Unathi's robust scales!

[Nayser]

I'd suggest we add 5 or 10% brute ressistance to unathi to support how lore-wise they are predator-warrior-ish species who prefer melee over ranged weapons and happen to have robust bones. Also because scales are far less fragile compared to skin.

If to say antag unathis would somehow become overpowered, (I know there are people out there who would say it) keep in mind, stealthing as antag unathi is very hard because your tail always sticks out and unathis commonly have unique colours  so it's easy to tell who is who.

 

Edited November 16, 2017 by Nayser

[necaladun]

Adding such a bonus with no downsides would be just silly. Their tails sticking out does not counteract this - as many other races have similar problems, and this has no impact on non-stealth antags. 

[Nayser]

7 minutes ago, necaladun said:

Adding such a bonus with no downsides would be just silly. Their tails sticking out does not counteract this - as many other races have similar problems, and this has no impact on non-stealth antags. 

Don't forget this isn't competetive game. Besides, on player against player it wouldn't change much. It would however make difference when fighting big spiders and alike stuff, even then - small difference.

Skrells for instance have their head pockets and there is no downside to it, everyone seems okay with it.

[Dumbdumn5]

Kidan would be the race to look at for more brute resist, due to having natural armor, their major downside being their lack of glasses wearing. Of course, change in character fluff would be different if you were more attached to the Unathi aesthetic. Skrell headpockets drop their items when stunned or knocked down iirc, making it a bit easier to 'counter' while a flat damage resistance isn't so much without another damage weakness to balance it out.

EDIT: Also ,while the game isn't completely competitive, combat vs. players is fairly important, especially when antagonists are concerned, as well as brute being the most common damage type in the game.

[necaladun]

Player vs player, a 10% brute reduction means one is objectively stronger and going to win in a toolbox-vs-toolbox match or the like. After 10 hits, they'll be in crit, but you won't. 

Lore is not justification to make someone that objectively superior. It not being a "competitive" game does not mean we're going to ignore such balance issues - especially when there are so many competitive aspects to the game. Making one race objectively superior in combat would be a terrible move to the overall balance of the game.

Skrell have a few very minor plusses and minuses. Headpockets, but are able to be murdered by ethanol quicker. Minor, flavourful things that have very little impact on combat.

 

[Nayser]

18 minutes ago, necaladun said:

Player vs player, a 10% brute reduction means one is objectively stronger and going to win in a toolbox-vs-toolbox match or the like. After 10 hits, they'll be in crit, but you won't. 

Lore is not justification to make someone that objectively superior. It not being a "competitive" game does not mean we're going to ignore such balance issues - especially when there are so many competitive aspects to the game. Making one race objectively superior in combat would be a terrible move to the overall balance of the game.

Skrell have a few very minor plusses and minuses. Headpockets, but are able to be murdered by ethanol quicker. Minor, flavourful things that have very little impact on combat.

 

Objectively superior is kind of an over reaction. While it's true if both players are identicly good and lucky, unathi one would win. This is an extremely rare case that i have never ever even seen. One player will always be better or worse than the other and less or more lucky. In toolbox scenario - the one to get knocked down loses, not the one who has slight resist to brute damage. And stronger player will always hit more times. I did get into a fight once or twice with kidan and their robust chitin, i practicly didn't even notice it. And thats twice as much brute resist compared to what i suggested. (i did win)

As for balance. There are other races with bonuses and no downsides. Vulps and tajaran are pretty much with nightvision once they get mesons. (I hunt swarmers in maints with flashlight turned off all the time, the advantage is very noticeable) Darkness is very robust if you use it to your advantage. And slime people, i'd argue they are so far the most powerful race. They have a lot of noticable benefits only for not being able to be cloned and cold vulnerability .

Edited November 16, 2017 by Nayser
grammar mistake

[necaladun]

14 minutes ago, Nayser said:

Objectively superior is kind of an over reaction

Not at all. If you had two toolboxes, one did 10 damage, the other did 11 damage, with no other differences, then one is objectively superior. 

