Reduce disarm chance against knives.

[Superiorform]

It's happened to all of us. We have a knife, any combat knife, say, a butterfly knife. You are in a 1vs1 in an enclosed spice. And the knife offers no advantage at all because the first hero to run at you in maint and disarm spam you completely equalises. It is not easy at all to fight a man with a knife. If you try to do so, you should die. They are practically useless in a fight because they can so easily be disarmed. Please reduce the disarm chance. You have a 50/50 chance of winning a 1vs1 against any unarmed roboticist.

[Fire and Glory]

It's a well-known fact that every "unarmed" roboticist is in fact packing a flash no wonder you're losing so many fights

This seems...kinda arbitrary?

I get where you're coming from but people can disarm spam a guy wielding any sort of weapon and have a decent chance of fucking them over.

Disarm spam is dumb but it's not like it's exclusive to knives or anything.

On the subject of buffing knives in specific because getting stabbed isn't a walk in the park, I'd argue that SS13 has never been exceptionally good at representing the deadliness of a fair amount of objects, hell you can get shot and keep going, so if we upgrade knives to be deadly, that's potentially a can of worms we might want to leave closed.

[Ornias]

I get why knives are being brought up in specific though - even when you're well trained, someone with a knife can and will fuck you up unless you're very lucky. It's possible to knock a toolbox gun, or even something bigger like a sword or spear out of someones hand, but knives are small, sharp, dangerous, and hard to get someone to drop.

I think most melee weapons should have really low chance to get disarmed, with stuff like baseball bats having the highest and stuff like knives & e-swords having the lowest - because as it stands, a greytider can just take someones knife and run off.

And, on that note, I think that knives (and practically ALL weapons) should get major damage buffs. You can stab someone in the chest 5 times and they'll just walk it off. But that's another topic.

[Hackie]

listen fam if someone is slapping your hand aggressively you're probably gonna drop the knife, just wrestle with them hardcore and youll be able to shank them on the ground that is all

[Diggey]

on the topic of disarming,is it just me or is there a 100% chance of knocking the person down you are trying to disarm?

You run at a guy with a knife (or heck even a basketball) and just fucking sumo them into the ground

[Munks]

This is an "i died pls nerf" suggestion. I saw the round that probably inspired this suggestion and of course you lost your knife. You fucked up a kidnap and got cornered and spammed. You should have walked away from that thinking about how you could not mess up a kidnap so badly the next time, not going to suggestions and asking to have the feature that stopped you basically removed. It is far lower than 50/50, you just put yourself in a position where it was going to happen regardless of chance. There is no reason disarm shouldn't have worked in this situation, and to nerf it to where spamming it for that long WOULDN'T have gotten you taken down would make it absolutely useless. No, a knife you can make out of a couple sheets of metal (or any material almost) should not make you as unstoppable as you're asking. Making knives "realistic" would mean almost anyone would be able to pull a jail yard rush and win easily. There is 'no advantage' to knives? Aside from the part about how quickly they kill people? What else do they need? You had that AND cult shit on your side, the idea of nerfing and making people even more powerless to stop you (as they should have been in the first place) is ridiculous. Don't lose your victim next time.

 

I get why knives are being brought up in specific though - even when you're well trained, someone with a knife can and will fuck you up unless you're very lucky. It's possible to knock a toolbox gun, or even something bigger like a sword or spear out of someones hand, but knives are small, sharp, dangerous, and hard to get someone to drop.

No, knives and roboticists are being brought up in specific because OP tried to kidnap someone as cultist last night, fucked up and let the victim get away with his headset to call for help, and a roboticist happened to be the first one to look in on it because it was right across from their maintenance door. They pretty much just disarmed OP and pushed them into a corner for a few seconds until Security showed up and arrested them. An easily avoidable situation that doesn't mean disarming needs nerfs.

