Vampires!

[FlattestGuitar]

Personally, I find vampires to be a lackluster antagonist. They're doomed to either prey on greyshirts in maint or do the monkey cheese thing to become powerful, but once they do become powerful they're nigh unstoppable. They have massive potential for not just blindly killing people, but making for interesting characters, but most of the time they just get gunned down by Security as soon as they're out.

I'll be doing a rework of vampires that will seek to address the issues.

Please throw any of your ideas for improvement, as well as theories as to why the antagonist is so despised by a large part of our community in this thread.

Thanks!

[Love-To-Hug]

Obviously make them unable to get usable blood from humanized monkies.

Make blood-sucking a power, and make it more obvious. Perhaps make it resemble what it would look like if both the vampire and the victim initiated a grab on each other, as that would be rather distinct.

Make the blood-sucking automatically stop when the blood threshold is about to reach an unsafe level, requiring a re-activation of the power to continue draining, which will kill.

Institute the 'Vampire: The Masquerade' style mechanic where the victim has no memory of the attack. Big, big font while the draining is happening stating their in-character expectation while their voice is lowered to a whisper.

Alternatively, a way to easily mask their identity that can be toggled on and off.

An alternative to thralling that can be used on mindshielded targets that simply makes them unwilling to take hostile action against the vampire, perhaps due to supernatural fear.

Lower blood cost on thralling.

Choosing what powers you get!! Again, VtM would make for great inspiration.

Holy Water no longer does damage or suppresses powers, and instead drains usable blood. (Makes vampires more reasonable to imprison)

[CrunkyBars]

What about a caste system?

Obviously, I'm not a coder myself, so I have no idea how hard that'd be to implement, balance-wise or if it's even possible, but I'd think it might be a deterrent to just hunting baldies in maint until you've had your fill. Have civilians and assistants satisfy your vampire's thirst less, so if they want to level faster, they'd have to try to drain more Sec, or Science, proper employees with a little more stopping power. Of course, Heads, High Ranking NT Officers and the Captain give a higher output. Reward the vampire for managing to pull it off or as a sort of punishment for any member of that caste going out to hunt the Vamp themselves.

[Birdtalon]

I both love and hate vampires simultaneously and here are the reasons for both;

Love

• I'm a semi decent vampire player and with enough practice and intuition I find that you can pull off some absolutely hilarious things with the vampire abilities, and depending on how far you want to go a single vampire can cause massive chaos which is incredibly fun.
• I find that vampires are the only antag which can use their abilities to get themselves out of a situation reliably forcing security to think differently and pull out the lethals occasionally.
• I enjoy the challenge of acquiring blood to power up, which encourages creative play and risk taking before you can become a stomping machine.
• I think vampires are the only antagonist that has any true "scaling". They have the capacity to achieve near-unstoppable levels of power if the player is robust enough. Although I'm sure plenty of people will disagree with me - I personally enjoy watching a single player become godlike and completely unstoppable. It's actually very entertaining and makes observing the round worthwhile as well as actually add some challenge to otherwise cut and dry rounds.

Hate

• "Friendly vampires" - I don't see the point in having antagonist options turned to yes if you're going to out yourself as a "friendly" antagonist at the start of the round and let security know it's a vampire round before the 10 minute mark. Antagonists should antagonise in order to make the round interesting for all, not just out themselves straight away and either get locked up or just do their job all round like a normal crew member. I find this happens with vampires most of all.
• Monkey Cheese - I am also guilty of this but it's too damn easy to just power yourself up with humanised monkeys with little risk whatsoever.
• "Is it extended?" - As a non-antagonist I usually find myself asking if it's extended half the time and it turns out to be a vampire round as the majority of vampire players seem to play quiet.
• Why the hell do vampires die in space?

Edited April 10, 2017 by Birdtalon
It posted instead of doing a new line -_-

[apneaman]

What about a targeted influence attack that causes the target to hallucinate being grabbed and drunk by a randomised vampire. Mainly for a good laugh and to cause hysteria and confusion in the crew. Has a very long cooldown to prevent spamming

Targeted shapeshift: Add the option to turn into your victim but requires you to drain them to death first.

