Degrading CD enjoyment

I’ve felt that CD gameplay has been abysmal for like the past 6 months due to multiple updates and/or regulation changes.

It is not necessarily that CDs are underpowered or don’t get new content, it’s that the fun stuff that exist get removed, made harder for no reason or nerfed to be worthless.

The following aren’t all just as big problems, but all add up. These are just some.
Some other CDs can probably add more “enjoyment degrading” additions or changes made.

Stealth juggernauts
A big one. While it was a bug after all, it made juggernauts actually fun to use and one could argue to fight against as well.
You were no longer just a slow and fat damage sponge. You just had extra health and LMG.
A single combative could have a chance at defeating one unlike a regular juggernaut.
You were no longer slow as a snail, and taking a fight with another juggernaut did not mean that next time you see them you’re 100% dead as you were able to heal IF you survived an encounter with another juggernaut or group of combatives rushing you.
Stealth juggernauts were possible as you were able to purchase other armor after purchasing juggernaut armor which would be overriden by the new armor.
Since the shop GUI update, this has not been possible.

Regular juggernauts are just not to fun to play as nor against.

Caves
A big one. Since the new startup, caves have been infested with combatives 24/7 and generally trying to use them has been so much harder. Escaping in general is much harder.
I myself loved to just goof around after escaping like just trying to kill an SD with fists only or trying to hide in plain sight, but because escaping has been made harder there is no point in goofing and you have to take everything seriously.

There are times where SD and MTF completely lockdown the caves and GL, stopping CDs from escaping at all. These are times when the game is at it’s worst because a CD cannot do anything.

The only combatives having any access to any of the caves should strictly only be SRU and MTF, with SRU requiring permissions or to have seen a CD inside. Like pre-shutdown.
Additionally, the manhole should be moved to more cover and harder to guard location (such as in the small area between the CB gates and doors, behind the fence. Or in middle of the courtyard.)
Base SD had also had permissions to enter manholes occasionally which was just ridiculous.
I’ve already said this before: Escaping omicron should be the easy part, getting into CR or Eps should be the hard part.

SCP-207
207 was very useful SCP before it got reworked. Cool you get more max speed, but you are guaranteed to die. I’m yet to see a CD use 207 who isn’t a jugg or in other ways have extra health.
207 is simply unusable. You can’t use 500 because it’s not good enough; it doesn’t remove the effects nor does it heal you enough.
207’s effects were additionally made temporary, making it even worse even if you do have good amount of health or somehow got good passive healing.
The only time 207 has been remotely useful was with stealth juggernauts as you were able to keep the health and use 500 to periodically heal yourself up.

Now 207 is only used for heists or by clueless CDs.

Box placement
Before Unix reworked the box system, you were able to place boxes anywhere, not just tables. This was such a good feature, but was left out or broken and never fixed after the rework.
While sure, it wasn’t that fun or balanced for combatives/ScD as it was, it wouldn’t have had to be exactly like that. Suggestions for solving issue like that was already brought up couple times.
Not having this feature severely limits where CDs can hide boxes.

Boxes on ammo tables
While once again a bug after all, this was another thing. After the ability to place boxes on ammo tables, the number of hiding spots was cut down making hiding them more difficult because there’s less places to check.

Isolation rooms access
CDs lost their access to the isolation rooms. Why??? Just another possible hiding spot made inaccessible.

Gold 914
Not entirely sure at what point it was removed (after shutdown pretty sure?) the gold effect of 914 (very fine) was removed and has never been brought back.
Gold effect used to give you ~190 health, +8(?) speed and upgraded your weapon (G18 to P90) but have a chance to kill you.
afaik nobody complained about this.

Car hijacking
Another big one. After vehicles received the small parking update which meant that when you park your car (shift while stopped) the car is locked and won’t despawn for 30 minutes.
Another feature added was that the vehicles will immediately despawn if they are in spawning zones and are not driven.

These 2 changes made stealing vehicles much harder and just made another fun thing harder to do. No longer can you wait around a corner to strike when someone leaves their car because it will either despawn immediately or its locked.

