Shadowlings

[davidchan]

 

The major concerns I have are as follows:

 

1) Thralls can be anyone. There is no test, no way to de-convert, and no way to prevent conversion. Even Nar'sie can't override Loyalty implants!

 

but enthralling takes time!

 

Yes but a Shadowling can do it anywhere, to anyone, at anytime. can you imagine an MD shadowling? Throw someone into cryo for a second, eject them, convert while they are unconscious. It's a cheap, easy stun. How many dozens of people pass through medbay? Is there even an notification to local players that a person is being converted? Anyone can make cable cuffs and a stun prod, this is only slightly better than LOLFLASH since there is no protection against it. Even worse, since Hatched forms get their glare which allows them to 1v1 anyone, instantly stunning and muting for 30+ seconds at a distance. And you think people bitch about Changling stings.

 

Balance Proposal: Make Loyalty implants able to prevent conversion. Give Holy water/Null rod chance to deconvert. If Shadowling is intent on converting an Implanted crew member (Such as a Security officer or Head of Staff) we could add a 'break mind' spell that would consume 1/2 the the Shadowling's total health, and cause the target to suffer from Mindbreaker-esque effects for 20-30 seconds (hallucinations, screaming a whole lot, ect...) After the effect is done, their implant would overload/fry and make them eligible for conversion.

 

2) Hatching has no requirement, Ascending is ludicrously low.

 

Thralls are pooled, up to 3 Shadowlings can be present at a time. As stated above, it really only takes on Doctor to be a Shadowling and their ascension is unstoppable. Turn on a cryo tube, grab and toss everyone in it to stun them, thrall them, and have them bring everyone who steps in for treatement to you. Within 10-20 minutes I guarantee Lings will be ready to ascend. Can you imagine if Cult could convert 9 people, learn the words and summon Nar'Sie in 20 minutes? If 3 hatched Shadowlings are working in unison, it's pretty damn easy for them to take 3 people at once. It's not difficult to lure sec into the tunnels and once you get them your thralls can easily make 'arrests' bringing you more thralls or leaving them cuffed in a firefighting closet for you while they seek out new targets.

 

Balance Proposal: Hatching should require at /least/ 5 thralls, and up the Ascension headcount by a fair number. 30 seems like a fair number, given how their resources are pooled and it should only become easier to convert people as you get more thralls.

 

3) Ascended form is just LMAO-OP levels. It's like a adminbus incarnate.

 

Antagonists should feel powerful, but not unstoppable. Ascended Lings can happily wade through ERT, CC Commandos or Deathsquads without even flinching. They have about 100k hp, with their laser weakness it still takes 1000-5000 laser shots to kill one. With such a low barrier to become an ascended (even if we upped the requirement to 1/2 current crew) and there is up to 3 of them at any given time, little to no way to detect them or their thralls, their ludicrous powers are just op.

 

Balance Propsal: Lower Ascended HP to 1000 + 100 for every thrall.This will encourage them to keep enthralling crew rather than outright murdering everyone on sight. It will also make it possible for Security/ERTs to drive one back if necessary or properly equiped. With their healing back on, they wouldn't be easy prey, but they wouldn't be unstoppable juggernauts who can stroll onto the bridge and kill everyone.

 

POST EDIT: I forgot to mention Thralls. What effect do thralls have on gamplay? Are they arbitrary counters? Do they have anything that sets them apart from the rest of the crew aside from a hivemind? The last thing I want is another Revolution roundtype, even if the Shadowlings sound fun to play as, they don't sound very fun to play with or against.

 

Someone mentioned the idea of giving Thralls their own minor Shadow dependency, taking burn damage when in full light and healing when in shadow.

 

Earning their own powers would be nice, maybe something where as the number of thralls grows, the abilities they have at their disposal also grows. What powers they could get is open to debate and brainstorming, but I'd happily see the Shadowling getting nerfed a bit to add a bit of variety to their followers, it would help differentiate the round type from Revolution in that being converted means more than not being slaughtered by the growing greytide swarm.

