Goonhub
05-20-2015, 05:44 PM
Let's talk cost efficiency. The purpose of the derringer, from what I can tell, is to make someone drop the fuck dead. While technically with two uses, it functionally has only one use. It is designed to kill. Making it "fair" utterly defeats to purpose.
Now, let's talk parallels. A poison bottle only costs 1 TC, though often requires a 5 TC sleepy pen for maximum effectiveness. A poison bottle can hold enough poison to directly kill 0 to 8+ people. At optimal efficiency, plus the sleepy pen, a poison bottle ropes in a whooping 1.333 TC per kill. While the poison roulette and decreasing cost efficiency with multiple poison bottles justify the 1TC price, but that's just an example of kill to TC price ratio.
I've been mainly silent with this nerf-train, as stepping out of line and pissing off admins isn't exactly best for long term health, but now is the time for me to speak.
Items that are designed to kill should be good at doing so. Making fights "fair" goes against the fundamentals of the game, where the person who's done the most preparation to make fights as unfair as possible wins. Players that are new to this game are warned that they WILL die and it will likely be unfair. Fights will never be fair in this game, and attempting to make them so will accomplish nothing. The idea of ruining people's rounds by killing them is problematic, because it's misapplied. If you died, so what? You can try again next round, unless you're antagonist. This is also why traitors greatly benefit from paying TCs for kills and other antagonists benefit from free stuns, because if they die, they almost certainly not get a second chance for a long period of time. If an antagonist dies, their round is actually ruined, if a normal person dies and they really wanted to play as their role, unless it's a gimmick role, they can just set the job to favorite and enjoy it next round.
This entire nerf train seems to be built around ripping up structure that's already in place. The goal of nerfs is creating fair fights, more interesting rounds with "more subterfuge", and longer rounds. The attempts to do this involve removing stuns, and then nerfing things designed to instantly kill. The problem is that most of the stuns aren't exactly causing problems or are disdained by players. (Changling spit was the one exception, but the problems it's nerf causes are a whole other subject.) Stun batons and Tasers aren't broke or overpowered, Wizards (The vast majority of which are inexperienced due to having only the chance to play a once in a blue moon.) need their stun missiles to stay alive, Shambling abominations need their screech to stay alive. The problem with subterfuge is that the game doesn't reward it. It's not game mechanics that make subterfuge unrewarding, but the player base. You can successfully hide your identity's connection to crimes, but why bother with all the extra time and effort if you're easily capable of getting away with crimes without hiding your identity? You can do this because people simply don't care if someone screams over radio that you're killing them, because it's not their problem. (Lo and behold, the bystander effect.) On goon, longer rounds just means more people are dead and that the dead need to wait longer for a new round. Short rounds are good, because they make death less consequential. Basically, long rounds are bad, because of the concept of "round-ruining" to non-antagonists would genuinely apply if death meant having to wait and hour and a half to play again. Not to mention, but most people also don't have enough time, or want to spend that much time playing the game.
And that's my 2 cents on the whole Nerf-Train. Well, scratch that, more like 50 cents.
Now, let's talk parallels. A poison bottle only costs 1 TC, though often requires a 5 TC sleepy pen for maximum effectiveness. A poison bottle can hold enough poison to directly kill 0 to 8+ people. At optimal efficiency, plus the sleepy pen, a poison bottle ropes in a whooping 1.333 TC per kill. While the poison roulette and decreasing cost efficiency with multiple poison bottles justify the 1TC price, but that's just an example of kill to TC price ratio.
I've been mainly silent with this nerf-train, as stepping out of line and pissing off admins isn't exactly best for long term health, but now is the time for me to speak.
Items that are designed to kill should be good at doing so. Making fights "fair" goes against the fundamentals of the game, where the person who's done the most preparation to make fights as unfair as possible wins. Players that are new to this game are warned that they WILL die and it will likely be unfair. Fights will never be fair in this game, and attempting to make them so will accomplish nothing. The idea of ruining people's rounds by killing them is problematic, because it's misapplied. If you died, so what? You can try again next round, unless you're antagonist. This is also why traitors greatly benefit from paying TCs for kills and other antagonists benefit from free stuns, because if they die, they almost certainly not get a second chance for a long period of time. If an antagonist dies, their round is actually ruined, if a normal person dies and they really wanted to play as their role, unless it's a gimmick role, they can just set the job to favorite and enjoy it next round.
This entire nerf train seems to be built around ripping up structure that's already in place. The goal of nerfs is creating fair fights, more interesting rounds with "more subterfuge", and longer rounds. The attempts to do this involve removing stuns, and then nerfing things designed to instantly kill. The problem is that most of the stuns aren't exactly causing problems or are disdained by players. (Changling spit was the one exception, but the problems it's nerf causes are a whole other subject.) Stun batons and Tasers aren't broke or overpowered, Wizards (The vast majority of which are inexperienced due to having only the chance to play a once in a blue moon.) need their stun missiles to stay alive, Shambling abominations need their screech to stay alive. The problem with subterfuge is that the game doesn't reward it. It's not game mechanics that make subterfuge unrewarding, but the player base. You can successfully hide your identity's connection to crimes, but why bother with all the extra time and effort if you're easily capable of getting away with crimes without hiding your identity? You can do this because people simply don't care if someone screams over radio that you're killing them, because it's not their problem. (Lo and behold, the bystander effect.) On goon, longer rounds just means more people are dead and that the dead need to wait longer for a new round. Short rounds are good, because they make death less consequential. Basically, long rounds are bad, because of the concept of "round-ruining" to non-antagonists would genuinely apply if death meant having to wait and hour and a half to play again. Not to mention, but most people also don't have enough time, or want to spend that much time playing the game.
And that's my 2 cents on the whole Nerf-Train. Well, scratch that, more like 50 cents.