Get rid of thermals. [Completed]

[Phillers]

Okay okay, I know a lot of you just read that title and are currently thinking : 

"Phill what the absolute fuck are you thinking"

And, trust me, I understand those thoughts. Just bear with me here and follow along with what I have to say.

So, you read the title. I want to get rid of all the rules regarding Thermals, namely : 

Now, there are 3 mechanical/rule changes that I believe should go alongside this.

1. You can shoot people who are cloaked.
2. All classes capable of cloaking get a slight HP/Armour nerf, to accomodate the now increased difficulty of killing them.
3. SCP-966 has it's breach timer increased.

Now, how will this improve the server? 
Well for starters, it will make playing as a cloaking class a hell of a lot more enjoyable. You will actually be able to be "Sneaky" instead of a single MTF/CI spotting you, calling you out, activating thermals and then keeping them on for the next hour while they hunt you down. Because let's be fair here, while the rules say that you have to call of thermals as soon as the reason for them being on is handled, in practice that is simply never done. This results in that the second a cloaker is spotted, they will have to decloak untill someone forgets to report them because "Oh hey we put on thermals 20 minutes ago and didn't turn them off yet!" 

Alongside this, it will make hunting cloakers more enjoyable. Currently, when MTF/CI knows that a cloaker is around them they have to first type out the thermals message before they can do anything. If you get rid of thermals, that problem is null and void. You think there's a cloaker nearby? Okay, spray the room. Search it. Figure out if there really is one or if it was just 079 fucking with the doors. This gives you a lot more usage of tactics made to specifically counter cloakers.

Third major improvement is that it will pretty much make thermals sits a complete thing of the past. No longer will you be forced to argue with people in OOC or be pulled into a staff sit after calling thermals. 

 

And then, downsides. There are a few, ofcourse. The main one is that people will have to get used to the change. Second to that is that friendly fire will be a tadbit more common, but that can be prevented if people start communicating better.

 

Okay, all of that out of the way. Let me take a moment to answer some questions that I am sure will come up in the comments if I don't adress them here.

"How will we get rid of cloakers if we cannot call thermals?"
Okay this one is the easiest to answer, namely : You shoot them. In the face. Prefferably with an LMG, or from multiple people to make your life a bit easier. Cloakers might be invisible, but they sure as hell are not invincible to a FMJ round going through their skulls.
So, you think there's a cloaker somewhere in a room? Layer it with bullets. Just light that room up. If the cloaker is lucky, they can dodge the shots. Otherwise, their dead. If they can escape, that's unfortunate for the hunter, but fortunate for the cloaker. It'll make playing as a cloaker much more enjoyable because you can actually try to find nooks and corners to hide in, instead of just having thermals be called and being forced to fight. It enables escape as a valueable option.

"But what about metagame!?"
Question in return : How? Metagame used to be a big issue back in the day regarding cloakers because you could see a level floating above people's heads all the time. That feature has since been removed, the only way I can think of right now to metagame is checking the tab menu to see if there is a cloaker on and acting in response to that (Which, BTW, already happens currently.) But with this rulechange, the only way to metagame in such fashion is to light up every room you come across. Fancy chap who is willing to burn 2 mags of ammo on every room they enter in the site. 

"But it has always been this way, why change it now?"
Because I have faith that this will be an improvement to how it is done now. If we never changed anything to the server rules we would still be stuck with the rules from when the server was founded. And I know, trust me, that this is a major change. But I really think it will be a change for the better.

"What if the cloakers are on surface, or some other large area?"
Then it will be a lot harder to kill them. A cloaker caught in a tight confines area like LCZ will be easily dispatched, while a cloaker in D-Block, Medbay, or any other large area with lots of obstacles will be a lot harder to catch. I think this is not a downside in any shape, it creates versatile scenario's requiring different tactics. There is no longer a single tactic, namely : Calling thermals.

"What about 966?"
I propose that thermals will remain a thing when it comes to checking 966's CC, but ONLY for checking it's CC. For all other purposes, the same rules will apply to 966 as they do to any other cloakers. This will make 966 a lot more enjoyable to play as 966's will actually be a threath around the facility, and them breaching is not resolved within 5 minutes but will probably be a lingering danger around the site for a while.