Raise dead: turn a dead body into an npc ghoul that attacks anyone but vampires. Possibly cause some kind of disease or toxin damage on hit. Only available to full power vampires.

Just spitballing ideas

 

[Tayswift]

1 hour ago, Birdtalon said:

• Why the hell do vampires die in space?

They die in space cause that's the only place they're exposed to direct sunlight, which traditionally is a vampire weakness.

I really like the VtM inspired ideas, but I feel like the admins are reluctant to enforce the limited knowledge one. The other ideas all sound great though.

[Doukan]

Total rework? yes please.

But for the love of space jesus, they need a way to silently abduct people, ATM the only way to not get rekt as vamp is to play it as a traitor without any TC while you power up and that's just boring.

Edited April 10, 2017 by Doukan

[sergeantskread]

i think they should be removed

[Travelling Merchant]

Make them not an EoC so they can RP like they used to instead of being gunned down.

[James5734]

53 minutes ago, Travelling Merchant said:

Make them not an EoC so they can RP like they used to instead of being gunned down.

That would be great

[ZN23X]

Alright I'll reveal my cards now. Most vampires are too predictable. During vampire rounds as sec I will wander around maint alone with a SBR in my backpack with the microphone on. A vamp who is hiding in a closet or secret room sees me coming, attacks, I am like "Help! Oh no you took of my headset, oh god no, you monster, I'm doomed, don't kill me, stop killing me in SCIENCE MAINTENANCE, who knew you had a secret lair near with a fake wall near ESCAPE BAY. My fellow officers usually show up before im drained, vampire dead.

I hate the types of antags that hide all round, defeats the purpose of having antags, so anything that can make it so the strategy of hiding is ineffective.

What if the act of them draining someone was quicker but their blood supply also depreciated over time, like hunger. It would force them to be more aggressive seeking blood but also make their most vulnerable moment, when they feed, happen faster. I mean make it like alot faster. Like something they could practically do on the fly. Make it an activatable ability with a cool down that grabs and drains the target quickly. To the point where they could use it mid combat.

I also think if more vamps used thralls they could play differently (do ANY of them thrall people?). Think...vamp catches someone, removes headset. Vamp says "you have two choices, serve me or become part of me"

I like the idea of them not being an EOC. Make it so they are subject to space law rather than just HAH! YOYR A VAMP! PERMA! Make it so they can only be arrested for the crimes they've committed. Also I've seen vampires RP before but it requires a sec force that is willing to play along and not insta perma them. There was a round where peaceful vampires were protesting in security lobby for vampires rights. There were a few violent ones too which didn't help their cause but they were like "they aren't one of us! There's no blood on our fangs" lol

Edited April 10, 2017 by ZN23X

[Rumiluntti]

I would love a caste system totally not stolen from world of darkness pen'n'paper nerd game.

Some gather an army of thralls, some are more monster than man, some are sneaky beaky and then there's nosferatus that are just absolutely terrifying creeps.
Their thralls would have some of the characteristics of their master's caste.

I would also like the vampire to be something to actually fear, like wizard levels of ridiculous. Thralls would be more like the current tase-lase'n'space kinds of minor annoyances that our vampires are.

Also, a system where the vampire needs better and better blood to sustain itself or get more blood points!
Itty-bitty and kinda shitty starter vampire? Suck on a monkey you disgusting wimp.
Reason to fear the night -vampire? Need actual humanoids!
Sir Von Spookalot the IV? Need a humanoid of your own species!
Blood types matter?
Sinful vampire-on-vampire feeding?

Don't know, I would like to see thralls get some use other than portable bloodbanks. Rest is just rambling and semi-drunk flow of ideas

[Sothangel]

Vampires need a way of muting. Glare is a nice stun, but one ;help maint and you're shafted before you've even had a pint of blood.

[Rapidvalj]

Right, Vampire has always been second on my list of things that need reworks, after changeling. I have a ton of ideas for this, so I'm very happy you've brought it up. I was planning to make a forum post about it myself, actually. 

