Changelings - Traitor 2 Electric Boogaloo

[Rapidvalj]

Changelings since their inception on this server have been, frankly, lacklustre. They don't, unfortunately, bring anything new to the table. Both Vampire, and changeling aren't much more than Traitor in their play styles and objectives, save the fact that instead of "tc" you're awarded some other arbitrary currency to purchase your special abilities with, and since vampire, changeling, and traitor together make up the servers most common antagonists, I feel its important they have some variety. 

I've addressed my ideas to make Vampire interesting here in flattestguitars post on them, though I also have some ideas for changeling, which I'd like to share. 

I'm going to start off by saying I don't have coding experience when it comes to byond, I'm purely speculating through rose tinted glasses on what I think would be interesting and !!FUN!!. Some of this may not be viable in the slightest. At some point I plan to sit down and learn, but that isn't right now. 

Primarily, I think changelings should be a lot more intimidating, which could be achieved in multiple ways. As they are now, changelings are really not that hard to kill, or detect. Most changelings cannot dispose of bodies easily, and can be ended with a few surprise shots, a cuffing and a beheading. As they are though, with changeling rounds having upwards of five seperate changelings on board, all intent on achieving their carbon copy traitor objectives of stealing the same few items or killing a random crewmember, this adds some balance. So to start anywhere with making changelings harder to combat, their number would need to be reduced to possibly one or two a round. It'd also be an interesting way to combat the meta, if they're thrown in randomly to various other roundtypes, alongside their own independent type. I'm sure everyone is sick of the "Its a wizard, so there's nothing else to worry about" or "we have traitors and vampires, so there cant be changelings" sort of thing. 

So, how would I make Changelings harder to kill, while still making it interesting for everyone else, including observers, with such a small number of actual antagonists? Two main ways, in my opinion. Firstly, give the singular changeling access to every ability, instead of a limit of ten points to choose from. The changeling would have access to far more creativity in achieving their objectives, and secondly, make them able to regenerate much faster, and able to survive beheadings. Some of you will have seen the 1982 film 'the thing'. The creature in that accurately represents how I think the changeling should be able to survive attacks. If the changeling is beheaded, his head grows legs and is inhabited by an observer, becoming a separate being. He loses an arm? the arm crawls away, inhabited by an observer. He loses an toe? The toe wriggles along, inhabited by an observer, and so on. Some parts would evidently be a lot harder to deal with than others, and of course the separated bits would be secondary antagonists to the fully regen-able Changeling, but I think a mechanic like this could give observers, especially those dead to the now more powerful antagonist, a lot more from the round, instead of being taken out permanently from its attacks. 

Secondly, one of my main issues is, as I'm sure is noticeable already, the changelings syndicate ties, and their objectives similarity to both vampires and traitors. With a singular, far more powerful changeling, I think it would be more fitting for the changelings objectives to be something alone the lines of "absorb x amount of people" x being a fairly large number, depending on the pop, somewhere from 10 - 20, and simply "escape alive", achievable in multiple ways, not just through round end leaving on the emergency shuttle. I think the changeling, like old wizard, or a hijack traitor, should also have free reign on how they decide to achieve these. They could try and go on a horrific spree of murder, but likely get eliminated, or stealthily absorb an ert member, and quietly make their way to central.

Now one of the glaring issues with these mechanics, is that /if/ the changeling wanted to go for stealth, or a psychological horror feeling, with only one on board, a ton of husked bodies around maint, or a strange sec officer without his implants, it'd be quickly obvious what the threat was, and I'm sure there would quickly be an easy meta method of disposal thought up by the crew. I think this could be combated in two ways. One, require the changeling to turn into a horror form, similar to the horror form seen on goon, to actually absorb someone, causing both a need to temporarily reveal themselves, and a need to swallow the victim whole to absorb, leaving no trace. And two, have implants, including death alarm and mindshield, to be carried across forms, to add to the horror feeling that it could be anyone. 

And lastly, FOR GODS SAKES PORT THE TG CHANGELINGS TENTACLE ARM ALREADY, ITS REALLY BLOODY COOL.

 

Again, I dont know if any of this is viable, and I'm sure plenty enjoy changeling as it is, this is simply me throwing ideas out there to make the antagonist less of a copy of our existing ones. 

[ZN23X]

Ive primarily worked sec for months, dealing with every type of antag countless times. Aside from like...a wizard...or an ascended shadowling...changelings are the most dangerous antag I ever deal with. Stun break. Ability to escape cuffs. Ability to heal and summon weapons and armor on the go. Ability to revive themselves from being dead. AND they can change thier identity so it's not as easy as "so and so is a vampire/traitor" You want them MORE dangerous? Aside from really skilled vampires, I've never seen anything but a changeling fight against multiple members of sec at the same time and win. Changeling rounds are also one of the most challenging for sec because there is so few ways of confirming if they are in fact a changeling. I don't get the "they aren't hard to detect" aside from if you are talking about when they destroying people with powers in the open. Aside from that capturing someone with the IDs of multiple dead crew members there isn't really any "smoking gun" when it comes to changelings. 

