Content Suggestion Job-Based Dispenser Cooldowns

[Emilia Foddg]

What does this suggestion change/add/remove:​

Dispenser items currently have a set cooldown per item, across all roles - If possible, this is asking for the way cooldowns on dispenser items work, to be configurable based on the player's current job:

I'm not sure how best to explain the implementation of my idea here, but if I were to write some example Lua pseudocode that demonstrates my meaning, I'd answer with this:

local exampleItem_clds = {
    'E11' = 450,
    'RSD' = 800,
    'TExpert' = 1,
    'default' = 900
}
-- Could determine via vJobEditor flag?
getMyItemCooldown = function(job)
    return exampleItem_clds[job] or exampleItem_clds['default']
end

Essentially, just make it possible to have a default fallback cooldown and specify cooldowns for specific jobs that apply if the player is on that job. Then when a player dispenses an item, the applicable cooldown begins.
Has something similar been suggested before? If so, why is your suggestion different?:
In the recent past, @Zen suggested a full dispenser rework. It was rejected over concerns of it potentially being too overcomplicated and difficult to implement. While considerably complex, this suggestion is asking for a rework of one specific element of dispensers, not a full dispenser rework with additional and refined features, and to my limited understanding of Lua and the current state of affairs, is probably more feasible and less complicated? I think there's a lot less moving parts to this idea that it's more pursuable.

There was also a few days ago a suggestion from @Dusk asking for dispenser cooldown changes based on regimental rank among other things, which was closed for grouping too many suggestions up into one - The concept of regimental rank-based cooldowns is similar but different to what is being proposed here, which are primarily job-based cooldowns. The two ideas aren't fundamentally incompatible and could reasonably be implemented together, although I would argue that cooldowns for items based on the different departments/regiments that need certain items more than others makes more logical sense than just having blanket cooldown reductions based on if you're on a regimental job and what rank you are in that regiment.

Additionally, dispenser item cooldown changes are a frequent topic for suggestions. As I outline later, this is different in that it doesn't necessarily ask for change to certain item cooldowns, but rather expands how we can adjust item cooldowns in a way that enables future discussion of adjusting item cooldowns to include adjusting cooldowns per job, rather than overall.

Possible Positives of the suggestion (At least 2):​

• Dispenser item cooldowns can be feasibly balanced with finer granularity around the jobs they are most relevant to (Without globally buffing/nerfing the item cooldown for everyone) - i.e. Containment Beams, Scrantons & E-11, Injector guns & AO/Medical/RSD/GOI Jobs, Grenades & Nu7? This may further confer the benefits of increasing the availability of those items to those roles, for example making Containment Beams more available specifically to E-11 could lessen the severity of SCP breaches.
  
  
• May increase appeal of certain roles and their relevant departments/regiments if decreased dispenser cooldowns for their jobs are considered a potential perk of membership.

Possible Negatives of the suggestion:​

• Potentially difficult implementation that requires significant rework of a currently simple system - IMO, the increased flexibility in ability to more finely balance item cooldowns will pay off the difficulty of implementation.
  
  
• Potentially 'gamable' - Causing undesired interactions in which people specifically flag on a job to use its decreased cooldown for an item they want to use on another job; IMO this is pretty difficult to accomplish in at least a lot of F situations - In most cases, the job with the best cooldown for an item could already be present (such as if the sampling SWEP's cooldown was reduced for RSD, then RSD are usually already present for things like sampling). Alternatively, people asking someone else to dispense something for them because the other person has the shorter cooldown (Although maybe this would be considered some form of RP? I don't know, I'm mostly guessing here)

Based on the Positives & Negatives, why should this suggestion be accepted:​

Right off the bat, I'll deal with the question of how you contextualise this IC - You consider the jobs that have the lower cooldowns as essentially having 'higher priority,' sort of the same way that, at least on UK, when AA is authed for an SCP breach, E-11 get priority of AA items. This would reasonably make sense in the context of things like decreased cooldowns on Containment Beams for E-11, as it would make sense for them to have higher priority for item delivery via a dispenser.

There have been many suggestions in the past (and even presently active suggestions) asking for either changes to dispenser items in such a way that:

• The cooldown on an item is asked to be reduced, which would mean every job gets reduced times between dispensing said item - To which, this suggestion proposes an alternate avenue for navigating this topic, allowing for balancing dispenser item availability around the specific jobs that need them, rather than only being able to change their cooldown for everyone across all jobs, which may have undesired consequences on certain situations depending on the item.
  
  
• The clearance on an item is asked to be changed - To which this suggestion is not particularly relevant, but worth noting IMO since the dispenser has the existing functionality to check vKeycards clearance and gate items off that way - I don't think it seems that much of a stretch to ask that dispensers also check vJobEditor flags to determine what the cooldown should be.

or

• As a result of perceived frustration with the unavailability of the item in question via dispensers, it's asked to be added to a certain (or multiple) job's loadout, which would bypass the need to dispense it entirely - To which, this suggestion proposes an alternate avenue for navigating this topic. Loadout suggestions have been made to such a frequency that it is a point on the FAS to try and ensure people put sufficient thought into making loadout suggestions or risk their suggestion being immediately thrown out. This particular point I feel, is a common cause of loadout change suggestions (Elastics on jobs that frequently require elastics more than the dispenser can provide them, same with Scrantons, Containment Beams, etc.) - I think having this direction to take those conversations may provide a workable solve that is satisfactory to the spirit of what Content Team & Staff desire, as well as satisfying players needs in a way that isn't too overpowered.

There was also the point I made about having 'higher priority' to an item in dispensers being considered a potential perk of membership of certain subgroups (E-11 jobs could have reduced cooldowns on Containment Beams, etc.). I think it could be a nice incentive to pursue those roles, especially as some subgroups are sorely lacking incentives to pursue them.

 

[Zen]

Honestly, getting rid of dispenser cooldowns entirely would probably not cause really any balance issues and would basically only be good for everyone. Mild SCP debuff is fine given how strong SCPs are, and otherwise, there's not much change other than stuff like actually being able to have a Field Kit and whatever that's on long cooldowns

 

[Sule Goodman]

+ support

 

[Dusk]

+support
I'll just start giving ideas for other people to make