Brainwashing half the station with a next to zero percent chance of going back to normal is not fun at all. Especially when your reason for being brainwashed more often than not is without ANY goals and only “obey X”.
Being brainwashed, assuming you are given orders, makes the job of Security and Command incredibly difficult as now you don’t have one antag but several! Unlike the AI, it doesn’t need to make a lot of noise either. Robotics console will blurt out the general location of the upload key extraction and then you still require an upload console and the boards which are behind research and reaources or two doors and turrets. And the AI will easily be noticed if they are acting up and if Command knows how to fix it they will do so.
At this point I ask them over LOOC if I can cryo and then do so… because there is no purpose for the brain washing. I have tried to almost demand them to give me orders increasingly louder and obnoxious so they either tell me what to do and make use of the brainwash or someone notices and cures me of it. Neither happened.
Even been brainwashed while SSD in some corner of medbay. Once I came back and noticed I was brainwashed… I just remained SSD and played some other game.
I suggest making brainwashes easier to cure. Make it a reagent in chemistry, show up more clearly in health scans so inexperienced doctors understand and make the easier brain washes like flashes temporarily. I think it was Shion or some Engineer Felind who brain washed one or two people MID-COMBAT!
I feel like a reagent cure would be too easy, as the traitor needs to abduct someone alive and bring them to a surgical computer, the cure should be somewhat similar (getting them alive to a surgical computer).
I think the spotting the brainwashed is the issue.
I suggest have CentCom send an automatic announcement about strange brain activities in some of the crew when 2/3+ people are brainwashed.
And then a list of the people affected when there are 4/5+ brainwashed people.
And perhaps add a symbol to the medical hud after the 4/5+ announcement
This feels too direct. CC wouldn’t really know what is happening on the station.
I stick to my suggestion of making flashes temporary and being able to easier cure and detect brainwashes.
I’d say this is a good idea as sometimes people are easily brainwashed… IN THE MIDDLE OF MEDBAY! I have been brainwashed three out of like eight times so far in Medbay.
I’d more so give people direct short-term objectives. Only fun time I was actually brainwashed was during hivemind. I was just about to deliver my mining mech to Mining and then… I was directed to use the mech to kill the Chaplain. And so I went to the Chapel and tried to kill him. Shortly after the brainwash passed and things actually happened! Security didn’t know what to do, I watch patched up and return to work. Got me a bit sad that my mining mech got destroyed but it was more pleasant than any other brainwashing…
We currently have a discussion on the Discord ideas-hub named “Brainwashed and Syndicate Surgery Implant Discussion” you would probably like to take a peek, i’ve yet to post an update in there with some new ideas but yes, brainwashing atm needs a rework alongside a way to be identificable + a nerf to that surgery implant which makes it absolutely busted
I’ve wrote a lot on that thread so… i’d say you check it out for my take alongside some admins and coders take.
As for the last part of your post, not surprised, that Syndicste Surgery implant is absolutely busted to allow you to do that, and the players that do that have always the tools to do it in 0.3 seconds
Unfun, unbalanced, unfair, i highly encourage y’all to take a read to what we’ve said and see what you can suggest we’ve identified the major problems of both brainwash in general and the implant, we need some finishing touches, a general consesus and someone to code what we alongside the maintainers think will be best.
I mean it would be an automated message,just like the “incoming meteor” announcement, it’s not someone at CC doing it, but more a threshold of disruptive brainwave activities amongus the crew
Not bait, I genuinely think brainwashing is perfectly fine as is, and although there is the occasional stinky like what you sent, it does allow for antags to be really creative in a way we can’t see otherwise.
You refusing to play with antags does not mean antags are inherently boring - if it really is that much of a bother to have such a bland order, then suggest an admin policy or something to force brainwash to have a clear goal or antags to actually give orders and not leave minions unattended
Making brainwash temporary is the worst idea, and there is already a cure for brainwashing, which is called “mindshield”. Brainwash has literally the same inner gameplay of a diet rev round, and I don’t see how it’s unbalanced/needs fixing/whatever
The entire reason rev was removed was that it was too common of a gamemode with little to no roleplay opportunities. Brainwashing in round as tot or any other antag fixes that problem.
People lacking creativity does not mean an entire concept needs to be thrown away
This was my first time using brainwashing and I was just going with the assumption that we were going for heads and our objectives to ensure our goal was as successful with as little casualties as possible. I do think I could have wrote some better directions but in the rush of things that’s all I could really think of to ensure I wasn’t screwing over my other Insurrectionists. In the end I realized it became too confusing as I had told the brainwashees to listen to all the other insurrectionists orders as well, and by the end none of them were really listening to me at all anymore. Maybe some guidelines could be helpful for ensuring better roleplay/gameplay for implanting brainwashing.
