[Balance Discussion] Reworking the interaction between loyalty implants and cultists

[DeityLink]

Aight this PR came about following some strong suggestions by members of the community. I'll first quickly recap the history of loyalty implants interactions with cultists, then what my stance on the matter is, and lastly what this PR does as a proposed change.

= 2012-2018 = Cult 1/2

• loyalty implants prevent conversion, but do not deconvert
• you can remove an implant surgically, convert, and then re-apply the implant

= 2018-2021 = Cult 3

• loyalty implants no longer prevent conversion, instead it takes even longer & the implant pops out afterwards
• implanting a cultist causes the implant to pop after some time starting from ACT 2 (after the cult has completed their first 2 objectives)

This change came about from a strong case by security players about the need for a 100% sure way to know if a player is cult or not, which I agreed was fair, especially when shit goes does and bloodstones rise.

= 2021-today = Cult 4

• loyalty implants prevent conversion, but do not deconvert
• AND implanting a cultist causes the implant to pop after some time

Arguably this is the worst deal cultists ever had. Security gets a guaranteed meta check that works from the start, and cultists must still take time to de-implant to convert.

My stance on this today is that now that cultists become visually identifiable by all during the eclipse (smoke + red halo) security doesn't need the green square that badly anymore to identify allies.
Two days ago a cultist that had done nothing but break some cameras and carried no occult items was identified simply from the implant popping out and was immediately killed for it (also because that round's sec officers were still Cult 3-brained, so they didn't even attempt deconversion)

So here's my proposed change:

• We go back to the original implant behavior (prevents conversions, but can be applied on cultists without any obvious meta-check happening)
• BUT the implant pops out once the Eclipse is 10 minutes away, and it always pops out again when implanting cultist past that time, until the Eclipse ends (after which it stops popping out if the cult didn't attempt to summon Nar-Sie)
• ALSO the implant now takes 60 seconds to pop-out (up from 10 seconds) before the Eclipse, and instantly during the eclipse

I'm aware it's a touchy subject and so I'd like you all to weigh in on this.
Personally I'd like holy implants to see more use during cult round instead of loyalty implants, but that comes with the potentially controversial change of changing restrictions on implant lockboxes.

[aacovski]

why not just during the eclipse

[gurfan]

I'm a fan of shaking things up to see how it plays out, and I'd hope this gets players to use holy implants more as they're incredibly useful.
What I think people are upset about right now is that SOP is just to check with an loyalty implant, and behead the cultist if it pops out. Because it's so easy to check, there's never really any question about whether the guy you have in custody is a cultist, so long as you have access to a loyalty implant. I haven't seen security go door-to-door implanting and executing people often like they used to in Cult 3.0, but as it stands, it's still an effective strategy against a cult.

Once you know someone's a cultist, there isn't much point to keeping them alive. Yeah you could do the blood salt thing with them and keeping them alive still lets them contribute to the cult cap, and it's good roleplay to keep prisoners, but most of the time security just wants to squash the cult, and keeping a cultist alive is usually a risk that isn't worth it. I don't think the risk is AS bad as a lot of players make it out to be, especially because a holy implant nullifies just about everything cult-related, but it's still a hassle. If I could blame one cult ability that is responsible for security being reluctant to not instantly behead cultists, it would be blood magnetism. Seeing the guy you just tased and cuffed get whisked away is really frustrating and gives the impression that cultists can't be safely detained.

Anyway I think this is worth the try. Maybe people will start using other cult-checking methods instead. Maybe people won't realized loyalty implants were changed again and don't confirm whether or not someone's a cultist. Probably the latter.
Once people realize this was changed they'll also do what they used to do in the early days of Cult 4, which is to just attempt a deconversion with a Bible and holy water to check for cult status. If these changes to through I expect people to return to that after a while. Still would consider than an improvement though.

[DeityLink]

"Once you know someone's a cultist, there isn't much point to keeping them alive. "
casually give two good reasons

I can give you a couple extra reasons:

• they slow down or outright prevent the coming of the Eclipse
• they become a bait for the cult to try and rescue (because once again it disables Blood Magnetism)
• you get to keep an antagonist alive for roleplay at the brig, because SS13 is a role-playing game

edit: also reminder that Holy Water and Incense ALSO provide all those same effects.

[gurfan]

"Once you know someone's a cultist, there isn't much point to keeping them alive. "
casually give two good reasons

I can give you a couple extra reasons:

• they slow down or outright prevent the coming of the Eclipse
• they become a bait for the cult to try and rescue (because once again it disables Blood Magnetism)
• you get to keep an antagonist alive for roleplay at the brig, because SS13 is a role-playing game

I wasn't aware that a captured cultist could prevent the eclipse coming, that's actually a big deal since it prevents their whole end-goal from happening, I wish more people knew about it! The third reason is the most important reason for me, and it's why I like keeping prisoners, but not everyone probably feels that same way. Cult is stressful and sometimes security just wants to get it done with.