Straight off the bat, as I'm sure everyone can agree, we need to see the humanised monkey cheese go. Now that's out of the way, I have a few ideas. 

Primarily, I'd like to see Vampire be less "Traitor 2 electric boogaloo" and more its own, unique, antagonist. With different objectives, and different methods of play. 

Now, as much as many of you might see the server as taboo, and lets not go into the morals and ethics of it, Lifeweb does many things for their Vampires very well, and some specific things I would love to see implemented in some fashion.

In Lifeweb, much like many SS13 servers, you gain blood by sucking it out of people, which fills up a bar, which then allows you to use certain abilities. A few things are drastically different however, for example, the blood depletes over time even if not in use. Vampires there have no standard organs bar the brain and I believe heart, instead they have multiple organs for "Vitae Storage". Vitae being the blood, which is used to store the blood for later use. If damaged, the vampire is unable to store new blood. Vampires must extend and retract their fangs for use, or disguise, and of course, they have a drastically different set of powers available to them. However, most drastically different, and what I personally would like to see, is the humanity system. 

In Lifeweb, Vampires start with ten humanity points. They lose points every time their bloodsucking, or any other action, leads to the death of a human. A few points down, or at very low vitae, they'll begin to have bursts of rage where their mob will become briefly controlled by a constantly aggressive AI, sort of like the greytide AI. Once they reach zero humanity, or a little above, they'll lose control permanently. While I don't think losing control to an AI is a very good idea for Paradise, I do think this system of a loss of humanity as you descend into a more bloodthirsty state could be implemented. However, instead of losing control for varying amounts of time, I think it'd be great to see the Vampires physical humanity become less and less noticeable. Sort of like the caste systems people have mentioned. Possibly, a full humanity vampire would look indistinguishable from the standard crew when their fangs are not revealed, with abilities that play to this, with things that are not so drastically brutal, yet still powerful enough to give people an incentive to play as a full humanity vampire. Maybe give only full humanity vampires the ability to turn others into lesser vampires, and give them abilities that aren't so aggressive, like hypnotisation, enthralling, glares, and so on. As a vampire kills more, their humanity would go down, and thus, their human like features would decrease, the stealth of their abilities would go down, and the aggressiveness would go up, until a point where a zero humanity vampire is essentially a bat winged, nosferatu esque monstrosity with no hope for stealth, with abilities concentrating purely on brute force, like increased melee damage, huge, always extended fangs, increased speed, and so on. 

[Hylocereus]

Glare > Duct Tape > Stunprod > Cuff. The chances of someone getting out a shout in that time frame is pretty low. You just need to be quick with the items and of course have them on hand. But that's not too difficult. The only annoying part is getting someone down without someone else walking in on you.

I personally think vampires could do with some tweaking - because yeah, fuck monkeys, but I feel they're one of the more balanced antagonists. They don't have immense killing power, especially early on, but they don't need to. I feel like an auto-successful-abduction ability would be too much, personally. They should play like clever ambush predators pouncing at opportune moments, not charging in and dragging people off into the depths of maint with zero counterplay.

Edit: Actually, Rapidvalj's idea looks AMAZING. Scratch what I said about tweaking I am fully onboard with a complete rework.

Edited April 10, 2017 by Hylocereus

[ZN23X]

21 minutes ago, Hylocereus said:

Glare > Duct Tape > Stunprod > Cuff.

You say "ZN, I see your backpack SBR and raise you duct tape" well played. Haven't run into any vamps that smart yet. YET!

Security evolves, vampires evolve

The constant battle between sec an antags trying to out think each other lol

Edited April 10, 2017 by ZN23X

[Happy Tim]

Really like the humanity system, would be no doubt a challenge for coders and spriters (full morphed, vampire voxes and greys, yes please!)

Though a new vampire system could require some new anti-vampire weapons...

Holy symbols? Stakes?

