrorized the crew in a wheelchair.

And, you know. The lynching. And the massive firefight.

I don't think a high intensity event should equal people dying en-masse, but more of more action, and more stakes.

People coming back shaken, wounded. More of a dramatic "Battle of the bulge" rather than Trench warfare in Verdun.

 

It's also pretty bad for canon event immersion. People are NOT going to risk their A-list characters with flavor text commisioned pictures because they're afraid to canonically die.

Is it totally guaranteed? Debatable, but I think it's a reasonable precaution to take. I think people would be a lot more comfortable if death was the exception, not the rule.

Edited December 14 by wowzewow

[NerdyVampire]

I like the idea of making body parts vulnerable to damage for a set amount of time after injury/surgery. It provides a very cut and clear reason for characters to consider taking a rest and RP.

I think the right balance can be struck as discussed, and think it is worth experimenting with.

Disclaimer; I have 0 medical characters or training.

[greenjoe]

1 hour ago, NerdyVampire said:

making body parts vulnerable to damage for a set amount of time after injury/surgery

Yeah, something like risking tearing your stitches if you get hurt again.