[SonixApache]

forget the whole pop-out thing, just make 'em only prevent conversions for now
if we run into that being a major issue we can just re-add that behavior, maybe multiplying by the amount of devotion a cultist has generated

[Eneocho]

Making the cultists obvious during the eclipse seems reasonable. You did your blood rituals, tainted your soul, and now that the veil is thinning, your tainted spirit is openly visible for anyone. With the "taint" showing how MUCH you worked for the cult (so you know who the big boss cultists were and who was just an unlucky convert that maybe you can purify again).
Make it so the implant doesn't pop out (roundstart metachecks are super cringe), but as a sidegrade, add a ritual/runeword to pop out all implants that requires 2 people (the implanted and another cultist), so it still depends on collaboration with another cultist, but doesn't require surgery.
DESTROY TECHNOLOGY SELF (geeri jatkaa mgar) -> Body purification rune that purges out all shrapnel and implants in the receiver's body (something something the ritual is too intense to do on your own, so you need someone to do it for you).

[DeityLink]

Making the cultists obvious during the eclipse seems reasonable.

good because that's been a thing for over a year now

[Eneocho]

Ah, I was in that round, snaxi cargo, right? I was the QM. The menacing dark glow is not obvious enough, I genuinely forgot it was a thing despite being a cultist. I could approach the clown easy and convert them and they never noticed.

[DeityLink]

I'm talking about the red glowing halo over their heads that appears over darkness, making them even easy to see in the dark

If the clown let himself get converted that means he was ok with it (which is easily understandable if you don't think the cult can lose anymore), or afk

[Eneocho]

Ah, that'd explain it, I haven't survived as a non-cultist before the eclipse, I always get converted early, so I never knew that the halo was a thing that non-cultists saw as well.
Still, the other stuff I mentioned would be interesting to have. A 2-player rune that purges shrapnel and implants would be a good counter to the implants themselves (it'd also allow for conversion of seccies without needing to soulgem them, but you'd need to keep them stunned, lest they run and the ritual fails),

[bathosbathtime]

I don't play a whole lot of cult so I'm not the target audience but I did like the strength of old medcult (or any cult willing to setup) was being able to convert implanted crew after a quick trip to surgery or poaching cloned officers. If you were quick enough you could get them back to security and have THEM implant the officer so you have a deep agent, but this was also dependent on the instant convert runes which were crazy strong and wouldn't fly with cult 4.
I think having implants prevent conversion but doing nothing when implanted into a cultist would be my preferred outcome. It makes security take more time in screening crew and if the cultists gets their hands on loyalty implants themselves they can make themselves appear safe to security if only until the trick is revealed. It also forces cultists to either interact with different game mechanics than they normally would or lose out on high value targets.
There is a danger, of course, of both of these sides deciding they're not dealing with this nonsense and just killing anyone implanted and we move closer to TDM hellverse.

[DeityLink]

Well this seems a lot less controversial than I expected, I guess it's ready for review then, assuming it'll take a few more days so more people can weigh in.

For now I'll keep the "10 minutes before the Eclipse starts" popping out. I think being warned a full minute prior in big red text should both be fair to cultists who get to slink back away from sec officers, and to officers.

Now of course this metacheck being removed doesn't prevent sec from simply metachecking through deconversion attempts so I don't think this is gonna be a game changer but at least that check makes more sense narratively, and provides better opportunities for roleplay too.

[AresGH]

just call it a cult buff, it's what it is
nothing stops cultists from beheading people and soulstoning for conversion

[falcon2346]

So how are you supposed to find out if someone is a cultist once you know a cult is on board (after they've spaced the only holy water on the station since that's like the first thing you do)? Loyalty implants already did nothing against the cult since soul stoning is trivial and reincarnate on a shade is effectively free if you even have one construct to click the rune. Hell most of the time if a cultist gets captured by security they get blood magnetism'd out anyways which already outs the cult. What purpose does this even serve except preventing the rare instance where someone thinks it's revs and just accidentally finds out it's cult from implants popping out?

[gurfan]

after they've spaced the only holy water on the station since that's like the first thing you do

You can order holy water from cargo.

So how are you supposed to find out if someone is a cultist once you know a cult is on board

You can tell they're a cultist because they'll be doing cult things and carrying cult things on them when you search them.

Holy implants also start in the brig roundstart and jabbing them in a guy you're unsure about will prevent them from doing anything culty.
Overall I don't think this is a substantial buff to cult at all. I played security at a time when loyalty implants didn't pop out, and in my experience nothing really changed. Security doesn't need a TTT traitor tester to authorize every execution.

[DeityLink]

@AresGH

just call it a cult buff, it's what it is

I never implied otherwise, hence this discussion. Cultists walking around with the green square is something that we haven't seen in spess since Cult 2, so it's more of a return to form.

nothing stops cultists from beheading people and soulstoning for conversion

Yes? But that's not what this PR is about now is it.

@falcon2346

So how are you supposed to find out if someone is a cultist once you know a cult is on board

Like I said in my previous message, the deconversion ritual remains a guarranted meta-check that works at all points in the game. There is no plan to remove that one.

Loyalty implants already did nothing against the cult since soul stoning is trivial and reincarnate on a shade is effectively free if you even have one construct to click the rune. Hell most of the time if a cultist gets captured by security they get blood magnetism'd out anyways which already outs the cult.

