Sec Equipment being overtuned

[le mon]

baton energy use was nerfed. each model of taser has been nerfed. energy use per taser shot has been nerfed. wavegun has been nerfed at some other point because it was genuinely too strong.

Maybe it’s just my ignorance, but I don’t remember any radical changes to our tasers or batons except for the wavegun EMP and burst taser. That said, I think I kind of understand why sec’s gear is so strong and why changing stuns might discourage people from playing sec in the first place.

I just feel like things such as brute reducing stun, the unhackable armory, moving shotguns to locked crates, and mindhack protection for sec officers are more like band-aid solutions to a broader and very persistent problem. Plus, it feels frustrating to have so little offensive power if you didn’t pick the usual wrestling belt or shotgun, especially when 2-3 secoffs with their 2 hit guns, all clone scanned, show up with a hovering AI eye revealing your location at all times and a mandatory medical borg backing them up.

[klushy225]

I think it applies to both sides of the new player experience, but I digress. Could antagonists use diversified kits? Absolutely, without a doubt. Can security also do with some new features and things? Yes, I think so.

Security teams often are completely overrun, believe me, I know that. However, even though the potential is there for security to be trampled, it doesn't happen if the antagonists are snuffed out early on before they get their gear and or band together. How many times have you been caught by a stray taser bolt near the beginning of an antagonist round, and having the rest of it go way off the rails or just end? Given, this is a story generation game, so someone's antagonist plan not going 100% as planned is a good thing in my opinion. However, ending it with a poorly balanced stun and snuffing out the potential for later developments is not a good thing either.

A balance needs to be struck, and I think test merging some ideas such as the disorient reduction PR would be a great idea. If people hate it, revert it. If it need some tweaking, go back to the drawing board, discuss, and refine until we get it right. That's the process of development, and this is a game that is always going to be under development.

Regardless of when one has played or for how long, what is important is how the game is balanced NOW, not how it was in the past. With that, I'm going to bed zzz

[mona]

Maybe it’s just my ignorance, but I don’t remember any radical changes to our tasers or batons except for the wavegun EMP and burst taser.

stun adjusts. aside since that was all stuns
batongs
https://github.com/goonstation/goonstation/pull/4427
https://github.com/goonstation/goonstation/pull/1299
https://github.com/goonstation/goonstation/pull/3418

too lazy to find taser patches aside from wavegun, burst removal but the above cell change PR affects tasers also and was what i was thinking of when i mentioned the taser PU changes


disorient changes are whatever, i don't care that much. but people here are suggesting removing cloning disks, armor, implants, weapon trackers, certain weapon capabilities like the taser shotgun big stun at closer range, and i think all of that stuff, which has for the most part been shoved here and there for balance purposes, is all in a really really good place, as someone who played with them when they weren't, or when i thought they were already in a very good place and now think they've gotten to an even better place. i don't see a lot of need to push those specific things. again: disorient changes are fine. everyone suggesting removing safeguards like disks is the stuff that i think is fairweather suggestions because there is a different time and different type of people for who that is really useful. and the server oscillates between those times and times when you can routinely get a security team of 4 people who've played together for four years and read minds and i think doing things that'll kneecap people who aren't that to the credit of trying to stop the mind reader robusto secs isn't the way to do things.

i'm of the opinion that "the balance that needs to be struck" has been struck. this will go on endlessly back and forth for this reason or that, so i'll leave it with that, i just disagree that anything is severely unbalanced and think things are fine as they are now.

[Waffleloffle]

concept regarding medical alerts for sec:

instead of having medical alerts be sec's passive insurance against being killed on station, what if they had to be toggled on to work? and each toggle would only last for a few minutes, and each implant was only limited to, say, 3 to 5 uses before the implant itself had to be replaced? from my (admittedly limited) perspective, a lot of sec's ability to retaliate so overwhelmingly against antags is tied to the fact that, when a secoff dies anywhere on station, the rest of the team immediately knows Exactly Where It Happened, and more likely than not they're booking it over there without hesitation

having medical alerts be something that required a little input from the person they're attached to seems like it could remedy this, to some degree. if it's early in a shift and a secoff gets caught unawares, it's not necessarily the open declaration of war against sec that it usually is, but once sec's more in tune with the situation and more likely to know who to be wary around, the risk of targeting them increases too