Permalockdowns during Red heron
A big one. The most excruciating thing a CD can experience; Red Heron.
Protocol: do nothing for an hour.
This probably makes up 50% of the things that make CD gameplay unenjoyable.
There is no way to fight it back, there is no alternatives, you just sit there and wait.

This is made even worse when Red Heron is lifted but the lockdown isn’t. Just few days ago (096 breach?), CB was kept under lockdown for about 20 minutes after Red Heron was called off. This should not be possible at all.

sleep/lockup
Sleep and lockup have been pure annoyance to CDs since forever. There is no point in these 2.
“But it helps SCing!” You got lockdowns for that too. Do that when you need to. You aren’t SCing anyone when there are no DFSCs during lockup/sleep.
Until sleep and lockup are given actual purpose, they should not be enforced/exist at all.

CR access
While I can understand the reason which the CR doors were made hack only, it is another thing that downgrades CD gameplay. Especially the most recent one which made the intersection door unhackable (Why??? What was the point???)

100% Agree with this, CD gameplay has been getting neglected for a very long time.

gold 914 was removed by the 914 rework update
it wasn’t really “removed” removed, but just not implemented in the rework system
914 rework basically gave 914 an animation, allowed you to use it multiple times, and made it so you can upgrade guns and items into it (more than once)

the loss of gold wasn’t really an intentional removal as far as i know

overall though, good post ig

I’m in half agreement and I’ll address just the stuff I agree with:

CR access

I cannot agree anymore on why this is so obnoxious on heist gameplay. A good majority of heists fail at the beginning which is attempting to get the boxes because you are always on a time crutch at the Research Wing and with making every door inside the box rooms “hack-only,” not only does it make the game more “pay-2-play” oriented but also destroys the pacing in which you can collect boxes successfully when you have to hack through 3 doors now instead of 1 and utilizing your keycard in the room between both box rooms (since access is now completely removed) to get faster access to more boxes in the back. That’s where the majority of boxes generally go when they are retrieved, and It’s egregious because It’s done on purpose by combatives/ScD to exploit a measure for more time stalling.

Car hijacking

Yeah, this one is flat out ridiculous because now F2P CDs cannot drive cars period unless they have the hacking device, which Isn’t even implemented as a feature right now. With an armed humvee, battle-tank, or transporting truck (meant for transporting Class D subjects), I can understand having the hacking device implemented, but vehicles such as ATVs, Jeeps, MD/MP/MTF cars should remain untouched. Though I’ll be honest the cars mechanically are no longer fun using with all the wobbly cameras movement, slow startups, and even “drifting” which I sincerely do not care for.

SCP-207

This SCP is only effective if you are a juggernaut which is a terrible design choice. “Guaranteed slow death” just for extra speed renders this SCP (which was suppose to be one of the better boxes) a more useless item. And while the argument can be made that it overshadowed SCP-294, this is simply not the case given that people STILL went to SCP-294 for more speed because SCP-207 did not grant the max amount of speed you could receive as the stacking effect was only 2x whereas 294 is 3x. Believe it or not many people want max speed so 294 was there alternative.

“Guaranteed slow death” just for extra speed renders this SCP (which was suppose to be one of the better boxes) a more useless item.

it’s not a guaranteed death, as the effect will go away after a good bit of time
although it takes a good while

went to SCP-294 for more speed because SCP-207 did not grant the max amount of speed you could receive as the stacking effect was only 2x whereas 294 is 3x. Believe it or not many people want max speed so 294 was there alternative.

207 does get you the max amount of speed/more speed than 294, just in a weird way
you have to like take it twice to get to that speed, and it takes a bit for it to accelerate up to that point
and i’m not sure how long it keeps you at max speed
you can also use 294 drinks with 207, and it will start the 207 acceleration process over again, and i don’t think it gives you any more speed, so it’s usually just kinda useless

I am not even a CD and I agree with this. I think even ScD could in some ways benefit from this as it would give CD more to do which could decrease the amount event disruption.

Isn’t it supposed to be like that?

No??? That’s a horrible design.