Morph Buff ?

[AyyJayy]

Morph is a really unique and interesting antagonist that never really sees play, and when it inevitably does it dies really quickly.
Not only is it really slow and unable to move around at all, the morphed objects are super easy to spot if they need to manuever to leave at all, since the slow pace is also attached to the objects. 

The goal of reproduction requires a LOT of consumption, which makes it really hard for another morph to even come into creation.

 

I feel, as someone without any balancing experience in SS13 so take care, that a 'lurching' movement might be more fitting for them? So they can only move so fast, but the movement is quick. Which would make it hopefully harder to notice them?

 

Something really cool I see on some other servers is morphs being able to absorb and eat items, could it not be a possibility that items give very small amounts of 'points', organics give a lot, and then increase the reproduction cost a lot so it evens out a bit with the new possiblity of gaining resources?

[lewc]

 

24 minutes ago, AyyJayy said:

Something really cool I see on some other servers is morphs being able to absorb and eat items, could it not be a possibility that items give very small amounts of 'points', organics give a lot, and then increase the reproduction cost a lot so it evens out a bit with the new possiblity of gaining resources?

Morphs used to be able to eat items, but that was done away with on purpose during the rework that brought morph to its current form. "Morph ate the whole damn armory" is what I think we're trying to avoid.

 

34 minutes ago, AyyJayy said:

feel, as someone without any balancing experience in SS13 so take care, that a 'lurching' movement might be more fitting for them? So they can only move so fast, but the movement is quick. Which would make it hopefully harder to notice them?

I do kinda like this, personally. Being able to jump like three or four tiles quickly might make a good difference. Kinda skittering like a spiderling.

[AyyJayy]

Hm.. Yeah I guess that could be annoying with the armory thing. Since any just spawned morph could make their way through the vents. 
I feel like its a special cute touch to the antag regardless though, I'd suggest a "constitution increase" where as they gain more things they can begin to eat more, so eventually a morph would be able to eat guns and such instead of it being easy? But if you wanna avoid it altogether then ya.

 

Glad you like the movement concept, I think its more fitting. like its lurchin out a slimey limb and trudging itself haha.

 

For buffing it then.. maybe making it way tankier so that it cant be so easily slain by anyone that walks by, the simple welder seems to be its ultimate nemesis so far.

[AyyJayy]

Something else that could make morph really interesting would be forcing it to utilize the ambush ability way more, 

in theory something like after the ambush they do the massive ambush damage hit, then the next few hits do good damage, then they lose almost all damage and instead receives a slight speed boost meant for running away. 

This incentivises hit and run tactics, and ambushing WAY more. Keeps it a bit more of a spooky enemy as well, no?

[lewc]

Yeah, agreed. I think fo the morph through the lens of being a prop hunt antag, and I think the skitter and encouraging people to interact with them seem like a plus

[AyyJayy]

I've noticed each of the facilities seem to have a unique 'tool' while I was playing engineer. Maybe a cool objective for the morph might be to gather these tools? Idk, just a throwaway goal for the morph other than just growing. 

 

What's your thoughts on the strength of the morph rn, @lewc?