Vamp rework balance/feature suggestions.

[Longpipe23]

So, I think that the vampire options are decently good and incredibly well balanced. So, in the famous words of Jumpman Mario, "Letsa go!" 

MINOR CHANGES
200 unit blood cap: I think this is really good. I'm honestly surprised this wasn't implemented earlier. My favourite bit is that they are drainable post clone.

Fire & Space: I think this is really cool, /vg/ had a similar system where the sun would come out and you'd have to duck into closets or coffins to avoid sunlight and you'd gradually build up an immunity and sparkle like a twilight vampire.

Full Power & New Vampiric Vision: Honestly, I'm not too sure why vampires had x-ray to begin with, and I think that this is a good hand-hold, especially when you can essentially just get the x-ray with mesons. I like that full power is now 1000 I think that you could maybe suffice with 800, but It's really not big of an issue. I saw a lot of people complaining that the fact that vampires needed to drain more blood was a bad thing, because more people would be drained and have to wait out medbay; me personally, I believe this complaint is completely without merit especially when you consider how many vampires redtext roundstart.
 

Rejuvenate & Glare: Huge changes IMO, glare behaving like a /tg/ flash was a super obvious decision that I'm surprised I hadn't made when discussing V A M P I R E "balance". Rejuvenate getting stamina healing is a nice touch too. 

 

Code Improvement: Honestly the least sung praises of this update are the code improvements. I'm very happy it's been streamlined for future morons (like yours truly) to be able to read through the moon runes with less difficulty.  

GARGANTUA 

Not much to say here honestly, I am definitely biased seeing as this is my favourite class, but I think it's a little too one-note. Giving the gargantua a little bit more versatility would be a much needed and welcome change in my opinion: perhaps built in insulation, flash resistance would be nice, or some harder to break bones? Perhaps give them stun but not stamina crit immunity? 

HEMOMANCER

Not a fan of this one, just the atmosphere feels off-- I really can't explain it. Blood bender bampire just feels... uninspired? It just feels like the valley girl of vampire options. Balance wise? I think these are fine, I guess. There's nothing I can really complain about. I just think they should be able to make more things with blood. Maybe give them blood walls that can be deconned with buckets, cleaned, or walked through slowly. Maybe give them a spear that they can yote at people. Maybe a bola... blood bola, alliteration, YEAAAH. 

UMBRAE

Umbrae is cool, it's just a better version of old vampire. Not too much to say here. You kind of just made a lame Strahd. I see a lot of people complaining about the speed in darkness for some reason, I'm not too sure why (I am sure why, I DED PLES NERF). There's plenty of shit in game that just gives you the same amount of speed for no detriment without a readily available counter. I think that extinguish should cost a tiny bit of blood, maybe 5, but become free when you hit full power. I think they could use an extra passive ability, not too sure what that'd be... maybe just cold immunity; but then again slime person buff bad. 

[Viz]

I don't think gargantua needs anything. They're already strong if you know what you are doing. I disagree that hemomancer is boring, I think they are very interesting. Yeah blood manipulation could do many more things but we can't have them do all these things or they'll be OP as hell. Umbrae similarly need no buff, and I agree that the speed isn't a big deal. Still not faster than a laser.

[Longpipe23]

2 hours ago, Woje said:

I don't think gargantua needs anything. They're already strong if you know what you are doing. I disagree that hemomancer is boring, I think they are very interesting. Yeah blood manipulation could do many more things but we can't have them do all these things or they'll be OP as hell. Umbrae similarly need no buff, and I agree that the speed isn't a big deal. Still not faster than a laser.

Yeah, this was mostly just me spitballing on the buff side of things; I generally think vampires are in better, if not good, spot. I still do think hemomancer is a twinge boring thematically and think something potentially more interesting could have been done - although that's not to knock the work, which once again I think is very well done. 

[Charliminator]

Gargantua: Overwhelming force now prevents the vampire from being pushed or pulled when it is active. 

Unbrae: cloak of darkness increases the burn damage the user takes when it is active.

[Viz]

I love the Garg thing because if someone wanted to arrest you when you got over 600 blood you can be just like "No! I'm not going! >:(" and then they kill you but it's still very funny.

[MattTheFicus]

So, here I am becoming an "I ded plz nerf" idiot about Umbrae, something I didnt think was an issue the first few times I ran across it. Well, now that people have gotten some time to play the new Vamp, theyre learning how to combine its abilities with other skills.

Hemo is very combat focused, so you dont NEED to steal weapons/arm up/etc etc. You can zap someone with glare, blood claws, and youre done. Worst case they step once and you catch up to them because theyre the same speed as you.

Gargan still doesnt get used that much from what I can see. Maybe its the lack of people wanting to grug smash? No idea. I literally havent seen this one work yet to be honest.

Umbral seems to be the best "synthesis" class for Vampires. Your powers arent great for direct combat, but its all buffs. Very good buffs at that. Ones you get passively for free too. If anything, your "skill" at being a basic antag is compounded exponentially as Umbral compared to a multiplier as Hemo/Gargan.

I am a big hater of feeling the need to lethal the hell out of antags for using their basic kit. Umbral Vampires have now fallen into the "Im going to laser you to death the second I catch you" category now. If you cuff them, they shadowstep then sprint off invisible. If you tase them, they rejuv, step, and sprint off. If step is down, they have a point-and-click teleport.

So that leaves lethaling. And thats not a particularly healthy place to be in my personal opinion. And as much as I dont want to suggest to literally every officer to grab a laser and blast all invisible bloodsuckers, it seems that the "balance" for this vamp is just that: shoot them with burn-y things.

If that's the intended gameplay loop (lethal them and revive after), then I suppose you can ignore this. Im unsure of wha to do to dissuade this method of dealing with vamps, but honestly arming up with an immolator and shooting to kill is really going to be the go-to for dealing with the headache until some better way is shown.

[Sweaterkittens]

I didn't see this mentioned anywhere yet, but currently Umbrae are able to cloak while on fire, and it cloaks the fire as well. I'm assuming this is because it just cloaks their sprite, and the fire is an overlay, so I didn't make a bug report over it.

Since fire gives off light and is the direct counter to vamps (more or less) it seems like they should not be able to safely cloak and extinguish themselves while on fire.

Edited October 28, 2021 by Sweaterkittens
grammar

[Viz]

28 minutes ago, Sweaterkittens said:

I didn't see this mentioned anywhere yet, but currently Umbrae are able to cloak while on fire, and it cloaks the fire as well. I'm assuming this is because it just cloaks their sprite, and the fire is an overlay, so I didn't make a bug report over it.

Since fire gives off light and is the direct counter to vamps (more or less) it seems like they should not be able to safely cloak and extinguish themselves while on fire.

I've heard of this happening from another person. I think Charlie already knows though cause he's been screaming about Umbrae and lighting for the past few days.

[Charliminator]

@Sweaterkittensshould be fixed. getting ignited should also make you auto refresh your cloak so there is no weird delay were you aren't cloaked.