 

One idea, would be for Enthrall powers to work on a HP burn system. Casting a spell would consume life points, distributed amongst the thralls as a whole (which, working with their regen would mean large thrall groups could use spells quite frequently, where smaller groups would have to do so sparingly.)

 

The darkness spell seems like one good option, giving a weaker version to thralls that isn't permanent. A weaker gaze or chill touch that could stun or disorient someone seems like another good option. The ability to drain power from specific objects sounds like it'd be nifty too, taking damage directly proportional to how much power the object uses/had (draining a door would be a moderate burn, draining an APC or Mechsuit could be lethal to small groups of thralls)

 

The ability for Shadowlings to turn a thrall into a Psuedo-Shadowling sounds interesting too. Not a full Shadowling, but something akin to their hatched form but with fewer/weaker powers, being converted into this form would remove the player from the thrall count but give the Shadowlings a powerful warrior/agent to work with.

 

Edited April 13, 2015 by Guest

[tigercat2000]

You make good points, but I have to note, Ascended Lings are intentionally equivelent to Nar-nar, the shuttle gets automatically called, and everyone runs for their fucking life. Ascending is ticking down Delta, or expanding over 60% of the station, or, obviously, summoning nar-nar.

[Earthdivine]

 

I might add that enthralling goes even past loyalty implants.

We were thinking of maybe making the Implants protect against enthralling so we don't have the situation from Rev again.

 

[Arthur_Dayne]

 

The major concerns I have are as follows:

 

1) Thralls can be anyone. There is no test, no way to de-convert, and no way to prevent conversion. Even Nar'sie can't override Loyalty implants!

 

but enthralling takes time!

 

Yes but a Shadowling can do it anywhere, to anyone, at anytime. can you imagine an MD shadowling? Throw someone into cryo for a second, eject them, convert while they are unconscious. It's a cheap, easy stun. How many dozens of people pass through medbay? Is there even an notification to local players that a person is being converted? Anyone can make cable cuffs and a stun prod, this is only slightly better than LOLFLASH since there is no protection against it. Even worse, since Hatched forms get their glare which allows them to 1v1 anyone, instantly stunning and muting for 30+ seconds at a distance. And you think people bitch about Changling stings.

 

Balance Proposal: Make Loyalty implants able to prevent conversion. Give Holy water/Null rod chance to deconvert. If Shadowling is intent on converting an Implanted crew member (Such as a Security officer or Head of Staff) we could add a 'break mind' spell that would consume 1/2 the the Shadowling's total health, and cause the target to suffer from Mindbreaker-esque effects for 20-30 seconds (hallucinations, screaming a whole lot, ect...) After the effect is done, their implant would overload/fry and make them eligible for conversion.

 

2) Hatching has no requirement, Ascending is ludicrously low.

 

Thralls are pooled, up to 3 Shadowlings can be present at a time. As stated above, it really only takes on Doctor to be a Shadowling and their ascension is unstoppable. Turn on a cryo tube, grab and toss everyone in it to stun them, thrall them, and have them bring everyone who steps in for treatement to you. Within 10-20 minutes I guarantee Lings will be ready to ascend. Can you imagine if Cult could convert 9 people, learn the words and summon Nar'Sie in 20 minutes? If 3 hatched Shadowlings are working in unison, it's pretty damn easy for them to take 3 people at once. It's not difficult to lure sec into the tunnels and once you get them your thralls can easily make 'arrests' bringing you more thralls or leaving them cuffed in a firefighting closet for you while they seek out new targets.

 

Balance Proposal: Hatching should require at /least/ 5 thralls, and up the Ascension headcount by a fair number. 30 seems like a fair number, given how their resources are pooled and it should only become easier to convert people as you get more thralls.

 

3) Ascended form is just LMAO-OP levels. It's like a adminbus incarnate.

 

Antagonists should feel powerful, but not unstoppable. Ascended Lings can happily wade through ERT, CC Commandos or Deathsquads without even flinching. They have about 100k hp, with their laser weakness it still takes 1000-5000 laser shots to kill one. With such a low barrier to become an ascended (even if we upped the requirement to 1/2 current crew) and there is up to 3 of them at any given time, little to no way to detect them or their thralls, their ludicrous powers are just op.

