Reworking Vampire

[Triogenix]

Pretty much what the title says, a single vampire in it's current state can effectively stomp the entire station unless they impose limitations themselves, I know because I've done this. I personally(as well as some I've spoken with OOC'ly) think this isn't very fun for a number of reasons, and should probably be reworked.

1) Dominate.

Just get rid of it, and if people don't want that atleast get rid of instadom. Dominate itself is so annoying to deal with for the person who is being dominated, as it is pretty much "You now have to do this, or face administrative OOC action" with seemingly no cap on how absurd the commands can be.(I.E Kill everyone except X, Y, and Z). So, instead of dominate I'd make it so presence, the ability which "Influences the minds of the weak" becomes more of a... hey maybe you should let this guy off the hook? they're a nice person, etc. This way, officers and the crew can still "resist" the messages(not going against a core part of their character even for this friendly guy) while the vampire may get a pass on some things.(Sidenote: I'm not sure what the current messages are for presence but last I remember they were pretty much "You pay more attention to what x is saying" and the like, so making them give those affected more hints at liking/being friendly with the vamp would be nice either way /sidenote)(Sidenote 2: This is kinda already done https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/11279 though it happened after I wrote this section and I still think presence being buffed in an RP sense would be good to see, so I'm leaving it as is)

2) Thralling

I personally don't see many issues here, since it actually takes time, but it would be nice if there was a way besides a mindshield to resist some of the effects for a short time to scream for help, or inform people you don't want to do this, probably at the cost of something else.(Thinking like a action which clears your mind from service to the vamp, but you take a bunch of physical damage or smth) 

3) Hulking, and getting a reward for doing poorly.

Hulk is probably one of the biggest issues currently with vampire, because if you fail to basically do what the entire mechanical point of the antagonist is. Sometimes it's used in interesting ways(though I can off the top of my head only think of 2) but most of the time it's used to end the vampires gimmick when finally captured by security. This just isn't very fun IMO, and counter-intuitive for what the vampire should be doing. So, instead, I'd say reward the vampire at a certain level of total blood(personally thinkin ~1500) with "Power of the Veil" so to speak, making them lean and mean like stereotypical vampires are, and not a bruiser. What this would look like mechanically in my eyes is, faster run speed(like an M'sai on Hyperzine fast), more stamina, better lowlight vision, powerful clawing attacks, dodging fired projectiles, with the counterbalance of, massively increased melee damage(If it's even possible in the code something like +500% damage from all melee sources, 2 mag-light hits should drop them) and possibly either placing a time limit on it mechanically(RP wise it could be they ascend to into blue/redspace or something similar) or having it slowly drain blood reserves, and the rate at which blood drains increases as a function of time.

So what then happens if the vampire hits zero blood? Well, long story short, the vampire dies. Personally what I'd like to see is something along the lines of, when you hit zero the vamps got maybe two minutes before the corruption of the veil overtakes you, and during this time they can try and get some blood using the last of their abilities, or do some RP oriented thing about preparing themselves for death. After the time is up, the corruption overtakes the vampire, with a period of 5-7 minutes their flesh flaking off, their psychic powers burning anguish into the minds of those around them, until their body fails to contain the corruption, leaving naught but ash.(Sidenote, the psychic thing could be like a last ditch thing to try and have the vamp saved, where like presence, little messages are given to those around them to help them in any way possible, for example, possibly holding a bloodpack up to their mouth to get a little bit to try and heal the damage already caused, or surgery or anything the people around them think of based on the round)

 

To cap off, this is just what I think could be done to fix vampire, those who have other ideas or want to say they dislike mine, please do so on this thread, and if you actually read all that you're a legend.

tiny sidenote, gonna be editing this for a while, I just tried to pretty much get it out there ASAP, as it's that or sit on it for six months when it comes to me, all the edits will be minor like changing how a sentence sounds or a word used, nothing major.

 

 

Edited February 22, 2021 by Triogenix

[WickedCybs]

Good riddance for dominate being removed. I have only ever been ordered to kill people or follow the vamp to some corner with it. Many memorable rounds of a vamp doing nothing but stealth feeding and then dominating everyone have been had. It tends to be extremely obvious who is doing it, but of course its metagaming if they haven't actually properly gone "loud".

Unsure what can be done with the beast/hulk mode. At the moment the reason it is so powerful and sometimes annoying to deal with is because hulking out keeps you standing until your brain ticks to 0%. Nothing else matters. It should probably be linked to brainmed somehow

[Sparky_hotdog]

Dominate was yeah... not fun. I've thankfully only seen it used a handful of times, but it was never fun, interesting and/or good for roleplay.

Skipping past thralls for now, the hulk issue could probably be solved by linking it to brainmed. Something like having it rapidly eat through your tissue as fuel could make it a last desperate attempt to feed, but not a twenty minute slog-fest. I would also be down for some more vamp-themed changes to their hulk mode, as I'd agree it feels a tad out of place with nigh every vampire story I can think of.

Now, thralls. Personally, I don't think giving them a way to get out once they've been converted is a good idea. Make extra ways of resisting sure, but giving a way out (short of maybe something chaplains can do, but the chance of getting vamp and a chaplain are pretty low) is a hard no from me. I get that people dislike forced antag conversions (The issue is also brought up in Cult) but at the end of the day it's pretty hard for a vampire to just enthrall you out of nowhere (if this does happen and I've never seen it, maybe raise the time it takes to convert?). They likely either kidnap/stunned/captured you in some sense, which is reasonable effort on their part imo, or they RPed their way into you trusting them, which again is reasonable effort. And if an antag has put that much effort into gaining an ally, I feel like they deserve it.

As a counter suggestion, why not make being a Thrall more fun and interesting for the player, so people don't mind being made one? Instead of giving more ways to avoid and/or escape it, maybe give Thralls a way to claw their way into becoming an enthralled vampire, and then eventually to their own freedom? Give them something else to do other than 'Follow your vampire's every command'. 

[Carver]

Stunning someone to enthrall has never been reasonably difficult as a vampire, so I wouldn't mind it not being reasonably difficult to break out of it after a period of time or 'call out for help'. On a similar note seeing Dominate tossed was a good riddance, not much to say there as every time I was dominated it was something along the line of 'go violently beat the shit out of someone and ruin their day'.

As for the hulk, never bothered me to deal with, but I wouldn't want to see a 'countdown to death' timer in it's place as that would HEAVILY encourage wordlessly rushing someone down in just the worst ways possible - as well as being a guaranteed death sentence if you're not inside an atmospheric part of the station when it happens.