Roostercat Posted September 26, 2019 Posted September 26, 2019 So, Changelings are arguably the dumbest antagonist on the station currently IMO for multiple reasons. The chief among these, again IMO, is that almost if not all of the ling's abilities revolve around combat. There is nothing that these abilities do that can lead to some sort of RP that doesn't involve shooting. Armblade tends to give sec trigger fingers, Abomination gets shot almost immediately, and the stings are never really noticed by more than one person depending on the sting. My suggestion to fix this is in the title, Body Horror! Now, what the hell do I meant by that? Body Horror is when a creature does something incredibly grotesque, like splitting their face in half, to scare those around it. In-game I imagine the changeling having this ability to do the same thing. Though this ability would not have any practical uses other than that, which I feel would encourage more RP that doesn't involve a robustofest. Now sure, you could simply /me these things, but that kinda depends on other people to notice and use thier imagination, and having it actually happen in game would make it more reactable then looking at some blank sprite face that is supposedly bleeding from every orifice according to chat. It would be something simple like blood showing up on the sprites face with red text describing what is happening. At the very least, this gives changelings a few glory moments before being gunned down, and at best can drive a new range of RP, including autopsies and the like, as I am sure science is curious as to what kind of creature splits its head in half on command. Though autopsies like that do happen, it is pretty damn rare. Imagine catching someone's doppelganger in a corner as sec, or seeing both of them in a hallway in medbay with everyone watching, and then seeing one of them have their eyeballs leave their head on tendrils, it would shock anyone in the room and most likely have everyone involved screaming for their lives over general. I feel this is a necessary addition as, again, the Ling has basically nothing like this and has mostly combat abilities that are very hard to have any real RP with without either getting shot or people immediately running away due to knowing what that armblade is and what you plan on doing with it OOCly. At the least most people would read the red text and say something before booking it down the hallway. This is my first suggestion so if it seems lackluster that's why btw.
Itanimulli Posted September 26, 2019 Posted September 26, 2019 > split head open > Get head blown off > No more ling
BRAINOS Posted September 26, 2019 Posted September 26, 2019 i had a particularly great ling round where i'd run around and do shit like blink sideways, snap my neck 180 degrees to look at someone, lick my eyeball and count to six on one hand. even still, it could be made better with some sort of command to emote in bolded red text and play a squelching or crunching noise - after all, when you see that kind of shit for real, it would definitely grab your attention the same way bold red text would. give it a cooldown of about 10 seconds or so just to avoid spam, and that'd be great. another command to profusely bleed could give you instant brute on wherever you have selected (on yourself) and make that wound bleed. that'd be accompanied with a gross noise and bold red text as your flesh tears itself open and spills blood everywhere. of course you'd lose blood and disadvantage yourself, but fuck would it freak people out. overall i fully support ways to make changelings doing crazy, creepy shit more noticeable.
Natiform Posted September 26, 2019 Posted September 26, 2019 i'm always down for some more body horror. I've seen exactly 1 (one) changeling round and watching that dude's chest split open and tentacles start flailing everywhere was freaky as fuck and i was just observing. space horror always gets me (first time i played deadspace i screamed so bad i lost my voice and almost accidentally broke my controller by throwing it at a wall when my cat rubbed against my leg) and more ways to help give an antag a way to freak someone out i think is always a good thing. more ways to rp and etc, etc, all stuff already said by the OP. as far as emotes go, there's a big difference between /me and your sprite actually doing the thing. /me is a great tool but can only go so far as far as immersion. i don't see how some extra sprite animations for a specific brand of antag is a bad thing. +1
Kaed Posted September 27, 2019 Posted September 27, 2019 Changeling rework thread #9028 I wish you the best of luck in any of this happening, cuz it's probably not going to. People have been saying changelings needs to change for 2+ years now, and the most that happened was I added a way to grow your ling's power without killing people. Hasn't helped. Nothing short of a full rework is going to accomplish anything meaningful. And no one is going to do that, because ling code is a hot steaming mess and it's too much work to make a whole new one. I tried, it's out of my ability to do without a whole lot of extra work learning code I have neither the time nor inclination to do unpaid. And to be frank, most of our coders aren't too much better at this than I am. We have a few who are pretty good, like skull and arrow, but most of them are on my level, where the best they can do is look at code that already exists and mimic it for something else. Not all of them are even very good at that, I've seen a few official devs who don't really seem to understand cause and effect trees in code. And since those people that actually could do this are extremely limited, those ones are usually busy on important updates that make the game function properly. I haven't seen a single person except me have any interest in a rework of changeling. But you know, you don't need to take my word for it. Continue to keep pumping out suggestions on how to make changelings better once a month, everyone. Maybe someone will actually bother. (Dreaming is allowed)
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