 

STAKE GUNS? (as a high-end weapon, ofc)

[EvadableMoxie]

10 hours ago, Birdtalon said:

I

Hate

• "Friendly vampires" - I don't see the point in having antagonist options turned to yes if you're going to out yourself as a "friendly" antagonist at the start of the round and let security know it's a vampire round before the 10 minute mark. Antagonists should antagonise in order to make the round interesting for all, not just out themselves straight away and either get locked up or just do their job all round like a normal crew member. I find this happens with vampires most of all.

 

I can't agree with this enough, or stress how much of an issue it is.  There are too many boring rounds as is without people opting into being an antag and then not antaging. 

One of two things needs to be done:

Option 1: Vampires are antags and vampire rounds are a thing.  In this case, Vampires should be EoCs to be terminated on discovery. Outing yourself as a vampire should result in immediate execution IC and a jobban OOC. Someone who selects to be an Antag on a round type where they are the primary source of conflict, and then chooses not to generate conflict are wasting 2 hours of everyone's time.

Option 2: Vampires are not necessarily antags and there are never any 'vampire rounds' where vampires are the primary antag.  In this case they are similar to Borers in that they have a goals but aren't required to be antagonistic to achieve them.  This would be fine because just like how there are no 'borer rounds', there would never be any 'vampire rounds', just 1 or 2 vampires at the start of the round who spawn in addition to whatever the normal antagonist is. Vampires could be aggressive to get what they want, or take a more diplomatic approach.  There would still be plenty of tension and paranoia since you'd never know what the vampire will do once powered. This is similar to how Borers can be a huge asset, but also a huge risk.  

The main issue with option 2 is then Vampire is just a special snowflake RP option, a normal crew member with superpowers and a license to abuse them.  I'm not a fan of this approach, but given how many 'friendly' vampires are out there obviously there is a desire for this type of gameplay. 

 

Edited April 10, 2017 by EvadableMoxie

[EvadableMoxie]

Edit: Repost

Edited April 10, 2017 by EvadableMoxie

[shazbot194]

3 hours ago, EvadableMoxie said:

 

I can't agree with this enough, or stress how much of an issue it is.  There are too many boring rounds as is without people opting into being an antag and then not antaging. 

One of two things needs to be done:

Option 1: Vampires are antags and vampire rounds are a thing.  In this case, Vampires should be EoCs to be terminated on discovery. Outing yourself as a vampire should result in immediate execution IC and a jobban OOC. Someone who selects to be an Antag on a round type where they are the primary source of conflict, and then chooses not to generate conflict are wasting 2 hours of everyone's time.

Option 2: Vampires are not necessarily antags and there are never any 'vampire rounds' where vampires are the primary antag.  In this case they are similar to Borers in that they have a goals but aren't required to be antagonistic to achieve them.  This would be fine because just like how there are no 'borer rounds', there would never be any 'vampire rounds', just 1 or 2 vampires at the start of the round who spawn in addition to whatever the normal antagonist is. Vampires could be aggressive to get what they want, or take a more diplomatic approach.  There would still be plenty of tension and paranoia since you'd never know what the vampire will do once powered. This is similar to how Borers can be a huge asset, but also a huge risk.  

The main issue with option 2 is then Vampire is just a special snowflake RP option, a normal crew member with superpowers and a license to abuse them.  I'm not a fan of this approach, but given how many 'friendly' vampires are out there obviously there is a desire for this type of gameplay. 

 

I do quite like the 2nd option with the vampires as antags that always spawn with another set of antags, such as changelings, nuke ops, traitors, ext. I would say though they shouldn't have a 100% chance to spawn, maybe a 20% chance. This should keep the crew guessing when they would come and allow vamps the freedom to do what they want. Do they want to be killing machines that hide in metal boxes all round, do they want to thrall a ton of people and make a crime family, mafia style, or protest for vampire rights. Them no longer being EoC on sight would be great as well because they would then have the option to not just be murder machines. I do think they should stay antags to keep them from being forced into more peaceful roles and be judge case by case if they are a threat to the station, hopefully allowing some proper med-role play. 

[EvadableMoxie]

I think if we go with Option 2, vampires should not have any protection under Space Law and it should be entirely at the discretion of the HoS as to how to handle them, up to and including on the spot execution.  This is similar to Borers, you can't just walk down the halls looking for willing hosts, you can and will be killed pretty much on sight. At the same time, a Vampire may reveal themselves to people they trust, and those people aren't necessarily required to report them to security. 

