[NicoDeimos] R3dtaile - Note appeal for powergaming

[Redtail]

I would like to point out (copied from the tg wiki since ours is incomplete):

Heart: Instead of a normal heart, Nightmares have a "Heart of Darkness". When implanted into a host, it reshapes one of the host's arms into a light eater permanent armblade. It has the ability to revive its host from the dead if the body is shrouded in darkness. The mutant human (no matter how menacing that armblade may be) is still a member of the crew, and therefore not an antagonist.

A no-drop weapon as strong as an armblade that can revive the user from death(?). I wasn't aware of that secondary effect unless Citadel's version might have been nerfed.

Eyes: Instead of a normal pair of eyes, Nightmares have "Burning red eyes" When implanted into a host, they can see perfectly in darkness

Night vision that doesn't take up the glasses slot allowing for use of other gear in combination.

These are clear mechanical advantages that were taken so one person could just have them.
Yes we have been cracking down on security using traitor gear outside of circumstantial reasons and I stand by including organs under similar scrutiny since they offer benefits all the same. No this isn't the most egregious case of power gaming, however I still feel the note is perfectly valid as it's simply that: a note of the behavior for future reference where the behavior was gathering antag organs for oneself to use for little to no cause.

Just as well the comparison to the equipment that can be researched and built is flawed. Those usually require the work and cooperation of multiple departments. Regarding the organs it only took the cooperation of an underling to implant them. I would also like to reiterate my stance against the idea of antag gear and organs being considered "trophies" for the good guys to win for beating them. That sort of mindset serves to encourage validhunting.

It's not even a case of "no fun allowed ever" it's literally just "hey I noticed you did this thing you had no reason to do, don't make a habit of it."

It's not as strong as an armblade like I said in the initial appeal. I've never heard of the revive from death so that'd require testing, I know nightmares heal in the darkness, but I don't think people od if they have the heart in them. And I still stand against the note, because I'd happily use the organs again because of the aesthetic, and stand by that the organs just aren't great, or powerful enough to warrant being considered powergaming.
Yep tested it just now. You don't heal in the dark.

[Redtail]

I dont think this note should be edited or removed as it is factual information, should it not happen again it wont be an issue just like alot of the notes we have on players. I wish I could delete some of my old notes just for they are so old but they stay there. Eyes and the heart give an advantage, Xeno organs minus the spit and egg layer are normally meme'd sure but thats a bit different. A no drop weapon and free night vision is a bit different. Chase, we have to be a better example when playing, I know I have noted Kevin and hes improved since then for his own kind of power gaming. This is just a note, lets move on and show that you aren't doing that anyways anymore so its moot.

A no-drop crappy weapon that I don't use because lethal force is rarely useful. Night vision that's easily replicable, and it's not 'free'. requires the nightmare to be dead and someone to implant the eyes. I'd love to move on, just waiting for a headmin to decide. But this is not powergaming, at all.

[ForrestWick]

If I can interject, I was a player during the round in question and have noticed a lot of important information is left out of this thread in regards to the situation. If any of this has been mentioned and I just missed it, I apologize for redundancy.

The round mode was Blood Cult, and the cult got called out incredibly early because one of the cultists tried to ERP bait Thomas. There was also no chaplain in the round which ended up resulting in the starting cultists being killed. More on that later.

The situation went relatively ok for security and crew. After a while, things started to quiet down and return to normal. A nightmare spawned in and this is where it got complicated. At first, the nightmare was hunted a bit but eventually told the crew and sec that it was just wanting to be peaceful. Chase gave the nightmare a very specific area of maint to turn into a home for itself and left it at that.

The nightmare eventually decided to leave it's designated zone and went into (if I remember right) RND where it died from light exposure. Because it violated the terms Chase had given it, she had the organs harvested and implanted into her and the body destroyed.

