Viscerators should be hostile to everyone

[MasterofNothing]

Viscerator grenades are terribly unbalanced. They're pretty robust, and for that very reason, they were initially supposed to attack everyone - including those who used it. Over the years, people have wined over getting wrecked by them, and some coders changed the code to make them friendly to the antag party.

The result is that if you can somehow get a lot of viscerator grenades (e.g. as a mechanic), you will win the round, unless you make a dumb mistake. Just spam them in the hallway and you're set.

It's a lot better if you must use them tactically. That makes it impossible to spam them in every hallway and department and still achieve your antag objectives.

In other words, make them hostile to everyone, please.

Related issues: #9808 #12404 And probably more...

[MasterofNothing]

At the very least, I think it's a good idea to get a few opinions in. I think it's too unbalanced, and that even in the absence of the possibility to mass-produce them, they are still unbalanced. They should attack everyone, or be easier to kill. I.e. they should act exactly as they did before.

[DrSnips]

I have never seen people complain about the current state of them until here and I personally think they are actually pretty baf since they die to one swing of a toolbox. I even made a buffed version of them, to basically a reskined spacecarp, and they still feel a bit underwhelming save from the one time when a bug was present when it was first added.

[MasterofNothing]

They do not die to one swing of a toolbox.

[DrSnips]

https://github.com/vgstation-coders/vgstation13/blob/Bleeding-Edge/code/modules/mob/living/simple_animal/hostile/viscerator.dm Except you're completely wrong. Toolboxes do 15 and visc. have 15 health. Unless you're looking at the special reskined spacecarp ones for the butterfly knife.

[Aurx]

Angry dead guy whines about "OP" thing he thinks is stronger than it is, news at 11.

[MasterofNothing]

Yeah, yeah, it's the "attack whoever's presenting a gameplay/balance issue" shit again. If you'd get your head out of your ass, it's pretty easy to see that I wasn't the only one not happy about the viscerators, nor the only one expecting that they would attack everyone - including the guy who spawned them. Even he thought they would. Why did they think that? Because it used to be like that. And in my view, it created a nice balance.

It's a given that people whine about dying, but how many balance issue tickets have you seen me open in the past years? I think it's a legitimate problem, hence the post. It's an incredibly easy and overpowered tactic that's just begging to be abused further. When that happens, feel free to dig up this thread.

Mechanic + eviscerators + resources = win as long as the mechanic has enough of these grenades before getting outed. That this isn't a common issue is simply due to most traitor mechanics not knowing their heads from their asses... But do you really want to make it so easy for those who do?

And regarding the toolbox kills - they're pretty easy to miss, which is why I thought they needed two hits (and I didn't check code to see their health). When there's two/three/four/five, you're fucked without proper protection anyway.

If everyone else here agrees that it's not an issue, fine.

[DrSnips]

Are you feeling antagonized? The hacked scanner is seen as a "go fucking wild" ticket since it does have the ability to replicate almost anything. The whole point as an antag and the scanner is to fuck with the station.

[MasterofNothing]

It's basically as difficult to pull off as a holo fire used to be. I'm a bit surprised that you think that's a good game mechanic to keep.

Antags should fuck with the station, yes. But it should be challenging, and not an easy win.

[Reviire]

I think they should have an increasing chance to lose their antag friendliness the more they attack people and acquire the taste for blood. But beyond that, no.

We already have far, far easier things in the game that should be balanced first. Heavily nerfing things that are miles worse than the big killers is just limiting peoples options, and making blasma/subvert/bombs lmao a better option.

EDIT: Also get a combat shotgun with buckshot

[iFlashYou]

It killed me, nerf it!

[Blithering]

As a fellow syndicate who had a pretty fun gimmick cut short by the viscerators that round, they're fine. Unless it becomes an "every time I get antag" situation like when people discovered how easy it was to crank out 6 Max caps and delete the station ten minutes in I don't think anything needs to change.

[MasterofNothing]

OK, thanks for the input everyone. Overal consensus is that it's not a problem. I'll mark this closed. If it's something that'll be a problem in the future, I'm sure there will be more discussion then.

I also did not see #5715 until just now.

[jknpj]

🤔

[MasterofNothing]

I figured that, as a result of a recent round, there could be one or two people who want to give their opinion. If not, I'll just close it again.

[Reviire]

Close this again because they're still fine

[MasterofNothing]

I'm sure you can stomach waiting a little bit. There's the possibility that someone who actually still plays the game may weigh in.

[MasterofNothing]

I posted it in OOC after the round, and in the thread. I don't want to make a big deal out of it, but if someone wants to weigh in, he/she/it can do it. If no one does, I'll just close it again.

[Exxion]

Honestly, this proposed change isn't really a solution to the issue at hand. It just means that the traitor would also die, not that everyone else wouldn't. It would pretty much just accomplish making viscerators more obnoxious to use. If it really is such a problem (and I wasn't there, so I can't speak on whether or not it was), a better solution would be to make the viscerator grenade not scannable even by traitor mechanics

[MasterofNothing]

Well, no one in the round was annoyed enough to comment here, so closed again. Honk.