There should be risks and give and take.  On one hand, keeping a Vampire around is a risk.  On the other, if you summarily execute one vampire, you've pretty much forced every other vampire on the station to be openly hostile to you because you've backed them into a corner. And if there is another main antag, they might very well ally up with the rest of the vampires, which is bad news for you. 

I actually like the idea of 'neutral factions' in general.  Right now it's fairly cut and dry with Crew versus Antags.  Some neutral factions that can lean either way, depending on how they are treated would add a lot of depth and make negotiation a powerful tactic. 

[SomeGuy9283]

23 hours ago, Love-To-Hug said:

Obviously make them unable to get usable blood from humanized monkies.

Make blood-sucking a power, and make it more obvious. Perhaps make it resemble what it would look like if both the vampire and the victim initiated a grab on each other, as that would be rather distinct.

Make the blood-sucking automatically stop when the blood threshold is about to reach an unsafe level, requiring a re-activation of the power to continue draining, which will kill.

Institute the 'Vampire: The Masquerade' style mechanic where the victim has no memory of the attack. Big, big font while the draining is happening stating their in-character expectation while their voice is lowered to a whisper.

Alternatively, a way to easily mask their identity that can be toggled on and off.

An alternative to thralling that can be used on mindshielded targets that simply makes them unwilling to take hostile action against the vampire, perhaps due to supernatural fear.

Lower blood cost on thrilling.

Holy Water no longer does damage or suppresses powers, and instead drains usable blood. (Makes vampires more reasonable to imprison)

Definitely end the monkey business(pun intended). Achieving a more obvious blood drain might fall under the 'humanity points' system mentioned earlier in the thread, as perhaps would the identity mask. Hmm, I imagine enforcement of memory restriction will be a bit of a strain, although cults seem to not cause that big of an issue.

Definitely do not like the mindshield counter and holy water changes, though. Mind shields ought to shield the mind, and the holy water tweak would remove a lot of the difficulty (read: fun) of detaining vamps.

21 hours ago, CrunkyBars said:

Of course, Heads, High Ranking NT Officers and the Captain give a higher output. Reward the vampire for managing to pull it off or as a sort of punishment for any member of that caste going out to hunt the Vamp themselves.

I like the idea of this as a power gaming deterrent. Would need to think of an IC explanation, though.

16 hours ago, Birdtalon said:

I both love and hate vampires simultaneously and here are the reasons for both;

Love

• I'm a semi decent vampire player and with enough practice and intuition I find that you can pull off some absolutely hilarious things with the vampire abilities, and depending on how far you want to go a single vampire can cause massive chaos which is incredibly fun.
• I find that vampires are the only antag which can use their abilities to get themselves out of a situation reliably forcing security to think differently and pull out the lethals occasionally.
• I enjoy the challenge of acquiring blood to power up, which encourages creative play and risk taking before you can become a stomping machine.
• I think vampires are the only antagonist that has any true "scaling". They have the capacity to achieve near-unstoppable levels of power if the player is robust enough. Although I'm sure plenty of people will disagree with me - I personally enjoy watching a single player become godlike and completely unstoppable. It's actually very entertaining and makes observing the round worthwhile as well as actually add some challenge to otherwise cut and dry rounds.

Hate

• "Friendly vampires" - I don't see the point in having antagonist options turned to yes if you're going to out yourself as a "friendly" antagonist at the start of the round and let security know it's a vampire round before the 10 minute mark. Antagonists should antagonise in order to make the round interesting for all, not just out themselves straight away and either get locked up or just do their job all round like a normal crew member. I find this happens with vampires most of all.
• Monkey Cheese - I am also guilty of this but it's too damn easy to just power yourself up with humanised monkeys with little risk whatsoever.
• "Is it extended?" - As a non-antagonist I usually find myself asking if it's extended half the time and it turns out to be a vampire round as the majority of vampire players seem to play quiet.