I do worry this would potentially be A. harder on newbies than anyone else (though that could mean a rise in cloning disk usage! and a good lesson for what to do in the future!) or B. too similar to the pda security alerts... but I want to float the concept, since I found it interesting to think about

[Carton]

concept regarding medical alerts for sec:

instead of having medical alerts be sec's passive insurance against being killed on station, what if they had to be toggled on to work? and each toggle would only last for a few minutes, and each implant was only limited to, say, 3 to 5 uses before the implant itself had to be replaced? from my (admittedly limited) perspective, a lot of sec's ability to retaliate so overwhelmingly against antags is tied to the fact that, when a secoff dies anywhere on station, the rest of the team immediately knows Exactly Where It Happened, and more likely than not they're booking it over there without hesitation

having medical alerts be something that required a little input from the person they're attached to seems like it could remedy this, to some degree. if it's early in a shift and a secoff gets caught unawares, it's not necessarily the open declaration of war against sec that it usually is, but once sec's more in tune with the situation and more likely to know who to be wary around, the risk of targeting them increases too

I do worry this would potentially be A. harder on newbies than anyone else (though that could mean a rise in cloning disk usage! and a good lesson for what to do in the future!) or B. too similar to the pda security alerts... but I want to float the concept, since I found it interesting to think about

Interesting concept! I think that would be a good idea, although potentially I'd like to see it dropped lower than 3, since from my perspective it's unlikely you'll be using it more than once or twice a shift.

[Kateaclysm]

concept regarding medical alerts for sec:

instead of having medical alerts be sec's passive insurance against being killed on station, what if they had to be toggled on to work? and each toggle would only last for a few minutes, and each implant was only limited to, say, 3 to 5 uses before the implant itself had to be replaced? from my (admittedly limited) perspective, a lot of sec's ability to retaliate so overwhelmingly against antags is tied to the fact that, when a secoff dies anywhere on station, the rest of the team immediately knows Exactly Where It Happened, and more likely than not they're booking it over there without hesitation

having medical alerts be something that required a little input from the person they're attached to seems like it could remedy this, to some degree. if it's early in a shift and a secoff gets caught unawares, it's not necessarily the open declaration of war against sec that it usually is, but once sec's more in tune with the situation and more likely to know who to be wary around, the risk of targeting them increases too

I do worry this would potentially be A. harder on newbies than anyone else (though that could mean a rise in cloning disk usage! and a good lesson for what to do in the future!) or B. too similar to the pda security alerts... but I want to float the concept, since I found it interesting to think about

We also just have health implants from the start of the shift, which I almost find a little unnecessary. Mindshields implants from roundstart make sense, but health implants are something you can just... ask for when you head to medbay. They're easy to obtain if you just go out of your way a little bit. Perhaps it's worth removing it from the default spawn loadout and potentially giving medical some more early-shift interactions?

[Lt487]

A big problem is that there is a MASSIVE difference between a small sec team and a full sec team. This can make it very difficult to change certain aspects of security as a lot of changes to make a full sec team feel less oppressive will disproportionally also hurt small sec teams. As an example Sec Alerts can be what keeps a small sec team simply alive however in a full sec team the Sec Alert can feel very oppressive as 5 sec officers along side a hos jump on you

This leads to why these nets exist, they keep small sec teams capable of doing their job but can make a full sec team very very strong. They also exist because sec equipment is so strong in the hands of a antagonist that not having some nets to at the very least give a warning that someone has such powerful equipment is out there.

I feel before some of these nets get removed security equipment needs to be less strong in the hands of evil people (perhaps by transferring power to security training) and maybe something that helps small sec teams? I don't really know about this as anything that helps small sec teams also help big sec teams who are already too strong

[Lord_earthfire]

I mostly agree with klushy here. The gear is in kinda a good place, but killing security feels useless/fruitless because you have to jump so many hoops to ensure they stay death while they start deathballing on you.

For me personaly, on an antag side, the worst change was the introduction of the emergency buttons. Since then, sec desthballing has increased to a degree i personally don't deem worth it to attack sec members. If you don't instant stun/kill them, you are in a lost place. Or you pay additional TC tax in the form of a radio jammer.

