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Stun/daze/knockdown/unconsciousness are too functionally similar now - Printable Version

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Stun/daze/knockdown/unconsciousness are too functionally similar now - Lurkey - 09-11-2019

The one distinction out of the bunch that comes to mind is that you can kinda sorta try to grab a weapon quickly and hobble randomly so slowly it doesn't matter while dazed. Outside of that these effects have become almost identical outside of screen overlays. Somebody with a fire extinguisher and a taser wants you dead, you're dead no matter what you do. The best defense against the "grab a stun weapon and something heavy and go to town" flavor of murderbone before was to prepare a chem mix to set off if you're attacked, usually downing/damaging you and your attacker all the same so sec would often sort things out. You can no longer do this no matter which effect you get (or toggle internals while downed, which is equally bizarre) and so your best defense now is to dose on stims nonstop and wear sunglasses, essentially building your whole round around fighting a strategy that anybody can break out with 30 seconds of prep; or to yell for help and hope for the very rare "other people listening to you when you call out for help/name a traitor" scenario to play out. My suggestion is to simply bring back internals toggling and dragmixing chemicals while downed or dazed and not cuffed.


RE: Stun/daze/knockdown/unconsciousness are too functionally similar now - Tewf - 09-11-2019

It would make absolute sense to allow simple nearby actions to be performed while downed and not stunned or cuffed. I see no reason "being on the floor" should equate to "stunned"


RE: Stun/daze/knockdown/unconsciousness are too functionally similar now - aft2001 - 09-11-2019

I agree with Tewf's point. Heck, being able to hold things while lying down would also be nice. Slipping on a banana peel for example should probably stun you for a moment, causing you to possibly drop whatever you're holding. But, if your legs are missing, then you should be lying down, effectively crawling, but you should still be able to like, hold things.


RE: Stun/daze/knockdown/unconsciousness are too functionally similar now - Flaborized - 09-11-2019

I disagree completely with the main post, the only effect I think has an issue is Stunned. Stunned is the one that prevents you from doing anything as if you were knocked down, but doesn't knock you down. This means there's no good visual indicator that someone has it, IMO it'd be fine to merge that with knockdown to improve visual clarity.

Daze is a negative effect, sure, but you are by no means dead the moment you're hit with even a little bit of a stun weapon, totally helpless, it's totally feasible to disarm the dude fighting you or dodge being stunned again for long enough to escape, I've done both of these things a lot and had this done to me a lot since the change to stuns was pushed. I don't think it's fair to say at all that you're helpless when dazed.

The differences between knockdown and knockout aren't huge mechanically but important. When knocked out, you can't see or hear anything and can't call for help. When you're knocked down (say, by a baton or something!) you're free to yell your current location and who is killing you. 

I also don't think it's fair at all to say that suicide bombing with chemicals is the only counter to being stunned and if you don't do this the only other reasonable way to deal with these taser extinguisher rampages is to dose on stims constantly. A good counter is to not get stunned in the first place, if you do, tell people who is killing you and where you are. Even if you can't speak, tasers and extinguisher beatings are loud, it's reasonable that somebody would come help you. In my experience, calling for help isn't some last-ditch gamble that might work once in a blue moon, it's pretty consistent that a few people will help me out and the rounds where nobody responds to these callouts at all are outliers IMO.

I can imagine this change would be incredibly frustrating for a lot of players. Suicide bombing when stunned as a nonantag is against the rules and just generally very unfun, it doesn't need to be trivially easy to mix deathchems while stunned. (it's still possible now but takes at least a little bit of prep work) I can also imagine antags abusing this. Why by a macrobomb at all when you can detonate whatever simple hellmix you made that kills everyone around you? I know this would turn into "Security stuns a traitor, traitor mixes QGP in their pocket". I think this isn't a real issue and the post reads as sort of kneejerk to me. Toggling internals is okay and inconsequential but you absolutely shouldn't be able to mix beakers while stunned.

As for using items while just laying down and not stunned, that might be fine but I think it could conflict with the visual clearness of "this dude is unable to hold things" that being horizontal has. Also, taser shots are 100% guaranteed to miss prone targets, so I can imagine someone drugging up hard enough to run at a high speed while laying down and then being immune to tasers. I don't know if that's funny or if that's bad.


RE: Stun/daze/knockdown/unconsciousness are too functionally similar now - Tarmunora - 09-12-2019

Going to put it on record that as far as I know, if you have no legs, but do still have arms, you'll be crawling on the ground but can hold and use items


RE: Stun/daze/knockdown/unconsciousness are too functionally similar now - Prichard - 09-12-2019

That’s true but it’s more of an exception than the norm. Horizontal people don’t shoot guns!