So. I’ve played like… 355+ hours of SS14. and i have… a few? criticisms, of the game in its current state.
No rhyme or reason to additions
You guys (devs in general) are focusing on the wrong aspects of the game to develop. there’s core systems of 13 that are completely missing, such as surgery, limb targeting, organ damage (and organs in general), virology, circuits, proper robotics (Example: Augmenting, implants, and cybernetics), and like, generally, a lot of engineering stuff, like the Supermatter Crystal
You shouldn’t be adding the likes of Nukies or new species until the core mechanics from 13 are ported over properly for a more seamless blend of mechanics in 14 & 13. Currently, it feels like development is determined by whatever department the devs main the most in 13, rather than the additions that are vital from 13 to bring to 14.
Tile based mechanics, with non-tile based movement, is a horrible system.
You should lock all movement to tiles. there are so many issues being caused by the differing position systems that it’s honestly insane. One example is that you can get yourself completely stuck behind machines if you accidentally put them too many pixels onto the tile you’re standing on if up against a wall. Another issue is that the lack of a tile based movement system means a lot of things have deceptively large collision or hitboxes, such as servers, computers, chairs, and even stuff like filing cabinets.
Too many damage values.
There are too many damage values to keep track of for healing at any given time.
There’s: Brute, Slash, Blunt, Puncture, Burn, Shock, Caustic, Cold, Heat, Airloss, bloodloss, suffocation, Toxin, Poison, radiation, genetic, and a few others I don’t remember.
Most of these have separate methods of treatment to each other, even per category. They should be simplified to Brute, Burn, Suffocation, and Toxin. Put Radiation, bloodloss, and genetic in their own categories, with their own treatments. Gauze for example, shouldn’t be used to treat puncture, slash, and bleeding, while you also need bruise packs for blunt & brute. This is especially bad without any kind of surgery.
also, body rot is a horrendous system that penalizes people for just, dying at a bad time. To the point where MANY PEOPLE JUST TRY TO TURBO CLONING IN ANY MEANS THEY CAN JUST SO THEY DON’T HAVE TO DEAL WITH BODY ROT IN MEDICAL. It makes revival harder, and just makes it feel excessively punishing to die, even by SS13/14 standards
The species are a mess right now.
I already brought up species as being a thing you shouldn’t be focusing on, but I’m bringing this up because it feels important. There is no rhyme or reason for races in the game. For example, why do we have Vox as a default race for the game, but not felinid? Where are ethereals? plasmamen? If you are going to be adding species, focus on the ones from 13 that are almost universal, rather than ones seen exclusively on RP servers, such as vox, slimes, or dwarves, and especially not making your own species to add, like diona & Arachnids.
Why are we balancing around Wizards Den?
From what I’ve been able to tell of the patch notes, the vast majority of balancing and such for the game as a whole comes from changes made to specifically balance the game on Wizards Den, which is… not good? like at all? you’re remaking what is essentially an umbrella game, having several different sub-games within (I.E, TG, citadel, that weird one that i forget the name of), all running on different codebases. Imagine if TG was in charge of balancing ship test, and how badly it’d go. That’s just an example, but like, you’re forcing a billion servers to adhere to a single balance. It’s not a good idea, and it’s a very delicate dance you’re dancing.
Overall, the game is a promising remake of 13’s base mechanics and engine, but it’s clearly mostly being worked on by either people who do not recognize how tightly interwoven the vast majority of 13’s core mechanics are, and are trying to make workarounds constantly, or people who primarily play on RP servers such as skyrat, bubber, or Citadel, due to the changes feeling as though they cater to that kind of userbase (More new content over ensuring existing content is of high quality).
First note, my brother in Christ you are the Dev
Second note, I completely agree but it’s never going to happen and people are so fucking hostile to the idea it’s not even funny
Rest I can agree with pretty majorly agree with, I think with the bit on species though they just need to be more fleshed out first before anything else.
Locking all movement to tiles is definitely controversial. It sounds like you have more of an issue with getting stuck and hitboxes, though? Why not fix those issues instead of locking down the movement system we’ve gotten used to here?
Dunno about the getting stuck issue, but the hitboxes are absolutely fixable.
Agree with the rest, though. Although, I don’t really have the playtime to justify it.
Edit: If I can’t justify it, I probably shouldn’t say I agree! Others bring up good points.