There is a massive time difference between the emergency alert on attack and the health implant message on death. And you are much less capable of precise Information via radio while you are attacked.

I personally think the situation, on RP at least, would improve without the emergency buttons.

[Kotlol]

So the complaint is:
"You don't want ot kill or fight sec since it will just snowball out of control."

Yet... I seen time and time again. That if these aren't in place. People will kill sec, steal their baton and use it heavily against them or others.

Also.. let's not forget right now if sec item is taken. They got trackers on it so... you are basically declaring security to find you.

The problem right now is we are stuck between two outcomes.
"Antags want to avoid Sec at all cost."
"Antags will kill sec for their stuff."

Removing stuff like the tracker and security button.. the second will increase.
But if we leave it untouched the 1st will happen.

The biggest problem lays with Sec/Antag balancing.
Some antags are higher in numbs.
Other antags can snowball much more.
Some antags can have stuff that requires 2 security officers to fight it.

And with everything going on? The only security officer you want to kill and take stuff from is the detective.
Who doesn't have a weapon tracker.
Who doesn't have the alarm button on speed dial.
Who has items like the det-net goggles wich can absolutely turn the security records into a nightmare to maintan.
Who has LETHALS on them.

And while I am fine with the detective being the one most likely getting jumped. I feel like that's it's design philosophy.

I still think antags should NOT willingly engage with security to try and steal their stuff. You should only kill security if you absolutely have to or you are declaring war on security.

[JORJ949]

I currently believe Sec/Antag is in a good spot, equally skilled players can and do have a fair fight, the problems arise when the sec and antags for the shift have a large skill difference, at least from a classic perspective.

[Cal]

yeah I think sec is completely fine rn

[Lord_earthfire]

I currently believe Sec/Antag is in a good spot, equally skilled players can and do have a fair fight, the problems arise when the sec and antags for the shift have a large skill difference, at least from a classic perspective.

The problem is on RP with high sec count. Because there are no fair fights if one side got a number advantage. And just with the dynamic of antags all not operating at the same time it's bound to happen once you hit a critical mass of security members (around 6-7). Of course if you balance for these number advantages, you are going to hammer on classic and low pop RP.

[avanth]

Personally I find that things are in an alright spot myself, though my view on it all currently comes from lower population hours of the day.

[JORJ949]

I currently believe Sec/Antag is in a good spot, equally skilled players can and do have a fair fight, the problems arise when the sec and antags for the shift have a large skill difference, at least from a classic perspective.

The problem is on RP with high sec count. Because there are no fair fights if one side got a number advantage. And just with the dynamic of antags all not operating at the same time it's bound to happen once you hit a critical mass of security members (around 6-7). Of course if you balance for these number advantages, you are going to hammer on classic and low pop RP.

Then reduce the available officer slots, possibly increasing assistant slots. I agree too much sec is a problem, but IMO too LITTLE sec is more of a problem, especially on lowerpop rounds where theres nobody left to call the shuttle. I had a round earlier today where I find one officer alone with a signal jammer and a wrestlebelt and think "man ive gottem", then another secoff appears and im like "alright tricky fight but I got this", then another, oh boy this is getting tricky, then the HoS and im completely outmatched, all this while signal jammed mind you so they just happened to walk past (or heard idk)

EDIT: Rereading this what would probably work pretty nicely is decreasing sec slots on RP only, due to the much slower pace and tamer rounds where antags need to escalate with security before deleting them with a shotgun.

[Kotlol]

EDIT: Rereading this what would probably work pretty nicely is decreasing sec slots on RP only, due to the much slower pace and tamer rounds where antags need to escalate with security before deleting them with a shotgun.

The thing is with RP , Security tends to also interact and help other departments with things.
There are multiplue times where a call for security got IGNORED by my team since they were doing other things 1st. Or they took a moment to go: "Collegeau is in trouble gotta go!"

While I understand the need for antags to not be hounded by security. The whole point of being an antag is AVOID being caught by security and not fight em.
This is why you try to do things that start investigations and problems so security is distracted.

Pay the clown to spray spacelube over the floors so security has to chase around 1 annoying clown while you pull a victim into maintance.
Or frame botany for a hotboxing incident in the bar.
Do something that distracts security or wait for a distraction to strike.