Remove E-sword Block Rate.

[Susan]

Hi.

 

/obj/item/weapon/melee/energy/sword/IsShield()
if(active)
	return 1
return 0

 

This is the piece of code that dictates whether or not something can block projectiles.

The e-sword has the same block-rate as a riot shield and e-shield, which are significantly larger and easier to use.

I don't think I need to even explain the amount of dexterity, concentration, and force it would take to block a bullet with a sword. Hell, even the Jedi couldn't block every blaster bolt.

But you're not a Jedi. You're a fat lizard on a space station with a laser sword. You have no reflexes.

Unless you're superhuman there should be no way for you to lead a projectile traveling 900 miles an hour and block it expertly.

[Frances]

The esword isn't a shoddy weapon in the first place, and I can't really see anyone arguing that removing its block would ruin it.

I agree that this change needs to go through, if only for RP purposes. Maybe everyone on LRP is trying to robust you for being an antag and projectile deflection is justified then, but it's a lot more counter-intuitive and hard to explain on HRP. You wouldn't expect the guy with the sword to parry your projectiles with superhuman reflexes.

[Chaznoodles]

I'd be against this change, as it would severely nerf the esword, an expensive traitor item, to make it next to useless when confronted by ranged weaponry.

[Guest]

I'd be against this as well. Defense against range is ALL the sword has going for it, and it does not block tasers. It also does not block stunbaton, so it's useless up close against /any/ security member that's not investigative. Please don't nerf it further.

[Susan]

I'd be against this change, as it would severely nerf the esword, an expensive traitor item, to make it next to useless when confronted by ranged weaponry.

 

4 telecrystals, 60 damage, concealable, 2 shot kill.

10 telecrystals typical, 14 maximum.

2/5 (not really expensive), 2/7 (even less expensive).

ok.

 

and it does not block tasers.

 

Yes it does. It blocks any projectile. Any. Bullet, laser, dart, electrode. Any projectile. With an 80% parry chance.

 

It also does not block stunbaton, so it's useless up close against /any/ security member that's not investigative. Please don't nerf it further.

 

Neither does literally any other weapon in the game. If you manage to drop the ball enough that you can't kill a sec officer with a melee revolver and he gets his baton out before dying nothing would have saved you then.

[Chaznoodles]

The whole idea of a traitor is that they are supposed to be deadly when needed. Taking away the defence that an esword provides would hugely nerf the item and make seeing it even rarer. Nerfing the esword is not an option, roleplaying so that you don't get slapped with a 60-damage, 2-shot kill, parry chance weapon is.

[Susan]

Please explain to me how your typical traitor then has the reflexes of a Jedi Master to block multiple projectiles moving incredibly fast.

How about this; a novel, revolutionary concept, I know - don't put yourself in a situation where you need to count on stupid game mechanics to survive. Run. Don't stand and fight against overwhelming force.

When it gets to the point a heavily outnumbered traitor can block the taser bolts of 3 officers firing consecutively on him and not even get hit once we have a problem. The traitor isn't roleplaying, he doesn't have to be afraid, or scared, or even the slightest bit concern.

Edited July 19, 2015 by Guest

[Chaznoodles]

The typical traitor should not have the reflexes of a jedi master. However, that doesn't mean that the weapon should have the block chance removed. It makes the weapon all the more deadly, as well as making those against it use more caution when dealing with it.

Half the fun in roleplaying in SS13 is the wacky stuff that happens. Trying to make it future-real takes that fun away. The antagonist shouldn't be aiming to win, just as Security shouldn't.

[EvilBrage]

That's like saying your typical traitor wouldn't have the advanced scientific know-how to set up the singularity beacon, or the murderous intent to kill someone.

Traitors are not typical, they can really be anything from a highly trained secret agent representing corporate interests, to someone who walked into work one day and decided he didn't like it that other people were living. It's a matter of choice, and the e-sword's blocking capability is just that - a choice. If it doesn't accurately represent your traitor, don't pick it - on the security side, don't expect your laser rifle to be the end of all traitors. It's more than a RP choice, it represents a mechanical oddity that's capable of making security actually stop to think about what it's doing.

