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Increase Phase Shift Cooldown - Printable Version

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Increase Phase Shift Cooldown - 69andahalf - 11-08-2015

The current phase shift cool down seems to short (30 seconds), it's basically just a way for the wizard to do a drive by, firing off a magic missile, fireball, then phase shift out. Even if the AI is watching and can report the exact location of the wizard, it takes half a minute at the most to run from one side of the station to the other if areas aren't closed down. By the time security sees the message and is running over there, the wizard can just phase shift out and give them a nice middle finger as they can't do anything about it.

For a free spell this really cheapens the wizard experience for the crew. Who really wants to run around after an antag who can just fly off before you can even get a shot off. With the current selection of spells the wizard has become more of a pain in the ass to deal with, and more often than not the crew usually just gives up and lets the wizard slowly kill the remaining crew.

So, with that being said, the cool down for phase shift should be increased to 1 minute. "What would this change mean?" Mainly, it would make the wizard hopefully pick their battles more carefully, rather than knowing they can run into an area, fire off a magic missile and fireball, and then shift out before sec gets there. It would also make wizards pick their spells less on the amount of damage they can cause, and more on utility.

"But what about my teleports? What if I can't escape from security?" Well, there are quite a few spells you could take such as blink, knock, and the actually teleport spell, not to mention the scroll. There's also forcewall to prevent security from following you down a hallway. What I am getting at is there's a ton of different and unused spells which has become next to useless with how powerful phase shift is for a free spell. If it were changed, these spells would have a chance at being used seriously for the first time in quite awhile, and wizard would becomes less of a headache for the crew to deal with.


Re: Increase Phase Shift Cooldown - Ed Venture - 11-08-2015

I disagree it's pretty much the only way for the wizards to escape. Unless you count the wizards who just teleport back to their station at any sign of trouble. Which are alot worse then the ones who phase shift to a couple rooms away.


Re: Increase Phase Shift Cooldown - Mageziya - 11-08-2015

It currently is the wizards only method of survival. They start with no id, meaning unless they can mug someone, which is surprisingly difficult as a wizard, they're restricted to the main hallways without phaseshift, and a trapped otherwise with phase shift. They're also extremely visible and will be ruthlessly hunted down by securitrons and guardbuddies. I've actually had way too many wizard rounds end because I can't lose the damn things, even with phase shift. Then again, I've only played wizard... maybe 10 times or so spread out in time over a year, so I'm not very good at it.

Either way, I say it's fine as it is.


Re: Increase Phase Shift Cooldown - Vitatroll - 11-08-2015

I wouldn't be against a slight change to it. I think a harsher penalty for casting it without a staff could do. Maybe casting it without a staff would make this shifting hard to control too? I don't know. I'm against changing it's default, though, for reasons mentioned. On cog1, anyways.

If I were playing right now, and a wizard had it out for me, I'd count chem as my only defense. We just don't have the amount of people we once had. There's already balance issues with anatags and the amount of people in a round. I stopped playing on 4 during a certain time period because there were often 4-10 people on, and yet people still went full force. I shouldn't expect more, but I just don't see how fun it can be to run around for an hour looking for one or two braindead people to eat/ei nath/explode.

We should be look towards making a balance for when cog2 comes, because while it's tough to find somebody on cog1, it's going to be murder for our single sec officer to find somebody on cog2. Especially a wizard that can move vast, unimpeded distances in a relatively short time.


Re: Increase Phase Shift Cooldown - Mageziya - 11-08-2015

Seriously, what is going on with the population?

I guess all we can do is hope the Cog2 will revitalize people's interest.


Re: Increase Phase Shift Cooldown - BaneOfGiygas - 11-09-2015

Mageziya Wrote:Seriously, what is going on with the population?

I guess all we can do is hope the Cog2 will revitalize people's interest.
We're currently lodged quite firmly in the school year, and right now specifically we're in midterm season for college students and an influx in testing for secondary school students. People just don't have as much free time as they did back in the summer, so that may have something to do with it.