If you've never seen two people engage in a toolbox fight to the death, observe more - you'll see it quite regularly. As an admin with attack logs, trust me in that it happens. 

 

Other races having bonuses with no downsides justifies them being nerfed - not giving a strong combat advantage to your preferred race of choice.

[Nayser]

2 minutes ago, necaladun said:

Not at all. If you had two toolboxes, one did 10 damage, the other did 11 damage, with no other differences, then one is objectively superior. 

If you've never seen two people engage in a toolbox fight to the death, observe more - you'll see it quite regularly. As an admin with attack logs, trust me in that it happens. 

 

Other races having bonuses with no downsides justifies them being nerfed - not giving a strong combat advantage to your preferred race of choice.

Or it justifies it to make every race slightly powerful in something making them more unique and interesting to play. If you nerf every race to make them more balanced you do make them less fun.

At the end of the day, ss13 combat isn't about fair fights, one who plays not fairly wins. Agent isn't going to give you an e-sword so you both can fight fairly. Hell, he'll just sleepy pen you and debrain you, giving you no chance.

I would still argue that 11 against 10 damage would make no big difference.

Deciding factor wouldn't be that 1 damage because: unfair player > lucky player > more skilled player > player with slight advantage in stats. And as i said. One player will always be better than other. I have yet to find two players with identical skills and if these would fight, again, lucky one would win rather than the one with 1 bonus damage. This is why this is by far not objectively superior and rather minor.

In a way, if you know you're superior in direct combat compared to your opponent, you're unfair player.

At the end of the day, it's not the damage that generally decides winner, it's the one who stuns first or has stun protection. Either by luck, or being better at clicking and planning.

[Tayswift]

55 minutes ago, Nayser said:

Or it justifies it to make every race slightly powerful in something making them more unique and interesting to play. If you nerf every race to make them more balanced you do make them less fun.

I kinda agree with this but I feel like your argument flies better on a higher RP server. Here, the issue is that if you make anything that is a hint of human+, powergamers may end up picking it just for that slight advantage. So things have to be balanced with that in mind.

[Nayser]

1 hour ago, Tayswift said:

I kinda agree with this but I feel like your argument flies better on a higher RP server. Here, the issue is that if you make anything that is a hint of human+, powergamers may end up picking it just for that slight advantage. So things have to be balanced with that in mind.

If i were to power game, i'd probably play drask only. Fire is easily extinguishable and the internals that heal you sound amazing, main damage from space is cold too so drasks are practicly space proof. I doubt powergamers are big issue on server, even the slime people being a very powerful race not powergamers, i'am yet to find one slime that powergames. Regardles, i always RP as unathi as if i'm hard to hit and superior in strength, i just wanted it to be a tiny bit more than rp.

Also humans could easily get some interesting buff too. You just gotta figure out what you can add.

If you want to tone down powergamers, you look not at races but at science department. Besides, i don't think powergamers picking up slight advantage from certain races is a big deal. It shouldn't be discouraging us. 

Edited November 16, 2017 by Nayser
wrote kidan instead of drask x)

[Tayswift]

Hmm, I think you're right that 5-10% brute resistance probably won't be that bad, but from personal experience pushing through the Skrell headpockets PR, I think people in general are wary of making anything human+. In fact, I think Skrell headpockets probably could've been a little stronger given that shooting a skrell with an ethanol syringe disables them for a long time.

Maybe there's a more flavorful way of implementing scales instead of just a straight up damage resistance buff? Something that's unique and interesting that maybe also has a minor drawback? I think the peeps on Github might like that better.

[Nayser]

25 minutes ago, Tayswift said:

Hmm, I think you're right that 5-10% brute resistance probably won't be that bad, but from personal experience pushing through the Skrell headpockets PR, I think people in general are wary of making anything human+. In fact, I think Skrell headpockets probably could've been a little stronger given that shooting a skrell with an ethanol syringe disables them for a long time.