[Ornias]

No, knives and roboticists are being brought up in specific because OP tried to kidnap someone as cultist last night, fucked up and let the victim get away with his headset to call for help, and a roboticist happened to be the first one to look in on it because it was right across from their maintenance door. They pretty much just disarmed OP and pushed them into a corner for a few seconds until Security showed up and arrested them. An easily avoidable situation that doesn't mean disarming needs nerfs.

 

then i think they need to be buffed for different reasons than he does.

knives irl are dangerous. even if you're some trained world class fuckin krav maga master, someone with a knife will more often than not fuck you up. as it stands in the code, lots of things are comically underpowered - my favorite example was a point-blank sniper rifle to the head getting fixed up by an officer with a bandage. but it's most obvious here with the fact that knives seem to provide NO advantage to attackers - sure, they have a bonus to attack, but don't have that sick punch RNG that can send people flying, knock them down, etc, and can be disarmed to easily it's going to give you practically no edge. knives should give you a huge advantage at close range. guns should have a huge advantage at long range. that's how it works.

for reference: butterfly knives made of steel provide 15 damage. made out of diamond provides 25 damage. this would be good if they couldn't be disarmed super easily.

and, yeah, i think it's dumb that any engineer (or assistant) can use their pure willpower to shape a knife from a chunk of steel.

[Munks]

Ok, but this isn't real life though. It's a game. Games need balance. In real life, your life would be over in one hit from a cult or energy sword. In real life, getting hit upside the head with a fully loaded toolbox would end you. In real life, getting shot in the head would kill you. In real life, being on fire, blown up, run over, electrocuted, etc would all fuck you up. And these are such common occurrences in game yet you don't see any suggestions making them instantly kill you or irreparably damage you. Do I need to list more? See yet why "its dangerous irl" doesn't automatically mean it should be equally lethal ingame?

And why would it stop there with disarm immunity? You wouldn't be able to disarm someone with a sword either. And officers would have retention straps for batons too. Hell, if you're not fully trained, good luck knocking someone's gun away. It's realistic to make them all heavily resistant to disarms. And at this point, might as well remove disarm entirely, because it's not realistic. Remove grabs too, grabs aren't realistic to be so hard to escape.

[Scheveningen]

Knives don't give you an invulnerability in hand-to-hand combat. They offer a literal edge to do more damage than what the opposing side is dealing out. Other people are allowed to be smart in disarming a weapon from someone so they do way less damage.

[Saudus]

I know this is not going to happen, but wouldn't a more appropriate way of handling this be to have the disarm rule locked (not code locked) behind melee skill trained or higher? Being able to disarm people makes sense, some complete rookie being able to do it relatively easily makes less sense.

In an ideal world people would act appropriately with their character 100% of the time but at least I reflexively react sometimes in a way that isn't really in character, in tense and stressfull situations like these.

[Scheveningen]

I know this is not going to happen, but wouldn't a more appropriate way of handling this be to have the disarm rule locked (not code locked) behind melee skill trained or higher? Being able to disarm people makes sense, some complete rookie being able to do it relatively easily makes less sense.

 

Not going to happen without a complete revision of skills influencing game mechanics, so definitely not.

[JKJudgeX]

I don't like the idea of using the skills to do it...

But I do think that disarm should be somehow nerfed in some situations. People will randomly rush you and disarm and ruin your hostage situation because they don't know how to RP fear, etc. Had this happen a while back while I was in a standoff with a security officer, who was RPing the situation well... some garbage scientist runs around the corner and starts spamming disarm on me despite being shot for doing so, keeps spamming and gets a click win... steals my gun, runs away, turns around, and shoots me and starts chasing me with the officer who is now shooting me too. I adminhelped. They were "spoken to" but, that doesn't mean my merc round wasn't absolutely #rekt.

I think the problem with the disarm intent is just that it is too all-the-time useful. It shouldn't both disarm AND knock someone down, since knocking them down can disarm them, too. I'm not sure exactly what should be done here, but the success rate of the intent should go down a bit for the sake of making weapons, melee and otherwise, more menacing.