Anyways, I'm gonna echo most of the points made by Mageziya in that phase shift is one of the very few getaway buttons a wizard has at their disposal, and the chief reason why they're not (usually) murdered with extreme prejudice ten minutes after landing on station. In a game where getting hit by just one thing (stun batons, a burst shot from a taser, riot shotguns) can spell immediate death, the wizard NEEDS to be able to slip away before they can get shot at.


Re: Increase Phase Shift Cooldown - Winklabom - 11-09-2015

Mageziya Wrote:Seriously, what is going on with the population?

I guess all we can do is hope the Cog2 will revitalize people's interest.

What BaneOfGiygas said PLUS Fallout 4 releasing soon and loads of big video game titles releasing this time of the year.


Re: Increase Phase Shift Cooldown - Sundance - 11-09-2015

I'll keep saying it till i'm blue in the face,
Wizards need to be more balanced in the defense/offense ratio. Currently it's more offense than defense, and this results in wizards either totaling the crew and then often accidentally killing himself or letting it's guard down, or getting killed literally 5 minutes into the round. The latter seems to a staple, even quoted in the wiki, but it's a bad one, we shouldn't be developing antags that either shit everywhere or get shit on depending on spells chosen or circumstance.

The key word is attrition. All other antags have some element of it, whether it be the fact that they can change clothing or mindslave or have stamina/health buffs, something to give them the upper hand when SHTF and it's either they die or don't.
Wizard has little to no attrition. It aint a slow fight, it's either pure instant domination or instant humiliation. Some might say that the lack of attrition makes wizard unique and we shouldn't be changing it, but I don't really see any defining feature of that argument including fun in there. Attrition doesn't mean nerfing, it means balancing spells that makes the wizard last longer. It would mean wizard needs to be smart, rather than spell spamming.

Increasing phase shift then kind of against the grain of what I feel wizard needs. This would only make wizard fights even less gradual, more spontaneous and even more spell spamming.


Re: Increase Phase Shift Cooldown - Frank_Stein - 11-09-2015

Sundance Wrote:I'll keep saying it till i'm blue in the face,
Wizards need to be more balanced in the defense/offense ratio. Currently it's more offense than defense, and this results in wizards either totaling the crew and then often accidentally killing himself or letting it's guard down, or getting killed literally 5 minutes into the round. The latter seems to a staple, even quoted in the wiki, but it's a bad one, we shouldn't be developing antags that either shit everywhere or get shit on depending on spells chosen or circumstance.

The key word is attrition. All other antags have some element of it, whether it be the fact that they can change clothing or mindslave or have stamina/health buffs, something to give them the upper hand when SHTF and it's either they die or don't.
Wizard has little to no attrition. It aint a slow fight, it's either pure instant domination or instant humiliation. Some might say that the lack of attrition makes wizard unique and we shouldn't be changing it, but I don't really see any defining feature of that argument including fun in there. Attrition doesn't mean nerfing, it means balancing spells that makes the wizard last longer. It would mean wizard needs to be smart, rather than spell spamming.

Increasing phase shift then kind of against the grain of what I feel wizard needs. This would only make wizard fights even less gradual, more spontaneous and even more spell spamming.
I think this is why I'm a proponent of the mana system idea. If all spells have a resource cost, a wizard that blows their load too quickly would only have themselves to blame when they don't have enough mana left to cast phase shift and get the hell out of there.


Re: Increase Phase Shift Cooldown - UrsulaMejor - 11-09-2015

no thank you. phase shift is you're only way to get past locked doors without the knock spell, it's way too essential for getting around the station to increase the cooldown. you shouldn't be forced to take certain spells just to do basic tasks


Re: Increase Phase Shift Cooldown - Ed Venture - 11-09-2015

Mageziya Wrote:Seriously, what is going on with the population?