I agree with most of your observations, though I'll say the "is it extended?" phenomenon may be from stealthy vamps that are too good to be fun(or just drain monkeys) or being non-sec. Dunno.

13 hours ago, sergeantskread said:

i think they should be removed

If something like the large overhaul @Rapidvalj suggested is not feasible, then perhaps that would be warranted. there are a lot of issues with their current state as LTH points out.

 

8 hours ago, Happy Tim said:

Though a new vampire system could require some new anti-vampire weapons...

Holy symbols? Stakes?

Eh, this is where the Chaplain's abilities are meant to be used. Would be a funny thing to add to makeable items, though.

13 hours ago, Travelling Merchant said:

Make them not an EoC so they can RP like they used to instead of being gunned down.

2 hours ago, shazbot194 said:

I do quite like the 2nd option with the vampires as antags that always spawn with another set of antags, such as changelings, nuke ops, traitors, ext. I would say though they shouldn't have a 100% chance to spawn, maybe a 20% chance. This should keep the crew guessing when they would come and allow vamps the freedom to do what they want. Do they want to be killing machines that hide in metal boxes all round, do they want to thrall a ton of people and make a crime family, mafia style, or protest for vampire rights. Them no longer being EoC on sight would be great as well because they would then have the option to not just be murder machines. I do think they should stay antags to keep them from being forced into more peaceful roles and be judge case by case if they are a threat to the station, hopefully allowing some proper med-role play. 

1 hour ago, EvadableMoxie said:

I think if we go with Option 2, vampires should not have any protection under Space Law and it should be entirely at the discretion of the HoS as to how to handle them, up to and including on the spot execution.  This is similar to Borers, you can't just walk down the halls looking for willing hosts, you can and will be killed pretty much on sight. At the same time, a Vampire may reveal themselves to people they trust, and those people aren't necessarily required to report them to security. . 

 

I sense a flood of metabuddy-ing will result. Vampires are hostiles, helping them is helping an agent hostile to your employer, and security should act according to both of these facts.

Vampires should not be friendly. They should not use 'trust', etc. except for manipulating people to their antagonistic ends. If you decide to help a vampire, you should be able to reasonably expect to either to get stabbed in the back when they no longer need you, or find your head on a pike when the HOS catches you. I don't know about you, but that sounds like good roleplay right there.

Edited April 11, 2017 by SomeGuy9283
oops, did a bad

[EvadableMoxie]

5 hours ago, SomeGuy9283 said:

I sense a flood of metabuddy-ing will result. Vampires are hostiles, helping them is helping an agent hostile to your employer, and security should act according to both of these facts.

Vampires should not be friendly. They should not use 'trust', etc. except for manipulating people to their antagonistic ends. If you decide to help a vampire, you should be able to reasonably expect to either to get stabbed in the back when they no longer need you, or find your head on a pike when the HOS catches you. I don't know about you, but that sounds like good roleplay right there.

My statements were within a context of a possible change to how Vampires work, so they would not necessarily be antagonists but rather neutral forces unaligned to either the crew or the antagonists. 

As it currently stands, I fully agree they should be kill on sight and forced to actually antag instead of being 'friendly.'  But since people insist on playing them as 'friendly' perhaps the solution is to change the mechanics to accommodate the way people want to play them, rather then trying to change player behavior. 

[Rumiluntti]

I never want to see the rise of bullshit "friendly vampire pls gibe free blood donations :3333" garbage again

[SomeGuy9283]

5 hours ago, EvadableMoxie said:

My statements were within a context of a possible change to how Vampires work, so they would not necessarily be antagonists but rather neutral forces unaligned to either the crew or the antagonists. 

As it currently stands, I fully agree they should be kill on sight and forced to actually antag instead of being 'friendly.'  But since people insist on playing them as 'friendly' perhaps the solution is to change the mechanics to accommodate the way people want to play them, rather then trying to change player behavior. 

While the enjoyment of the antagonist player is always to be considered, they ultimately exist to entertain the other players by being their opponent. If they play as a friendly vampire, wizard, etc., they may have lost sight of this.