1. The nightmare was not hunted down for it's organs. It was given a safe zone on the condition it was not to leave that zone. It left and ended up dying by its own hand.
2. Chase never actively hunted the nightmare once the safe zone was established.
3. The round was blood cult, a mode that can snowball incredibly out of control with very little effort. Despite Chase and her sec team hunting the cult to extinction, we had no actual way to know that they were fully gone until the EOR screen. With a confirmed threat of that level and the fact there was no way to tell if there were any cultists left, having the organs is justified.
4. The light eater armblade is severely weaker than a changeling armblade, and even does less damage than a stunbaton on harm intent if I remember right. The light eater does nothing but smash lights in one hit. Having it sacrifices an arm you can never get back without surgery and can even cause you to be murdered and cremated because some people think light eater = changeling
5. The other nightmare organ were the burning eyes, which are infinite night vision. NVG are incredibly low on the tech tree and tyoiclaly appear 26-40 minutes into the round. They also come with the drawback of flashes effecting you even worse than normal, even with sunglasses or welding helmets on. Security can just print NVG sechuds through their lathe, so saying the permanent night vision is power gaming honestly makes no sense because then we can say normal NVGs are power gaming.
6. Nightmares are a rare spawn and usually when people take their organs its more for a laugh than anything else. Most of the time I see people with the light eater its simply because it looks cool because it does pitiful damage.

Overall, if anything, Chase was gimping himself more than anything. Calling this powergaming is ridiculous. Leaving a note for it is even worse.

[NicoDeimos]

text

Having had a chance to test the items myself I found the light eater did 18.5 brute damage outside of combat mode and 37 brute damage in combat mode against an idle mob.Even outside of combat mode the damage is slightly better than most available bladed weapons, but in combat mode that kind of damage can three-hit crit an unarmored target. Plus it's sharp which comes with a dismember/disembowel chance. In comparison, harm batonning did 7.5 outside of combat mode and 15 in combat mode. Granted the light eater is also heavier and takes more stamina to swing.

The eyes I was able to test flashes against them with standard sunglasses and sechud sunglasses, in both cases they did not circumvent the flash protection. These were tested at all levels of brightness. So free adjustable nightvision that doesn't affect flash protection and can optionally use other hud glasses for combined mechanical benefit.

Whether or not it's going to be considered powergaming by the head admins, everyone bringing up the argument "they are bad items" are objectively incorrect and are arguing from personal opinion. In contrast, the evidence shows clear mechanical benefits to both items.

It was mentioned that the nightmare wasn't actively hunted down, but that makes the act of grabbing the corpse purely to gain the organs all the worse for it. Rather than it being fought for and earned as others suggested, it was simply used as an opportunity to get organs 'because they are rare'.

As for it being a cult round I considered round type irrelevant since the cult had long been wiped out before the nightmare even spawned. In fact it's even been stated in the note and in this thread that the emergency situation had been dealt with and passed. Yes I recall needing to bwoink you for needlessly carrying a fire ax that round and multiple people were heavily geared up for no reason. The irony is your response to getting bwoinked for it was it was to make a point that admins don't enforce the rules about it consistently while I was in the process of enforcing them.

Your input is somewhat confusing. You are someone who frequently suggests cult shouldn't be considered a round-ending threat and be validhunted early because "it's just 3-4 people with sharp knives". The three starting cultists in this case were caught and executed very early on. But "Cults can snowball incredibly out of control with very little effort" is enough of a reason to gain mechanical advantages just in case?

[SomanBat]

One thing I have noticed in this back and forth is the argument that the organs can't be powergaming because they are "worse".

My question at that point is, why a the Head of Security intentionally gimping themselves? It has been stated by admins that gameplay comes before any form of character style RP for command players, hence the reason for trait blacklists and the like.

So, one of two things has happened. Either HoS took the organs as a straight upgrade per the powergaming note, or HoS took organs which put him at a disadvantage for RP reasons. Both of which aren't very cool in the end.

[BlackMajor]

Well this is a big fence matter aint it.

I'm gonna swing in here with my quick concise two cents on the matter.

The notes existence? Valid. A little out of the ordinary? Yeah, but still valid. The actions described /do/ fall in line with descriptions of power gaming and we have been pushing for more action on cases of unnecessary equipment. My opinion on the matter is that it stays.

The context described in the note, however? Needs some editing to properly describe the context for historical reflection. Then it'll be good with me.

[Redtail]

It's not just marginally out of the ordinary, it's extremely so. Hence what I said in the beginning with myself never seeing something like this happen. I understand behavior changes, but it feels like something that would be more discussed and then established as policy, not have my record blemished over something that up until now, was completely fine. Like there's precedence supporting that this wasn't noteworthy , but if we're going to start ignoring that precedence and establish that nightmare organs are powergaming, then so be it but I don't think it should be left as a note due to the established precedence supporting my decision to use nightmare organs.

That's my only complaint about it at this point really. If that's the direction we're going, so be it, but it's something that should've been discused and established as a baseline, not something that happened as a complete 180 to what precedent had set.

[NicoDeimos]

Note changed in accordance with a head admin's ruling.