[quote=“Coolthulhu, post:4, topic:10097”]Yeah, that stunlock could use a rebalance - maybe now it could be reduced to a huge speed hit rather than move cost. That way it would affect faster creatures just as well as it affects the slower ones and wouldn’t completely take away player’s control.
Currently it works like this: for attacking a zapback enemy, you take 2-10 electric damage. Each point of damage from electricity drains an entire turn (more if your speed is below 100) from you, meaning you can potentially spend an entire minute standing there, getting wrecked.
Robot tazer is much weaker against the player - while it deals 5-15 damage, it only drains 1 turn per 4 damage (it doesn’t actually deal electric damage). It can still easily get you stunlocked if you get 2-3 robots zapping you.[/quote]
Losing 10 consecutive turns seems a little much. I think it’s reasonable to take damage from attacking an electrified enemy with a conductive weapon, but to be stunlocked for so long is a little ridiculous.
[quote=“i2amroy, post:5, topic:10097”]Honestly while I feel like it should be toned down, it still feels like that if you have enough robots zapping you at once you should still be basically losing your turn. I mean if you have a handful of people hitting you with tasers simultaneously in real life you aren’t exactly still going to be getting up and walking around, you’re going to be lying on the ground not able to do much (heck, in reality even a single taser will make that happen, since regardless of how strong and quick you are the electricity it delivers is perfectly tuned to disrupt the electricity in your nervous system, meaning that as a human it’s impossible to “resist” a real taser hit). Maybe the answer here is just to give each bot only so many shots with the taser, and make it actually roll to see if it hit or missed you when they shoot it since real life tasters have to be reloaded with new cartridges after every few shots and aren’t just magical auto-hit weapons (right now the only way to dodge it is with the uncanny dodge CBM).
Yes, being stun locked and killed is horrible, but it’s rather realistic too. I wouldn’t expect the player to just be magically granted some extra form of electricity resistance (unless maybe they have a bionic or mutation doing so) just because they are the player.[/quote]
I’d never noticed taking stun damage from Police Bot tasers before. I thought that “The Police Bot shocks you!” just dealt some amount of damage and/or pain. If the stun damage had been more clearly reported (perhaps with text output for each missed turn, e.g. “Your muscles convulse uncontrollably.”) I might have known the potential for stunlock.
I also think that the taser should not auto-hit. Even bullets have to make hit checks and may be deterred by armor. It makes sense for both gameplay and realism purposes that the taser electrodes would not be guaranteed to hit the torso and penetrate armor.
This was a strong character – she had narrowly defeated a Jabberwock about a month or two prior. That was a fun and exciting combat with obvious dangers that required deliberate action. Here, the hazard was not apparent until it was much too late. It’s one thing to spend several turns spending valuable resources, running away, etc. trying to win or escape a tough fight; it’s another to make a single move at full health and have your next opportunity for input be the eulogy prompt. Frustrating instagibs are also a common criticism of milspec turrets, as I understand it.
Anyway, realism or no, stunlock should be used with extreme caution in single-player games with permadeath. Taking away the player’s ability to have inputs to the game often feels unfair, cheap, or frustrating. I would have been glad to die in battle, but here I died instantly due to one fatfinger.
I would suggest any or all of the following: reducing the duration of stun, making the duration of stun more obvious, providing ways to prevent or recover from stun, giving electrified enemies a more distinctive ASCII symbol (perhaps blue highlighting), offering a prompt when attacking an electrified enemy with a conductive weapon, making sure stun durations do not stack.