Why? Right now it makes it so you are practically permanently an antag with no objectives and the inability to do fun antag gimmicky things unless you are ordered to. Temporary could be 30 seconds, 5 minutes, maybe even half an hour! If you don’t need to brainwash them, then they at least won’t be brainwashed forever.
As if there isn’t a backlog of reports already…
By the time Command has:
Noticed the brainwash threat.
Tried to prevent the threat directly.
Fail and die.
Be revived and possibly brainwashed.
Have their brainwash undone.
Tell cargo to order more mindshields for non-heads.
Inject all the mindshields into everyone on the station (which can easily be removed as well).
I will have legally retired in real life and either be 5 feet bellow the surface or relaxing on a nice beach. Mindshields does not prevent brainwashing. If you can flash 'em then kill 'em and rwmove the pesky implant! With Science it is like a 20 second surgery…
Just another reason to remove 'em?
Just like brainwashing when you are told to obey X and they basically tell you to fuck off…
I think it does… It just screams LRP and zero engagement. Also, it seriously wouldn’t be thrown away. You can still brainwash people.
For example. Brainwash the chemist, what are their orders? Give them something they can do! Right then and there. Be it “obey X”. But you have to use them then and there or else it will have been for nothing. Tell him to make a meth bomb and suicide the X person. Shit goea boom, they get revived, chemist gets jailed but show signs through dialogue of not knowing what had happened. Hinting towards brainwashing for the Seccies. Compare this to “obey X” followed by “idfk, go away”.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not giving you all the shit. This is VERY common…
But while I do understand “all heads are valid”, it is kinda shitty to purposefully go for all heads… especially if you do it as soon as they arrive. I think it was the Captain of that round who started sweet talking the HoS in arrivals.
Mindshield instantly cures you. Just interpret your orders literally, or in a different way - stick around with the antag, or work to help them from the backlines. There’s a lot of ways to roleplay being brainwashed. I sometimes repeat parts of my command whispering near other people, to add to that extra drama
Source ? I see reports of people abusing a mechanic (brainwash) to commit murderbone, I don’t see any reports due to the brainwash itself - they could do the same murderbone with different tools just as easy (funny chap diy cult kit)
massive exaggeration of the time it takes to do that surgery, and even then
it’s wild how insanely impossible to fight against you make this out to be. Revolution rounds really weren’t as one-sided as you think they were, whether low pop or high pop.
I said gameplay mechanics. I was saying they’re the same as another working gameplay mechanic, and therefore don’t have any inherent abuse in place and well known counters.
how is that the fault of the brainwash? this is super anecdotal
I’ve literally never dealt with an antag who went “obey me” then proceeded to never give orders. Hell, the few times I did that, I was constantly keeping them close to me and getting them to fight with me.
This is a player issue, not a mechanics issue.
This just sounds straight up worse for RP. Between the brainwashee who will instantly go “hey it’s X who brainwashed me!!” despite supposedly losing memory (which is the same reason so many antags RR since a lot of targets just wake up in cloning blurting out the name of their attacker)
and the “one-use” part which will be measured with… what, death ? the guy has to die for his objective to be complete ? Or are you planning to give them an actual objective wheel or something ?
The only way to make an open ended system like brainwashing “temporary” would be to limit it with a timer, or it’ll just end up losing any potential for roleplay
and you can bet your ass some players will get brainwashed, suddenly go ssd or decide to do something else/purposefully misinterpret their brainwash objective, wait the full timer, wake up going “I WAS BRAINWASHED BY X” or at the very least waste the time of the antag who tried to brainwash them
I actually like that, having that be automated would be cool. That would also discourage “obey X” and encourage direct orders.
So you have to detain every single person who has been brainwashed then? Easier said than done…
Overall. You’re asking for extra work for the admins, something that would be better solved in with mechanics rather than rules and more nuances.
Everyone I played was. I did chemistry then and… I just kept doing chemistry, nothin’ else. Eventually we got the victory screen. lol
Sometimes I did bombs for the revs and handed 'em out like candy.
Quite sure this is already forbidden by our current rules.
You suggested a good solution. Make 'em whisper their orders now and then. Antags wouldn’t want their name to be whispered then and would avoid the “obey X”.
Again, I think this is forbidden by the current rules.
I really like this. Falling asleep would be a good “switch” between the two states, maybe even snoozing off for a few seconds when you are brain washed too?