"So, how exactly will this change situations?"
I'm just going to paint a scenario here.

CURRENT: 
Imagine, you are a CI Infiltrator, currently stalking through the facility. You are being carefull to open/close doors with nobody nearby, but sadly you eventually fail and a MTF operative sees a door open infront of him, with nobody behind him. MTF Calls thermals instantly, you are forced to decloak in the middle of LCZ, and are pretty much dead within a minute because of the sheer overwhelming force that you are faced with. There is no chance to escape, you are pretty much forced to fight untill you are dead.

CHANGED : 
Imagine that you are an MTF operative patrolling HCZ. You see a door open infront of you, with nobody else nearby. This causes you some concern, as it means a infiltrator may be nearby. First thing you do is pull your rifle off safety and layer shots into the area surrounding that door. Your shots didn't hit anything, but you can't be sure that the cloaker is not still around. Maybe they ran off already, or maybe they were just standing right around the corner and your shots missed their target. You have to quickly call out that there is an infiltrator, and get some backup here to help you out. Currently, you are starting to methodically spray bullets into area's where you think the cloaker may be hiding, but as time drags on it becomes harder and harder to be sure if the cloaker is still even present. It's hard to determine if he is currently in the same room as you, or already halfway across the site. The cloaker escaped, for now. But you know that he is in HCZ. The hunt is on.

 

Okay, my storytelling may certainly be lacking, but I hope that it somewhat sets the scene for what you can expect with this change. I believe that the secondary scenario is significantly more enjoyable for both parties involved. It makes infiltrators infiltrators again, instead of just combatants that have a gimmick that is usefull for all but 9 seconds.

I would love to hear everyone's opinions on this in the comments, and am more then willing to answer any questions people might have.
Apologies for spelling mistakes in advance, there will probably be a few in this hunk of text I just made.
Also : Actual format, because... yea.

What are you suggesting? -  Getting rid of thermals.

How would this change better the server? - More enjoyable RP surrounding cloakers.

Are there any disadvantages of making this change to the server? If so, explain. - Take time to get accustomed, might bring along some friendly fire.

Who would this change mostly benefit? - Cloakers, MTF, CI, 966 players.

Please link any workshop content, screenshots, or anything that you think may be helpful to those who view this suggestion - N/A

 

[Sixx]

If I'm understanding this right, in order to kill a cloaker now you would have to just shoot a shit ton of bullets in an area you think there's a cloaked person/SCP instead of being able to advert thermals?

Edited November 8, 2021 by Sixx

[Nydekore]

Hmm, no official stance yet, it is interesting conceptually but I do have one problem with it that I don’t know could be worked around.

 

That being the Dolos mech. Regardless of if it’s health is decreased, it’s also got a teleport SWEP which makes it crazy elusive and hard to kill. It’s also got a one-hit SWEP which is already crazy hard to play around. I think this mech would need some major reworking or face removal all together without thermals to balance it out, if CI were down to do that I’d say go for it but otherwise it’s not gonna be pretty

Oh, also it’d be impossible to track down 966’s who just afk in corners when MTF know they’re breached. It’s happened before (it was FailRP, they didn’t uncloak) and it took us forever to find them. We’d need to find an answer to that issue

[Phillers]

4 minutes ago, Sixx said:

If I'm understanding this right, in order to kill a cloaker now you would have to just shoot a shit ton of bullets in an area you think there's a cloaked person/SCP instead of being able to advert thermals?

In short : Yes. 

 

4 minutes ago, Nydekore said:

Dolos mech

I'm going to be entirely fair with you, I forgot about the dolos. Best situation I think would be to just nerf it's health/armour. I think this would definetely make the dolos a more formiddable threath to MTF though.
 

5 minutes ago, Nydekore said:

Oh, also it’d be impossible to track down 966’s who just afk in corners when MTF know they’re breached. It’s happened before (it was FailRP, they didn’t uncloak) and it took us forever to find them. We’d need to find an answer to that issue

I think the way that you solve this problem is the same way it is fixed currently : You have to call staff if you think they are AFK somewhere. 
Outside of this, I think it's fair to lower the 966 slots to 2, as this would be a quite significant buff to them.