First thing all devs are volunteers and no one is being forced to work on anything in particular. Just whatever they feel like. Sure it’s missing systems, but no one is forcing people to work on these. New Med is being worked on by a single person and completely overhauling Medical as a whole, work is slow but steady and once again, volunteers.
Lol. Tile based movement. This sounds like more of a skill issue. Hit boxes are a little wonky but it’s not a big a deal as you make it.
Again New Med is on the horizon that is changing a lot of how the medical system works. I’ve heard it called “Wound Med” similar to how Rimworld damage is handled. So not much to add here aside from there really isn’t that many damages to keep track of.
Again volunteers, no one is focusing on anything people just add what they want to add. Currently there is a “Freeze” on new races, depends on a decent design doc. I think Plasmamen are approved but it just needs someone to volunteer to work on it.
This just doesn’t make any sense to me. Wizard’s Den is the UPSTREAM or in your “umbrella” example it’s the very TIP of the umbrella. It’s the vanilla experience and any fork can cherry pick or change what they want on their own version. No one is forcing anyone to do anything? We have Delta-V, Frontier, Corvax, RMC14 (CM13) all with their own balancing. People don’t like removing salvage shuttle they can just add it back. (Apparently Delta-V got rid of salv shuttle ages ago). Not only this but I don’t think it’s wrong to say that a lot of current day SS13 forks come from Goonstation’s leaked code.
Finally, again volunteers are working on this, no one is being forced to work on anything, is this a bad thing? I don’t think so, but it may make it feel like 14 is a little directionless. I do wonder about the number of players are veteran SS13 or if 14 is the first time ever playing SS14, so it’s likely that some devs aren’t aware or really care what 13 is like.
There is no official “dev” team. It’s contributors who spend their own free time providing the new features. The contributors arent obligated to force themselves to code features.
As Caketaco stated, sounds like a krill tissue + solvable via remaking hitboxes.
3a. It’s a known problem that medical isnt all too fleshed out, and currently a contributor is working on NewMed to fix that.
3b. Cloning isnt something thats available in WizDen, so non-issue
4a. Felinids are not in Wizden game because the higher-ups know people are going to be weird on WizDen servers with them. Dont say there wont be people who wont.
4b. However there are felinids on other servers like RMC14 and Frontier
4c. Its a WYCI thing. See point 1 for more details
We’re balancing around wizden because we are wizden. It would be nearly impossible to try and balance in a way that could please EVERYONE.
Take for example RMC14 and Frontier. Both are very different gamemodes, and need different features. RMC uses a more simple atmos and power simulation and a more advance weapons system, while Frontier uses the standard atmos, power, and gun system, but also needs a better shuttle system.
The primary features for both those servers are completely incompadible with one another, which makes trying to balance around an “umbrella” of servers extremely difficult to make, and far more difficult to maintain.
First off, I’ll mention, your tone could really use some work. Please understand that while you have your vision of what the game should be, the contributors are entitled to theirs and telling them what to do is just gonna make you look impolite.
SS14 isn’t really a 1-to-1 SS13 remake. Especially since neither really is a singular entity. Each makes decisions that they believe suit their game in particular (and work on things they wanna work on).
I am not exactly a prominent contributor, but I haven’t played 13 in ages. As SS14 grows, that’s gonna be true of more and more people, who will thus want to make SS14 better and not necessarily more like SS13.
Also, there’s one person slowly making surgery, so most of those gotta wait on their progress and you know how it is working on stuff in your off time.
Fluid movement is a core part of mainline SS14. Valid for a server to try to deviate from it, but it is what the community is used to and prefers.
3a. No, not really. The damage type system is reasonable as is and certainly not
3b. Eh, death is wonky, won’t argue there.
I think most of this is addressed in point one. I’d also like to mention that there’s valid theme/implementation reasons why they are not making any given race.
The situation Wizden is, admittedly, kinda messy. The project is still not quite as “alive” of an ecosystem as SS13 at its best. Long story short, Wizden is the “vanilla” server. Every other server is completely free to modify the balance as they see fit.
Overall, this really feels like your issues stem largely from expecting a direct remake of a certain vision of SS13 when this is really more of a spiritual successor kind of deal.
Also, yes, wizden is the “main” server, but there’s other servers around that might address some of your misgivings.