Maybe there's a more flavorful way of implementing scales instead of just a straight up damage resistance buff? Something that's unique and interesting that maybe also has a minor drawback? I think the peeps on Github might like that better.

I'd honestly would just suggest sturdier bones but i figured it could be hard to implement. If it was up to me, i'd also add slight radiation ressistance to unathi, given they come from planet that suffered nuclear war, would make sense if they adapted.

By the way, i came up with a thing that can be added to humans, they can be made 30% more resisstant to suffocation due to how atmospherics are tweaked for humans first, so they have healthier lungs.  Or they heal and restore blood from food more than other races, since again, human food on human station. Or if you really want humans to shine, give them 3 or 5% stun ressist. Now thats something that could make big difference, but at the same time not likely, if to say both were stunned by flashbang, human would have a clear advantage. If there would be more humans on station because of that change, i say only yes, i would feel a lot more special playing as different race. I actually decided to play as unathi because they were rare, then there was sort of more and more of them until i stoped being special snow flake but i got really attached to my character. :(

Edit: There is still one more idea for unathis i have in mind. Make them less likely to start bleeding or have internal bleed from damage, basicly scales are hard to puncture but they are not that different from skin when it comes to fractures. Although i feel like 5% brute resist is easiest and most reasonable, they are after all giant reptilian predators with robust bones and scales.

Edited November 16, 2017 by Nayser

[Tayswift]

2 minutes ago, Nayser said:

ressistance

Looks like your character is rubbing off on you with the extra s's :P

I don't think humans necessarily need to be buffed. They're pretty good, and people will play them if only for the familiarity, not to mention that people who play any other race will probably freak out.

As for unathi, I think it would be interesting if there was something like skrell headpockets that's flavorful but doesn't give a clear advantage, as opposed to buffing the raw numbers. Skrell headpockets was actually not my idea though...I'm not creative enough to think of something that cool off the top of my head. But I have a feeling that would have more of a chance of making it past Github.

[Nayser]

4 minutes ago, Tayswift said:

Looks like your character is rubbing off on you with the extra s's :P

Yeah i actually often have to look for additional s's in my messages after playing. x)

9 minutes ago, Tayswift said:

Looks like your character is rubbing off on you with the extra s's :P

I don't think humans necessarily need to be buffed. They're pretty good, and people will play them if only for the familiarity, not to mention that people who play any other race will probably freak out.

As for unathi, I think it would be interesting if there was something like skrell headpockets that's flavorful but doesn't give a clear advantage, as opposed to buffing the raw numbers. Skrell headpockets was actually not my idea though...I'm not creative enough to think of something that cool off the top of my head. But I have a feeling that would have more of a chance of making it past Github.

I just came up with a funny strategy for skrells. Keeping banana peels in headpockets, if stuff really falls out of it when you fall down it can be a cool trick up your sleeve against those unwary foes.

Additionaly why i thought giving unathi slight ressistance is fine is because everyone seems okay with kidan being ressistant and voxes with greys being fragile. By the way, grey players are awesome. I'am yet to find a grey i dislike.

But yeah i can understand why merging even that 5% is not gonna work. As i often see, even good ideas that everyone agrees upon don't get merged, no matter how easy to code, from no need to code at all.

[Rumiluntti]

pls buff my favorite race 4noraisin thread # 730

Damage resistance trait is already on bugs so it wouldn't even make them unique in any way.

What i would like to see is something about being cold blooded, cold causes heart attacks while being warm gives something useful-ish.

[Nayser]

6 minutes ago, Rumiluntti said:

pls buff my favorite race 4noraisin thread # 730

Damage resistance trait is already on bugs so it wouldn't even make them unique in any way.

What i would like to see is something about being cold blooded, cold causes heart attacks while being warm gives something useful-ish.