[Sixx]

+/-Support 

I think this concept could work however I just think it's going to be ALOT less enjoyable to fight cloakers, also this change would make 966 and Dolos kinda OP, If a nerf for the jobs would be confirmed in light of this change I might be able to +Support. Idk, with some more work on this suggestion it would be pretty nice. 

[R̦̺̐ͫő̼̺͊c̘k̄]

+ support

 

As someone who has played on servers that use this suggested system I can say with full confidence that it is a lot more fun for the cloaked person, and a lot more fear inducing for whomever is hunting them.

[Sprink]

39 minutes ago, Sixx said:

+/-Support 

I think this concept could work however I just think it's going to be ALOT less enjoyable to fight cloakers, also this change would make 966 and Dolos kinda OP, If a nerf for the jobs would be confirmed in light of this change I might be able to +Support. Idk, with some more work on this suggestion it would be pretty nice. 

 

[Some Weeb]

27 minutes ago, R̦̺̐ͫő̼̺͊c̘k̄ said:

+ support

 

As someone who has played on servers that use this suggested system I can say with full confidence that it is a lot more fun for the cloaked person, and a lot more fear inducing for whomever is hunting them.

Fr real I just lock all the doors down get 2 heavies and watch the room goto shit. 

[Its Buck]

I feel that if this were to be accepted then the addition of a thermals SWEP could be added so you could still see cloaked people without all the adverts 

[Catalyst]

+SUPPORT 

While i do believe this would be interesting to implement, this would be a huge server update that changes a lot of things especially with cloaker combat, because at this point almost every combatant branch has a cloaking unit.

What i would like to see implemented is if this change were to occur, completely change the cloak to be semi transparent and based upon movement, similar to the effects of SCP 2191 or similar to another game such as halo or planetside 2.

If both of these changes were implemented i feel as if it would make stealth units more interesting in general, their cloaking devices much more suited for slow methodical movement to support flanking in combat instead of the current system which really adds confusion and frustration from both sides with adverts and meta-game and the such

I'm interested to see what other people think of this change, i feel that stealth units are undervalue'd and could use some changes to make them more interactive and most importantly, more fun.

[Ashe Fox]

+/- support

Honestly I don't know, it seems like a really cool idea on paper, I've always thought thermals revealing every cloaked person to everyone was really stupid, but at the same time I don't know if there is any good alternative, so really idk yet.

 

I may change my response if anyone makes any good points in the following comments.

[Grеg]

Honestly this could be good.
+Support for a trial period of around a week. 

If it works keep it if it doesn’t then get rid of it. 

[ripjaw56789]

-support

Simple addition: Just edit the rules to state thermals disable after 3-5 minutes without a readvert, and boom. Cloaking jobs are actually useful again, OR, just get people on cloaking jobs that know what they are doing (examples being: I have had pathfinders quite litterally FOLLOW CI RAIDS while giving out intel during codes orange and lower without ever getting called out) 

[Phillers]

15 minutes ago, ripjaw56789 said:

OR, just get people on cloaking jobs that know what they are doing (examples being: I have had pathfinders quite litterally FOLLOW CI RAIDS while giving out intel during codes orange and lower without ever getting called out) 

I appreciate your input, however I feel the need to re-iterate my point that this suggestion is related to what happens when people are called out, not what happens before that. Besides that, I believe that those few pathfinders that pulls that off are the outliers, rather then the norm.

[Loaff]

+support 

This is a very well written and fleshed out suggestion, and I think it would make invisible classes way more fun to play. 

And if fighting them is harder and less enjoyable because of it? So be it. Of course the side fighting the buffed class is going to be less than happy with the buff of said class. Only difference here is that both MTF and CI, the two main combatants, both have cloaking jobs.

[Veesus]

+/- support

I personally support an actual implementation of thermals as a game mechanic instead of outright removal. Like a button that can be bound to turn on thermals, which reveals cloaked players only to the person with thermals on. To balance this people with thermals on would gain some kind of slight debuff like a lower movement speed, and the thermals would have some kind of time limit of about a minute per activation and a slight cooldown after deactivation to prevent spamming. In return for these limitations, you would no longer need a reason to flip them on. This would lead to a much more tactical and calculated use for thermals, with mtf needing to coordinate with each other on when to turn on thermals.