I've hardly seen the e-sword utilized as the ultimate traitor weapon, so it's probably fine as-is, but removing its ability to block would also warrant a decrease in the amount of telecrystals it costs, lest it go the way of the energy crossbow and never see use again.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

Why not compromise and make the e-sword only gain its block rate when wielded? That way you have to use either the E-sword by itself, or accompany it with a shield - and the shield then is what you're reliant on for blocking projectiles.

[Guest]

The e-bow is still good, actually.

I agree with Brage, however, regarding the point where we should reduce its total TC cost as a lethal weapon to compensate for the removal of the Jedi sword block.

[Susan]

I don't see an issue with lowering the TC cost; its only fair.

[jackfractal]

Is this a problem? Are all traitors buying this item and are all conflicts with it decided in advance? If not, they're not really a problem.

I admit that I seldom see traitor rounds, but the swords have always seemed pretty balanced.

Security should lose sometimes.

[Guest]

Is this a problem? Are all traitors buying this item and are all conflicts with it decided in advance? If not, they're not really a problem.

I admit that I seldom see traitor rounds, but the swords have always seemed pretty balanced.

Security should lose sometimes.

 

That's not the point.

The fact that a traitor, who is by all means still a normal, mortal person, can block any amount of projectiles, is kinda ridiculous. A traitor is NOT a jedi, contrary to popular belief.

It's really silly that an energy sword can mechanically do this. It's honestly immersion-breaking and it doesn't benefit roleplay at all.

[Carver]

There's a secondary function to the block. It mitigates disarms, and allows for parrying other melee weapons, something most melee weapons sorely lack.

But, if we're going for realism, I suppose walking up to the lightsaber-armed assassin and slapping it from their hand is a beautifully realistic idea that wouldn't get your hand cut off whatsoever. Whilst we're at it, approaching a lightsaber-armed traitor certainly wouldn't get your stun baton easily parried and cut in half, either.

[jackfractal]

If you don't want to have your traitor character act like they can block projectiles with a laser sword, don't buy a laser sword.

If you do, then the option is there.

We don't have a skill system in SS13, so the ability to do a task must be bound to the object. In this case, the task implies significant training, but then again, so does piloting a shuttle or programming a matter assembler, both tasks we let anyone do.

[Susan]

It is not humanly possible to possess the dexterity and reflexes required to block multiple projectiles at once. Or probably even one by itself.

Your traitor is not that much of a snowflake. If they are, burn it with fire.

[jackfractal]

It's also not possible to throw someone five meters with no windup, or be repeatedly electrocuted with no permanent damage by a stun baton, or to build a wall out of metal with your bare hands in eight seconds, or any of the other completely ridiculous things in this game.

Not buying the appeal to realism. If you want to make SS13 more realistic, this is not the place to start.

[Susan]

None of what you have described has an important effect on gameplay balance.

Three officers firing fifteen taser rounds and having every single one blocked by a fat bald with an e-sword does.

Try harder.

[jackfractal]

Really?

If you did a realistic amount of burn damage every time you used a stun stick, that would affect game balance. People would be more afraid of stun sticks, and more hesitant to use them. Abuse of stun sticks would be lethally dangerous. Shocking people multiple times would kill them.

If it took the days or weeks it would take to realistically construct a metal wall, it would affect game balance. It would be impossible to recover from bomb damage in the time it takes to play a normal round.

So in this case you're just straight up incorrect. I get that you're really passionate about this (for some reason?), but I find your argument unconvincing.

[Frances]

Really?

If you did a realistic amount of burn damage every time you used a stun stick, that would affect game balance. People would be more afraid of stun sticks, and more hesitant to use them. Abuse of stun sticks would be lethally dangerous. Shocking people multiple times would kill them.