[Kaed]

I think it might help to have disarm not be quite so spammy. It's a very powerful intent, possibly the most powerful as far as instantly shutting someone down, and capable to allowing you to steal the weapon of even the most armed and armored individual while being an unarmed civilian. Rather than changing a bunch of variables about the chances of disarming someone, put a 1.5 second or so delay before you can disarm someone again. That way, it's more about getting lucky in the heat of combat than 'how fast will your ping let you click on that guy"

[Saudus]

When I talked about the skill thing I didn't mean it should be a coded way to make you unable to use disarm intent or something. Just meant that more clear policies about what you're supposed to know with certain skills would help people not act above their skill level, RP-wise. As in something to guide you OOCly on how to RP your char, not a game mechanic.

[Superiorform]

This is an "i died pls nerf" suggestion. I saw the round that probably inspired this suggestion and of course you lost your knife. You fucked up a kidnap and got cornered and spammed. You should have walked away from that thinking about how you could not mess up a kidnap so badly the next time, not going to suggestions and asking to have the feature that stopped you basically removed. It is far lower than 50/50, you just put yourself in a position where it was going to happen regardless of chance. There is no reason disarm shouldn't have worked in this situation, and to nerf it to where spamming it for that long WOULDN'T have gotten you taken down would make it absolutely useless. No, a knife you can make out of a couple sheets of metal (or any material almost) should not make you as unstoppable as you're asking. Making knives "realistic" would mean almost anyone would be able to pull a jail yard rush and win easily. There is 'no advantage' to knives? Aside from the part about how quickly they kill people? What else do they need? You had that AND cult shit on your side, the idea of nerfing and making people even more powerless to stop you (as they should have been in the first place) is ridiculous. Don't lose your victim next time.

 

I get why knives are being brought up in specific though - even when you're well trained, someone with a knife can and will fuck you up unless you're very lucky. It's possible to knock a toolbox gun, or even something bigger like a sword or spear out of someones hand, but knives are small, sharp, dangerous, and hard to get someone to drop.

No, knives and roboticists are being brought up in specific because OP tried to kidnap someone as cultist last night, fucked up and let the victim get away with his headset to call for help, and a roboticist happened to be the first one to look in on it because it was right across from their maintenance door. They pretty much just disarmed OP and pushed them into a corner for a few seconds until Security showed up and arrested them. An easily avoidable situation that doesn't mean disarming needs nerfs.

 

This is all true, I did make this thread after getting rekt by a roboticist. But the point is, when I have a knife in an enclosed space vs someone with his fists, the guy with his fists should have run away. If you came up against someone with a knife in a cramped alleyway you would have next to no chance of beating the knifeman in a fight. I wrongly assumed that a knife would help me win a 1vs1 fight, and I was dead wrong, because in this game, unlike in real life, you can just knock a knife out of someone's hand without dying. It is not easy to disarm someone with a knife, if you try to fight a knifeman with your fists you shouldn't be able to pull some Jackie Chan shit and expect to come away alive.

[Superiorform]

When I talked about the skill thing I didn't mean it should be a coded way to make you unable to use disarm intent or something. Just meant that more clear policies about what you're supposed to know with certain skills would help people not act above their skill level, RP-wise. As in something to guide you OOCly on how to RP your char, not a game mechanic.

 

I like this idea. The other solution, I think, would be to give each melee weapon a modifier for disarm chance, with perhaps spears and bats being easier to disarm than flashes and knives.

[Superiorform]

Ok, but this isn't real life though. It's a game. Games need balance. In real life, your life would be over in one hit from a cult or energy sword. In real life, getting hit upside the head with a fully loaded toolbox would end you. In real life, getting shot in the head would kill you. In real life, being on fire, blown up, run over, electrocuted, etc would all fuck you up. And these are such common occurrences in game yet you don't see any suggestions making them instantly kill you or irreparably damage you. Do I need to list more? See yet why "its dangerous irl" doesn't automatically mean it should be equally lethal ingame?

