SMES unfair for Arcfiends

[Silent Majority]

This is something I've thought about a long time.

I've more then once witnessed multiple security officers baring down on arcfiends with smes. Heard people loudly yelling arcfiends are out so people get smes. Just....alot of smes in general

I feel this is really unfair to arcrfiends. no OTHER antag has a single gene that just completely counters everything they can do. I feel like perhapse, arcfiends should still do damage through smes. Maybe even reduced damage?

I don't know..everytime I see it I feel discouraged

Note: I haven't been an arcfiend in like 20 months. Maybe its not as much as an issue as I think

[Solenoid]

On one hand, SMES is really tough for arcfiends. On the other, other antags do have things that can entirely shut down their gameplay loop if they're too loud or just openly rampaging. Changeling has smelling salts, vampire has welding masks/sunglasses, and as is the subject of this thread, arcfiend has SMES.

I guess there's something to be said about the relative difficulty of the different counters to obtain, but I wouldn't consider it that much of a difference. Chemists can mass produce smelling salt ampoules and hand them out to everyone, engineering can print out huge amounts of welding masks, and geneticists can flood the booth with stabilized SMES.

I agree it does suck to play against, but it's not really unheard of for antags to have a crippling weakness that's stunningly easy to distribute to everyone. I'd probably want to see that changed, but I have no ideas on how to do that right now.

[Silent Majority]

Well smelling salt actually does have a cool down between uses. Its also a cure not a preventative. Natural antitoxins i guess, but that also preventd you from healing and the ling still spits acid and has a claw that tears your limbs off.

And even then it's only partial whataboutism. So much of the arc relied on shocking, which can just be completely bodied.

[Kotlol]

Simple fix, only empowered smes can block arcfiend.

Problem solved.

[meaow589]

Well smelling salt actually does have a cool down between uses. Its also a cure not a preventative. Natural antitoxins i guess, but that also preventd you from healing and the ling still spits acid and has a claw that tears your limbs off.

And even then it's only partial whataboutism. So much of the arc relied on shocking, which can just be completely bodied.

Metaneuron enchantment does to reduce sighnificant stunt time.these gene can help to survive from both vamp and ling. If combine it with some chemo like smelling salts or drug like meth , or gene adrenaline rush is enough to survive and run away.

[Solenoid]

Simple fix, only empowered smes can block arcfiend.

Problem solved.

This feels fine. I'd probably suggest empowered to fully block, and normal SMES would just slightly reduce stuns and stamina damage. I think proactive gameplay should be rewarded to an extent, but also agree with Silent that it shouldn't totally shut down an antag's round by making it too easy to prevent any of their abilities from working.

[Wander]

This feels fine. I'd probably suggest empowered to fully block, and normal SMES would just slightly reduce stuns and stamina damage. I think proactive gameplay should be rewarded to an extent, but also agree with Silent that it shouldn't totally shut down an antag's round by making it too easy to prevent any of their abilities from working.

I’d definitely agree with the idea of the empowered version solely being the full counter so that arcfiends can’t be countered fully with a stabilized gene. Having to at least spend the genetic stability using the empowered version makes it seem more fair and in-line with the other counters listed. As for whether or not the base version of the gene should be a partial one, I’m not sure.

Something worth considering is also that while other antags do have counters, they are nearly never something that affects almost all of their abilities. Vampires have icebats, thralls, and grave touch if someone has glasses. Changelings have horrorform, arm varieries, limb critters, and lsd if someone has salts. In general antags have other ability types which let them work even with their counter on the field. Almost all of an arcfiend’s abilities are shocks of varying nature. While the magnetism ability does work as the arcfiend’s ability that gets around this “unionized” exists which entirely nullifies that. The only comparable antag I can think of are wizards who have their abilities nullified by chaplains. This interaction is role specific though.

[Cal]

Arcfiends are pretty powerful so I don't mind this tbh

[Wander]

Arcfiends are pretty powerful so I don't mind this tbh

That is a fair point, arcfiends are powerful and the current counter is a gene that is not available roundstart outside of lucking out with a trait. 

While I think making it the empowered version that does it seems the most inline with other antags so the person has to spend something(stability) to get it, I also don’t feel super strongly on the matter. If someone is going out of their way to get the gene every round then it can be ahelped with good enough efficiency I think, at least on rp.

[Emimiyu]

Tbh, I have mixed feelings about this. I dislike stabilized smes as "Haha, now you can't attack us anymore!" counter, at the same time arcfiend has wire ride which makes them slippery and they could just snuck in to armory, chem, or whatever place to get weapons. Though, maybe, I feel like regular smes human should not block all arcfiend ability. Maybe it can counter knockback from the electric punch, but not the AOE knockback (because it's hard to ran off from a hoard of officers with smes human). Or the opposite where the AOE is less effective but the punch still hit. I don't know how to balance it.

On the other hand, I feel like the smes gene doesn't seem like an issue to me. It's limited in the gene booth, classic gene booth is rarely used, it is rng based, and not all geneticist are the type who would get every "good gene" asap. The only time I really see it as an issue is probably sec players on RP who rush smes gene only because "arcfiend exists!" but before arcfiends are given any chance to fight, even then, I rarely seen this happen.

[Kotlol]

Let's also not forget that the most an arcfiend is known for is wirehopping and disruption.
From what we see most arcfiends do in combat...
Most just fight 1 on 1 at best and otherwise disrupt and run.

So the SMES problem I can see arcfiend just resorting more and more into running via wires then risking combat.

[Azurnite]

SMES as a whole I believe is situational. Could depend on how aggressive the arcfiend is, how many members of sec there are in the round, what other antags are there, and what are they doing. While I do not see SMES officers as much anymore, I know I use to just run when I saw sec if I saw they had SMES. This lead to a lose-lose situation for myself and security where we are both frustrated at one another.

I also believe creativity and adaptability needs to be factored here for the antag. What's to stop an arcfiend from trying to steal the MD's tranq rifle and mutadone tranq'ing people and/or chembombing with mutadone, even adding acid to melt facemasks? [This is all before you factor in just grabbing a hypospray and putting mutadone in it which is arguably the easiest counter of the counter]