Funny how everything you mentioned here is what the holy implant is literally designed to counteract. Also to be clear the effect of the holy implant is simply a "permanent" version of the effect of holy water or incense, so if you get a cultist to breath in holy incense or gulp a drink of holy water, they won't be able to get targeted by Blood Magnetism, nor turn into a shade after death.

ps: As an addendum, I do plan to make incense boxes craftable from Hydroponics' biogenerator, but holy incense can also already be ordered from cargo, from the same crate that also contains holy water. (and of course holy implants can also be ordered as well)

[falcon2346]

Loyalty implants are not being used as a metacheck against cultists with any regularity and the events that prompted this were basically just a fluke from someone that thought it was revs. To me this comes off as nothing more than a reactionary change to ensure that the cult cannot be accidentally outed early by anything except their own mistakes.

Holy implants also start in the brig roundstart and jabbing them in a guy you're unsure about will prevent them from doing anything culty.

If you start holy implanting every assistant acting fucky someone is going to ahelp and try to get you banned for metachecking and comparing it to swapping the mix tank valve because the AI didn't open a door for you.

Funny how everything you mentioned here is what the holy implant is literally designed to counteract. Also to be clear the effect of the holy implant is simply a "permanent" version of the effect of holy water or incense, so if you get a cultist to breath in holy incense or gulp a drink of holy water, they won't be able to get targeted by Blood Magnetism, nor turn into a shade after death.

Funny how despite there being a better check against cultists at round start in security you feel the need to change this one because of a single fluke round. I am not compelled by the argument that this should be nerfed because better options exist.

[DeityLink]

Again let me make myself clear, I am simply rolling back the loyalty implant behavior to what it originally was before I started messing with cult. This is less of a reactionary change, and more of a long time of "I should take care of it someday" and that fluke was what the straw that broke the camel's back.

If you start holy implanting every assistant acting fucky someone is going to ahelp and try to get you banned for metachecking and comparing it to swapping the mix tank valve because the AI didn't open a door for you.

How is that different from randomly loyalty implanting people though? Something that sec absolutely does once a cult is known to be aboard the station and that people don't ahelp because of course sec needs to do it. Originally loyalty implants didn't exist to certify someone being a non-cultist, but to impede the cult's ability to convert people. (and that being circumventable through soulstoning was also a thing before I started messing with cult)

despite there being a better check against cultists at round start in security

You're not talking about loyalty implants I hope. Again them being usable as a metacheck was one of the many things I added with Cult 3 that was definitely a mistake in hindsight.

this comes off as nothing more than a reactionary change to ensure that the cult cannot be accidentally outed early by anything except their own mistakes.

Also can you elaborate on why that'd be a bad thing please?

[falcon2346]

Also can you elaborate on why that'd be a bad thing please?

Because it contributes to the extremely rigid round progression of cult and removes what is as far as I'm aware the only way to know for certain that a cult is present and that the person in your brig right now is part of it without actually seeing their base or seeing them do a spell. The literal exact same thing can happen to rev heads to out them early and no one has ever complained about that. Did anyone even complain about this or did you just perceive a weakness and need to nix it? Tell me how this change makes cult more interesting and not just more annoying.

On top of that I don't think making it completely impossible for security to tell who is trustworthy based on the loyalty implant is a remotely good change. You think security is blowing too many heads off during cult rounds before? Just you wait until they have literally no way to tell who's a cultist. It's not like they'll try deconversion because deconversion is a complete meme. Do your little 5 minute ritual to deconvert someone? They instantly get the cult slot back to convert someone else, loyalty implants do fuck all since soulstoning bypasses it, they'll probably know because of cult communication damn near instantly... This is just going to lead to more non-antag crew getting brained by security because now your team death match game mode has one of the teams with 0 way to get information for who's on what team.

[DeityLink]

Tell me how this change makes cult more interesting and not just more annoying.

Either security is not aware there is a cult aboard in which case it's not very interesting for the antag that suffers the most from getting accidentally outed early to be outed by a random metacheck (that was originally designed as a metacheck for rev, an antag that doesn't suffer nearly as much from being outed early).

Or you do know there is a cult aboard, in which case you've already taken steps to acquire holy water, bibles, like security should do (except in that last round where they just killed every cultist before they could do anything after they were discovered, which happens in most cult rounds I've ever observed).

Did anyone even complain about this or did you just perceive a weakness and need to nix it?

Yes, quite a few people complained, hence this PR coming about, and it also having a positive thumbs up ratio at this time. I'll keep quiet for now and let those people give their opinion in my stead.

[SonixApache]

As resident eversec I would like to pipe up for a moment here and say that cult protocol is arresting, holy-checking and then implanting everyone. On code red, assistants can whine and ahelp all they want - it's martial law, sec is justified.

There are alternate sources of cult-checking, and there are alternate methods of dealing with suspected cultists.
Not having the obvious pop-out only means sec has to be slightly sharper.

This whole shitshow spurred from one RETURNING ANCIENT PLAYER turned 4cultist walking into the brig willingly, having some protection against the things that normally out a cultist, expecting not to get insta-outed by a loyalty implant popping out of them.