 

Balance Propsal: Lower Ascended HP to 1000 + 100 for every thrall.This will encourage them to keep enthralling crew rather than outright murdering everyone on sight. It will also make it possible for Security/ERTs to drive one back if necessary or properly equiped. With their healing back on, they wouldn't be easy prey, but they wouldn't be unstoppable juggernauts who can stroll onto the bridge and kill everyone.

 

I support this. All of it.

 

[Fox McCloud]

 

Give the mode a chance to be played first instead of theorycrafting it to death; while concerns are warranted, this isn't a single gear being turned to change something (like say instant stuns, dismemberment, etc), it's a machine with a lot of interlocking gears--literally no one knows how they play out yet--not to mention that this is understood to be a WIP.

 

I will say this though, calling it a "marginal" improvement over Rev's conversion method is hilariously laughable. Revs convert with a single click and it can be done in the hall on, on the fly, and you're instantly in their control; no resource cost, not cooldown, no time to convert----it's just bam, done.

 

It takes time and there's a cooldown for shadowlings--to even REMOTELY compare it to lolflash is a torture of logic.

 

 

It requires 10 cultists to summon Nar-Sie--and that's debatably worse than dealing with an ascended shadowling---not to mention every single cultist has a lot of powers at their disposal where as enthralls are literally just regular people.

 

[Spacemanspark]

 

Actually, I might argue that Enthralling through loyalty implants would be better.

Why?

Because now less players are taken out of the round.

 

[Arthur_Dayne]

 

Actually, I might argue that Enthralling through loyalty implants would be better.

Why?

Because now less players are taken out of the round.

 

Less players are taken out of the round? Yeah, that's totally a great backing to it and I love it yep /sarcasm.

It just leads to characters having to change irrefutably and because thralls literally cannot do ANYTHING other than support the antagonist at hand, and eventually everyone gets enthralled because, you know, they can't do anything to stop it. It's stupid as all hell in my book, and I despise the idea of this antagonist in general.

 

[Qinetix]

 

I would honestly just up the need to ascend to 20-25, it would be very hard to achieve this much during lowpop rounds, and considering you need time to enthral people, not to mention it may probably not go through loyal implants, you really need to take your time and it may be hard , you know how sec is the moment they find out you have 'special powers' , they will probably kill you.

Maybe we can adjust the number of shadowlings/number of tharlls required to ascend proportional to the population.

 

[daisuke08]

 

I support ascendants not being almost immortal. I personally find rounds like this to be way more exciting for both the participants and anyone observing when both sides have a chance and winning the round comes down to how you play (and I would personally love to see the gamma armory actually used with the crew and ERT grabbing the big guns instead of rushing the nuke).

 

As for enthrall going through implants, I would suggest maybe needing multiple shadowlings enthralling at the same time to do that while making the process take longer than normal if that becomes a thing

 

[ZomgPonies]

Put up a PR to update shadowpeople from a mutantrace to a human sub-species. This needs to be merged before the Shadowling PR.

[davidchan]

 

Give the mode a chance to be played first instead of theorycrafting it to death; while concerns are warranted, this isn't a single gear being turned to change something (like say instant stuns, dismemberment, etc), it's a machine with a lot of interlocking gears--literally no one knows how they play out yet--not to mention that this is understood to be a WIP.

 

I will say this though, calling it a "marginal" improvement over Rev's conversion method is hilariously laughable. Revs convert with a single click and it can be done in the hall on, on the fly, and you're instantly in their control; no resource cost, not cooldown, no time to convert----it's just bam, done.

 

It takes time and there's a cooldown for shadowlings--to even REMOTELY compare it to lolflash is a torture of logic.

 

 

It requires 10 cultists to summon Nar-Sie--and that's debatably worse than dealing with an ascended shadowling---not to mention every single cultist has a lot of powers at their disposal where as enthralls are literally just regular people.

 

 

From what I've been able to gather, conversion/enthralling only takes a few seconds, and the spell has no cooldown. It just can only be cast on one person at a time (basically akin to forcing a straight jacket onto someone, if they are already immobile or unable to flee, you succeed.)