I guess all we can do is hope the Cog2 will revitalize people's interest.

We had about 50 people playing yesterday. But yeah I've noticed the slow decline over the years as well. I know it during the school year right now but I noticed the drops during the summer as well so I don't completely buy that excuse. But to be fair alot of great games came out this year and I can't blame people who would rather play those games over Space Station. I for one am happy we no longer get 70+ people in a round because it would be a laggy mess, 30-50 is the perfect number in my opinion.

UrsulaMejor Wrote:no thank you. phase shift is you're only way to get past locked doors without the knock spell, it's way too essential for getting around the station to increase the cooldown. you shouldn't be forced to take certain spells just to do basic tasks


Eng Left


Sundance Wrote:I'll keep saying it till i'm blue in the face,
Wizards need to be more balanced in the defense/offense ratio. Currently it's more offense than defense, and this results in wizards either totaling the crew and then often accidentally killing himself or letting it's guard down, or getting killed literally 5 minutes into the round. The latter seems to a staple, even quoted in the wiki, but it's a bad one, we shouldn't be developing antags that either shit everywhere or get shit on depending on spells chosen or circumstance.

The key word is attrition. All other antags have some element of it, whether it be the fact that they can change clothing or mindslave or have stamina/health buffs, something to give them the upper hand when SHTF and it's either they die or don't.
Wizard has little to no attrition. It aint a slow fight, it's either pure instant domination or instant humiliation. Some might say that the lack of attrition makes wizard unique and we shouldn't be changing it, but I don't really see any defining feature of that argument including fun in there. Attrition doesn't mean nerfing, it means balancing spells that makes the wizard last longer. It would mean wizard needs to be smart, rather than spell spamming.

Increasing phase shift then kind of against the grain of what I feel wizard needs. This would only make wizard fights even less gradual, more spontaneous and even more spell spamming.

The balance you want is slowly happening, Haine has already shown that she is willing to work on it given the time and feedback. I mean she just nerfed Shocking Grasp which was OP for such a long time. Shocking grasp took two seconds to charge up when cast and was a instant kill for those who may not know and before the nerf had a somewhat short cool down.


Re: Increase Phase Shift Cooldown - 69andahalf - 11-09-2015

Glad there has been lots of input, and I see where everyone is coming from. The main idea was to resurrect less used spells and force wizards to choose between rambo and prolonged survival, but I can see now that people would rather simply use whichever spells they want (not that it was my intent to force anyone to use certain spells). While I still think that 1 minute would force wizards to better choose their fights and plan better than just, "lol magic missile, fire ball, ice beam, and phase shift outta there", I can see that it may make the wizard too easy to deal with.


Re: Increase Phase Shift Cooldown - Grek - 11-11-2015

If we want to make phase shift less good as an escape tool without making it terrible for transportation, why not give no-staff phase shift the same movement restrictions as doppleganger, aka can go through doors and windows but not walls?


Re: Increase Phase Shift Cooldown - Huff H Law - 11-11-2015

I honestly think that by slightly increasing the cooldown on phase shift we could get more interesting fights with the wizards with them being required to actually use their wits and spells in an effective way to combat the crew instead of killing without any issues. And it is not even remotely hard to mug someone as a wizard what are you talking about, you have a stun spell and can teleport to anywhere you want, surely you can rob one crewmember with that.


Re: Increase Phase Shift Cooldown - Sundance - 11-11-2015

Hufflaw Wrote:I honestly think that by slightly increasing the cooldown on phase shift we could get more interesting fights with the wizards with them being required to actually use their wits and spells in an effective way to combat the crew instead of killing without any issues.
Reducing the wizards defensive capabilities isn't going to make them use their head and attempt to be effective. It will just reduce their effectiveness, full stop.

Quote:you have a stun spell and can teleport to anywhere you want, surely you can rob one crewmember with that.
Magic missile stun does not last long enough to strip a player of anything.