Never said small damage resist would make unathis unique. You may have mistaken me with Tayswift suggesting if we perhaps could come up with something unique. I did however say it would make sense and make them closer to their lore gameplay wise.

I'm not really big on biology but how being cold blooded would cause heart attacks when cold? In any case, being killed by an ice cup is kinda overkill for something useful-ish.

I feel like some people would freak out a lot if it was told that unathis did get small damage ressistance when in reality they wouldn't. Would be an interesting social experiment.

 

[Rumiluntti]

Buffing stuff randomly because of lore? Yeah, no thanks.

There's only limited amounts of effects in the game and you already go slower when cold. Cold blooded animal's metabolism shuts down when cold after all. 
Maybe drowsiness at first, then confusion and if you really don't do anything about it, heart attack.

Why in the hell would we need to do a social experiment by lying about making unnecessary buff to something. wat.

[TheDemonic]

is there a way to put a difference between sharp and blunt items? because taking more damage from sharp weapons might be a good trade off so sure a toolbox fight would be slightly more in his favor but a knife fight they would be slighting at a disadvantage.

[bryanayalalugo]

27 minutes ago, TheDemonic said:

so sure a toolbox fight would be slightly more in his favor but a knife fight they would be slighting at a disadvantage

Don't bring a toolbox to a knife fight.

It would be rather interesting giving each species different aspects (even disadvantages as @Rumiluntti said). Makes each species unique in their own way (bringing a chance for that sweet, sweet RP) that isn't just a re-skined human sprite.

[Nayser]

1 hour ago, bryanayalalugo said:

Don't bring a toolbox to a knife fight.

It would be rather interesting giving each species different aspects (even disadvantages as @Rumiluntti said). Makes each species unique in their own way (bringing a chance for that sweet, sweet RP) that isn't just a re-skined human sprite.

I understand why even a slight buff won't work, a lot of people just get upset thinking about it. Although i see some major weaknesses being suggested are okay-ish for others.

I feel like this is the opposite of:

19 hours ago, Rumiluntti said:

pls buff my favorite race 4noraisin thread # 730

But not in a slight way. Major weaknesses don't really bring more rp, good example is IPc's, the rp starts with clicking the EMP implant and ends with robo poop. Poor robros. :( 

The thing i suggested would actually add more to roleplay, people would be afraid of fist fighting unathis and if they did and won, they'd be like "Hey, i just beat a giant angry lizard, aren't i awesome?" While in reality the human would be only at slight disadvantage. Although commonly when i beat some one in fist fight people already always go "He had claws! Not fair." 

18 hours ago, Rumiluntti said:

There's only limited amounts of effects in the game and you already go slower when cold. Cold blooded animal's metabolism shuts down when cold after all. 
Maybe drowsiness at first, then confusion and if you really don't do anything about it, heart attack.

Unathis are already suffering quite a bit from cold space; frost oil; basilisks. Heart attacks and etc would be difficult to code and unnecessary, you already often see unathis wearing winter coats and talking about how they wish it was a bit warmer on station. Pushing the cold weakness further would only frustrate unathi players.

19 hours ago, Rumiluntti said:

Why in the hell would we need to do a social experiment by lying about making unnecessary buff to something. wat.

We don't, no one suggested we do.

Anyways... I feel like this is pointless to discuss further. People are really afraid of being at disadvantage even if slight. Although i had the idea "why not add small ressistance" because i saw how many other races have some awesome benefits with counterable or single weaknesses. Apparently i had the wrong idea.

[Rumiluntti]

Buffing stuff because lore suggests something that can be translated into game mechanics is not something that should be done without a drawback.
"Lore said so" is not an argument in race balance.

5 hours ago, Nayser said:

Heart attacks and etc would be difficult to code and unnecessary,

Already in the code.
 

[ExGame]

Once you figure out a way to remove all the powergamers from the server you can think about putting certain players at a disadvantage (for RP/Lore reasons whatsoever). Otherwise it won't work.