 

So, while not as quick as LOLFlash, it also doesn't have the same restrictions as Rev flashing (Eye Protection and Implants don't protect you, so a single gazed Security officer can stun baton/taser and arrest other officers and grow the thralls quite quickly)

 

As for Cultist summoning Nar'Sie, it's a hell of a lot harder than just grabbing 8 other guys. You need the correct the words, and you need every single cultist in the same area around a specific tile. This takes entire shifts for some people, the fastest I've ever seen Nar'Sie summoned still took over 45 minutes. Because Cultists must prepare areas to convert a new cultist, it takes time to scribble down the rune and if you get it wrong or are interrupted, all the work is lost and you've probably been exposed. Shadowlings don't have any these limits, and can ascend the second they have the required number of thralls, they don't need to experiment with thralls or find the correct way to do the ritual before hand, they instantly know how to do all their spells from the moment they take the form.

 

[DZD]

 

Just going to throw out a few hard facts about them right now:

1. It takes 30 seconds total to enthrall somebody, if they move away from you during those 30 seconds, or you are otherwise interrupted, enthrallment cancels.

2. Enthralling has a 45 second cooldown, assuming an enthrall was successful, that's 15 seconds between successful attempts, much longer if you were at all interrupted.

3. Shadow lings take 6 burn damage per Life() tick when exposed to even a small amount (greater than light level 2, that's just 2 steps above utter darkness) of light, Diona by comparison take 2.5 brute and 1.25 burn per Life() tick when in utter darkness, if somebody has a non-extinguishable light source on them (EG, a flare or yellow slime core light), you are NOT going to want to go anywhere near them while hatched.

4. In their human form, shadowlings must rely on item-based stuns in order to enthrall people, as they'll in all likelihood need a kill grab to keep someone still long enough to enthrall somebody.

5. Assuming you're not stupid enough to travel alone, and a hatched shadowling ambushes you, if each one of you has a flashlight and the shadowling uses Veil (extinguishes nearby lights), you can then just toggle said light back on. Shadowlings cannot handle groups of people until they're ascended or obtain a number of thralls.

6. The shadowling Shadow Walk ability (basically ethereal jaunt) lasts for 4 seconds at a time, and has a 60 second cooldown. If you have several groups (think of wizard rounds here) of people searching for a lone shadowling, they're toast.

 

A few other considerations are that both the thrall requirement, thrall sharing between Shadowlings (as far as the requirement is concerned), loyalty implant ignoring enthralling, and the fact that it is impossible to disenthrall people are all currently being discussed, and none of them are quite decided (I would really prefer to at least get these things working first). Also, keep in mind that this is not an antag type that you're supposed to sit around and die horribly one by one (This isn't The Thing), a little common sense goes a long way in not getting enthralled.

 

EDIT: /tg/ made a few changes to them, burn damage is now 10 per tick in light levels > 4, and loyalty implants slow enthralling by 15 seconds and destroy the implant.

 

[Coldflame]

 

4. In their human form, shadowlings must rely on item-based stuns in order to enthrall people, as they'll in all likelihood need a kill grab to keep someone still long enough to enthrall somebody.

 

 

Do they need to be stunned or could you just restrain them in such a manner they can't move/escape for thirty seconds? Even cable restraints last just about long enough.

 

[Fj45]

 

Eheheeheheh, I just realized how much this is like Alan Wake!

 

Going to fun handing out flashlights, flares and floodlights, then lynching the crap out of the lings.

 

[DZD]

 

4. In their human form, shadowlings must rely on item-based stuns in order to enthrall people, as they'll in all likelihood need a kill grab to keep someone still long enough to enthrall somebody.

 

 

Do they need to be stunned or could you just restrain them in such a manner they can't move/escape for thirty seconds? Even cable restraints last just about long enough.

 

Not entirely certain about that one, but cable restraints can be resisted out of in less than 30 seconds, so you may well be able to escape.

 

[CrAzYPiLoT]

Bucklecuff.