And why would it stop there with disarm immunity? You wouldn't be able to disarm someone with a sword either. And officers would have retention straps for batons too. Hell, if you're not fully trained, good luck knocking someone's gun away. It's realistic to make them all heavily resistant to disarms. And at this point, might as well remove disarm entirely, because it's not realistic. Remove grabs too, grabs aren't realistic to be so hard to escape.

 

That's a good point. Hmn. I'll think on this before I post a response to it.

[Scheveningen]

When I talked about the skill thing I didn't mean it should be a coded way to make you unable to use disarm intent or something. Just meant that more clear policies about what you're supposed to know with certain skills would help people not act above their skill level, RP-wise. As in something to guide you OOCly on how to RP your char, not a game mechanic.

 

It's not a bad idea. It just requires we go GURPS or we not touch the issue at all, because arbitrarily applying it to only one situation doesn't make for good gameplay balance.

[driecg36]

I was the officer in question who ran away after being almost kidnapped by superior, before the roboticist saved me (albeit I had called for help before the robo even showed up).

I have a lot of problems with disarm RNG, mainly because my luck is so ass with it. Why can I get instantly tackled down by any prisoner I'm trying to move with almost no counterplay (aside from getting up and kicking his ass, or stunning them beyond any reasonable standard)? Why can some rando just bat the baton/knife/gun/esword out of my hand on the first try?

It feels so odd and immersion breaking when that happens. I'm not quite sure what the solution would be, but there definitely needs to be one.

[Zundy]

Disarm is largely stupid. Get rid of it outside of grapples. When grappled it can be used to pin and, if a limb is targeted disarm. "X is trying to disarm Y". If successful your character gains the item in question. If your characters hands are full it drops to the floor.

[Kaed]

When I talked about the skill thing I didn't mean it should be a coded way to make you unable to use disarm intent or something. Just meant that more clear policies about what you're supposed to know with certain skills would help people not act above their skill level, RP-wise. As in something to guide you OOCly on how to RP your char, not a game mechanic.

 

I do not understand when people make suggestions like this. This is yet again passing off more work to the administrative staff rather than doing anything to actually fix a mechanical issue.

Do you actually understand what doing this would involve? How are you going to police disarm intent? Should we ahelp every time an assistant disarm spams us while we're holding a gun and runs off with the weapon? How many clicks of disarm are 'allowed' for an untrained civilians? And even if for some reason the staff team is willing to deal with all that, they still disarm spammed you and took your weapon. Now the staff has to tell them to turn around, hand your weapon back, or maybe even wind them because they're 'breaking a roleplay rule'. The flow of roleplay grinds to a halt during this whole affair.

This isn't an actual fix, it's just passing off responsibility for the issue to the staff team, for something that is accessible to literally everyone in game with absolutely no current mechanical limitations.

I personally still support the easier route of putting timer between disarm attempts rather than adding a dozen special modifiers to weapons to make them harder to disarm, of course, but if the coders think doing all that extra work is worth it, that's their prerogative.

[driecg36]

Disarm is largely stupid. Get rid of it outside of grapples. When grappled it can be used to pin and, if a limb is targeted disarm. "X is trying to disarm Y". If successful your character gains the item in question. If your characters hands are full it drops to the floor.

 

Honestly, I like this. It gives the advantage to the person with the weapon, which is the way it should be, while still allowing an unarmed and skilled person to disarm. If locked to either a passive or aggressive grab that would be fine.

However, I do think clicking on someone with disarm should still have some effect, though purely for self defense. Instead of having a chance of getting rid of their gun, it should have a chance push them one or two tiles, with a tiny amount of stun (not on the ground stun, just unable to do anything for like half a second stun). Force gloves should retain their current disarm status.