Edited April 17, 2017 by ZN23X

[Rapidvalj]

29 minutes ago, ZN23X said:

Ive primarily worked sec for months, dealing with every type of antag countless times. Aside from like...a wizard...or an ascended shadowling...changelings are the most dangerous antag I ever deal with. Stun break. Ability to escape cuffs. Ability to heal and summon weapons and armor on the go. Ability to revive themselves from being dead. AND they can change thier identity so it's not as easy as "so and so is a vampire/traitor" You want them MORE dangerous? Aside from really skilled vampires, I've never seen anything but a changeling fight against multiple members of sec at the same time and win. Changeling rounds are also one of the most challenging for sec because there is so few ways of confirming if they are in fact a changeling. I don't get the "they aren't hard to detect" aside from if you are talking about when they destroying people with powers in the open. Aside from that capturing someone with the IDs of multiple dead crew members there isn't really any "smoking gun" when it comes to changelings. 

As I said, for balance, and to add to the quality of the roundtype, I'd like to see the number of changelings reduced to one if their strength was increased. One far more dangerous antagonist vs 5 medium difficulty antagonists is somewhat equal. In regards to how hard they are to detect, when was the last changeling round you remember where their presence wasn't announced in under half an hour?

[ZN23X]

I can't think of any antag round aside from off station cult where the station isn't aware of thier presence within 30 minutes.

The strength of the antag is based on who is using it. Some lings are nearly unstoppable, some flop. If you reduce the number to 1 that is super buffed (like wizard level strength) but the person controlling it sucks then you'd have 1 really powerful antag that dies quickly  (like a bad wizard). Having multiple lings at least gives more of a chance for there to be a good one.

[Rapidvalj]

1 minute ago, ZN23X said:

I can't think of any antag round aside from off station cult where the station isn't aware of thier presence within 30 minutes.

The strength of the antag is based on who is using it. Some lings are nearly unstoppable, some flop. If you reduce the number to 1 that is super buffed (like wizard level strength) but the person controlling it sucks then you'd have 1 really powerful antag that dies quickly  (like a bad wizard). Having multiple lings at least gives more of a chance for there to be a good one.

This is the primary reason I mentioned the secondary cut-off-parts antagonist.

[shazbot194]

4 minutes ago, ZN23X said:

I can't think of any antag round aside from off station cult where the station isn't aware of thier presence within 30 minutes.

The strength of the antag is based on who is using it. Some lings are nearly unstoppable, some flop. If you reduce the number to 1 that is super buffed (like wizard level strength) but the person controlling it sucks then you'd have 1 really powerful antag that dies quickly  (like a bad wizard). Having multiple lings at least gives more of a chance for there to be a good one.

One way to possibly solve the one changeling dieing super fast is to have them supplemented with other antags, namely traitors, although I wouldn't mind seeing cult vs changeling.

[ZN23X]

Just now, shazbot194 said:

One way to possibly solve the one changeling dieing super fast is to have them supplemented with other antags, namely traitors, although I wouldn't mind seeing cult vs changeling.

I like the idea of a mix of more antags in all rounds to make it less predictable. Give me a round with a vamp, a ling, a cult, a handful of traitors, AND vox raiders. Chaos ensues!

[shazbot194]

Just now, ZN23X said:

I like the idea of a mix of more antags in all rounds to make it less predictable. Give me a round with a vamp, a ling, a cult, a handful of traitors, AND vox raiders. Chaos ensues!

I think if this would happen, I would actually want to see vox raiders/pirates in rotation.

[shazbot194]

Maybe instead of having different game modes and listing them at the start of the round, it would say possible antags and spawn a selection based on population, which would make every round even more unique while making meta-ing even harder. Plus, we could also get non-antag special roles, like maybe a real nuclear inspection team.

Edited April 17, 2017 by shazbot194
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[Rurik]

I think the issue is the vision of a changeling is rather split between stealthy kills and outright open murder. Also there is the question, are we trying to make changelings their own genre of monster, or are we simply going for a replication of The Thing? I find both sides of stealthy kills/terror in co-workers and murderboning to be tempting, as they both have their merits. But If I had to chose, Id like changelings to be molded for head on fights and murderbone, but I know many would dislike that notion.

The idea of the changeling resembling "The Thing" more in all aspects it interesting to think about, even if highly unlikely to ever happen. Imagine quicker revive speed when "dead," ported over horror form (Not sure what code base its from, but I know I saw it!), changeling being able to move about unhindered without a head, all abilities being unlocked from the start, doing away with the whole stealthy DNA steal thingy (So they actually have to kill people to change into their form), and increased damage from being lit aflame (400% increase would do the trick) and so on. Would be a sight to see, for sure.