If it took the days or weeks it would take to realistically construct a metal wall, it would affect game balance. It would be impossible to recover from bomb damage in the time it takes to play a normal round.

So in this case you're just straight up incorrect. I get that you're really passionate about this (for some reason?), but I find your argument unconvincing.

Not really a valid argument. Things like walls being built instantly constitute acceptable breaks from reality. As for melee weapons blocking all projectiles on a HRP server, there needs to be a decent reason for the mechanic to exist. If it's for the sake of balance, then it might get difficult to get decent numbers given how relatively rare specific combat situations happen in comparison to lrp, but I'll just open by saying that the esword is a powerful close-range weapon, and I don't really see why it should get to mitigate long-range damage as well.

Right now, what it does is give antags the ability to be really resistant against tasers and various ranged projectiles by the sole virtue of possessing a sword. Is this something we want, or would we prefer antags who wish to prevail against ranged combat to rely on alternative strategies?

[jackfractal]

Why is a wall being built instantly, or everyone being able to pilot a shuttle, or everyone able to build walls in moments, or the ability to build robots out of buckets, of perfectly harmless but also perfectly disabling stun batons, or the ability of sinks to produce infinite quantities of water, or 80-year-old men being able to run flat out for three hours, any different then the ability to block laser shots with a laser sword?

They're all equally implausible.

The only thing that defines if a particular break from reality is 'acceptable' or not is personal preference.

I think one could argue that the laser sword is out of genre, that it doesn't fit the aesthetics of the particular type of science fiction that the design team on Aurora is trying to cultivate, but you'd have to have those aesthetic goals defined somewhere to do that. Even if you did, I am fairly sure that if you wrote them down and then looked at the game we have today, you'd find as many egregious crimes against aesthetic coherence as I am pointing out flaws in the realism of the simulation.

If we had a strictly enforced skill system, which we don't, it still wouldn't be a major problem because traitors are explicitly permitted to have unusual skills. I mean, we could start banning ye-random-scientist who picks up an e-sword and starts murdering people, but we already do that.

Spacemen can do impossible things, lots of them, arguably more unrealistic or impossible things then realistic and reasonable ones. Why is this impossible thing the one that breaks the camels back?

I don't get it.

[Frances]

Let's look at it holistically.

There's a reason why walls are built instantly: because no one wants to sit in front of a half-built wall for 30 minutes or 8 hours.

What is the reason why eswords can deflect bullets?

[jackfractal]

So we're giving up on arguing about whether or not it's not realistic and instead we're going to focus on why it matters from a game-play perspective?

Good.

That's what I was hoping we'd do.

My perspective on that is here.

[Frances]

I'm looking at it from both perspectives. Is the item designed in a way that breaks realism out of necessity? As much as you can argue SS13 is unrealistic and goofy by nature, lots of the changes brought to the game to adapt it to HRP standards have aimed to add realism to the game and make it more intuitive.

The esword (like most other antag tools) is balanced towards action-heavy antagging, where a player will run around the station trying to kill various people and provoking security's ire along the way. While it has its uses in HRP, they are vastly different from the way you'd see the weapon used in LRP. I'd argue that for this reason, the projectile block is honestly unnecessary (though keeping the melee parry function would be nice).

The esword gives you close-range superiority, but does it need to transform you into John Rambo while you're at it? If this were a new weapon being introduced to a HRP server, there is no way its ability to deflect all projectiles while being a sword would be well-recieved. Consider that.

(Also, the reason why it's not being used a ton is exactly because antags going on random murder sprees happen so rarely on HRP servers. This isn't purely a gameplay balance pass, it's a gameplay+immersion one.)

Edit: I actually don't even know. There's two camps in SS13-HRP: those who want a realistic experience, and those who don't mind the SS13 goofiness, only more elaborate and with a roleplay flavor to it. I don't really know which to encourage here, and this should probably be left to the devs' preference.