And before you say it, this is not very difficult to implement, relatively speaking.

[Phillers]

6 minutes ago, Veesus said:

+/- support

I personally support an actual implementation of thermals as a game mechanic instead of outright removal. Like a button that can be bound to turn on thermals, which reveals cloaked players only to the person with thermals on. To balance this people with thermals on would gain some kind of slight debuff like a lower movement speed, and the thermals would have some kind of time limit of about a minute per activation and a slight cooldown after deactivation to prevent spamming. In return for these limitations, you would no longer need a reason to flip them on. This would lead to a much more tactical and calculated use for thermals, with mtf needing to coordinate with each other on when to turn on thermals.

And before you say it, this is not very difficult to implement, relatively speaking.

I'd like this idea, but I think it would make it a little bit *too* easy, unless the cooldown is really long.

[Veesus]

6 minutes ago, Phillers said:

I'd like this idea, but I think it would make it a little bit *too* easy, unless the cooldown is really long.

The cooldown would be about equal to the max time the thermals could be on. So pretty restrictive.

[Right Twix Bar]

Like Phill has said, a nerf to the cloaking jobs would be required. I honestly feel something like 150 | 50 would be the max for normal cloaking jobs. Two exceptions being 966, who should probably have something like 250 - 400 health, and Dolos, which should have something like 200 - 300 | 50 - 100 (because of the teleport and insta-kill). 

Overall, this would make cloaking jobs much more interesting.
And add the possibility for a TF2 Spy type job

+Support

[Veesus]

Also, on the topic of mechanically based solutions: a way to counterbalance the removal of thermals would be to implement something similar to how team fortress 2s cloak works. When the cloaker bumps into a player or gets damaged they would become partially visible for a fraction of a second. This would make it easier to secure a kill on cloakers even without thermals, once you do manage to pin them down.

[OWNED]

49 minutes ago, Right Twix Bar said:

Like Phill has said, a nerf to the cloaking jobs would be required. I honestly feel something like 150 | 50 would be the max for normal cloaking jobs. Two exceptions being 966, who should probably have something like 250 - 400 health, and Dolos, which should have something like 200 - 300 | 50 - 100 (because of the teleport and insta-kill). 

Overall, this would make cloaking jobs much more interesting.
And add the possibility for a TF2 Spy type job

+Support

 

[Avalon Levi]

13 hours ago, Sixx said:

+/-Support 

I think this concept could work however I just think it's going to be ALOT less enjoyable to fight cloakers, also this change would make 966 and Dolos kinda OP, If a nerf for the jobs would be confirmed in light of this change I might be able to +Support. Idk, with some more work on this suggestion it would be pretty nice. 

^

[The Apple]

9 hours ago, Catalyst said:

+SUPPORT 

While i do believe this would be interesting to implement, this would be a huge server update that changes a lot of things especially with cloaker combat, because at this point almost every combatant branch has a cloaking unit.

What i would like to see implemented is if this change were to occur, completely change the cloak to be semi transparent and based upon movement, similar to the effects of SCP 2191 or similar to another game such as halo or planetside 2.

If both of these changes were implemented i feel as if it would make stealth units more interesting in general, their cloaking devices much more suited for slow methodical movement to support flanking in combat instead of the current system which really adds confusion and frustration from both sides with adverts and meta-game and the such

I'm interested to see what other people think of this change, i feel that stealth units are undervalue'd and could use some changes to make them more interactive and most importantly, more fun.

 

[GLaDOS]

5 hours ago, Right Twix Bar said:

Like Phill has said, a nerf to the cloaking jobs would be required. I honestly feel something like 150 | 50 would be the max for normal cloaking jobs. Two exceptions being 966, who should probably have something like 250 - 400 health, and Dolos, which should have something like 200 - 300 | 50 - 100 (because of the teleport and insta-kill). 

Overall, this would make cloaking jobs much more interesting.
And add the possibility for a TF2 Spy type job

+Support

 

[Coltable]

@Igneous Thoughts?