[Birdtalon]

My issue with a singular, more powerful antagonist is that you just replicate the Wizard scenario where the round becomes fun for only a few people. The main reason I dislike Wizard rounds is because they tend to only be interesting for the Wizard and for Security. Everyone else just has to muddle along until the round ends. I wouldn't want to see a replication here of one lucky person being a strong antagonist and everyone else's round may as well be extended.

Don't get me wrong I would love to play as a super strong changeling and go on a murdering spree and be unstoppable but it's not exactly fair and or interesting for anyone else.

[Rapidvalj]

20 minutes ago, Birdtalon said:

My issue with a singular, more powerful antagonist is that you just replicate the Wizard scenario where the round becomes fun for only a few people. The main reason I dislike Wizard rounds is because they tend to only be interesting for the Wizard and for Security. Everyone else just has to muddle along until the round ends. I wouldn't want to see a replication here of one lucky person being a strong antagonist and everyone else's round may as well be extended.

Don't get me wrong I would love to play as a super strong changeling and go on a murdering spree and be unstoppable but it's not exactly fair and or interesting for anyone else.

Thats precisely why I mentioned the secondary antagonists. To keep the round interesting for everyone else. As well as that, a changeling like I've described wouldn't nearly have similar strength to a full on wizard. Most of a changelings abilities are focused on stealth over brute force.

[Happy Tim]

What abouuut...instead of replacing existing changelings adding the one you've proposed as some sort of Alpha Changeling?

With goals that don't exactly need to agree with the goals of smaller lings or other traitors.

Hell, would've been cool to see the Alpha variants of some other antags too, to spice everything up a bit.

Of course, taken in moderation.  

[Birdtalon]

2 hours ago, Rapidvalj said:

Thats precisely why I mentioned the secondary antagonists. To keep the round interesting for everyone else. As well as that, a changeling like I've described wouldn't nearly have similar strength to a full on wizard. Most of a changelings abilities are focused on stealth over brute force.

I did read that, however it seems conditional on parts being removed from the Changeling and for ghosts to take those places instead of round-start rolling. I would disgaree that Changelings are focused on stealth as well. Changelings have a lot of abilities but very few stealth ones which are useful.

Transform - Bread and butter change your appearance.
Extract DNA Sting - Bread and butter for achieving your objective #1
Digital Camouflage - Stops the AI from tracking you - Massively noticeable 
Mimic Voice - Very niche as whoever you are trying to mimic will tend to notice if it's over the radio. AI can also see through this easily.

The fundamental mechanic behind changelings is their ability to "Change". However unless you kill someone first in order to take at least their ID, there is no way you will get away with Transforming. The way things stand currently, anyone lacking an ID is viewed with suspicion so the core mechanic of changelings is inherently broken by the fact that everyone is suspicious as shit, requiring that you kill the person you wish to impersonate. This makes stealth very difficult indeed as all it takes is one cry for help from your target or a single slip up and your cover is blown.

Compare to abilities which compliment a brute force approach;

Adrenaline Sacs - Anti-stun, obviously useful in our stun-heavy combat
Fleshmend - On demand healing
Arm Blade - Decent but obvious and expensive weapon
Organic Shield - Pretty good with high DNA count
Resonant Shriek/Dissonant Shriek - Amazing AoE stuns/EMP, excellent for combat
Strained Muscles - Good in short bursts
 

There are obviously other abilities I haven't listed which I feel do not fit solidly into either category, Mute Sting for example is powerful across the board. And does anyone even use the armour which slows you down?

I don't mind stealth gameplay I just find that Changeling's ability set, combined with existing meta and suspicion makes stealth nearly impossible.

Edited April 18, 2017 by Birdtalon

[Rurik]

8 hours ago, Birdtalon said:

My issue with a singular, more powerful antagonist is that you just replicate the Wizard scenario where the round becomes fun for only a few people. The main reason I dislike Wizard rounds is because they tend to only be interesting for the Wizard and for Security. Everyone else just has to muddle along until the round ends. I wouldn't want to see a replication here of one lucky person being a strong antagonist and everyone else's round may as well be extended.

Don't get me wrong I would love to play as a super strong changeling and go on a murdering spree and be unstoppable but it's not exactly fair and or interesting for anyone else.

Understandable, especially since I hate wizards for that exact reason.

5 hours ago, Birdtalon said:

I don't mind stealth gameplay I just find that Changeling's ability set, combined with existing meta and suspicion makes stealth nearly impossible.

That's why I think singular more powerful antag would work better then a whole bunch of weak stealthy changelings, as I don't see a feasible way to accomplish the latter. As of the moment changelings are in a limbo between the two, but perhaps that is for the best.