1 dismissal Disable vampire forgetfulness entirely

[limette]

I've never seen anyone say "Oh, actually, losing my memory of being bloodsucked so that the vampire can stealthily harvest blood for an hour and a half improved my round!" so here's my proposal that we just scrap the idea entirely, but decrease the amount of blood required for things by some factor to make up for it. I've noticed a number of vampires going nearly the entire round time silently harvesting blood using forgetfulness, and having interacted with them a number of times I've never felt "Oh, you fell over, you okay?" to be engaging at any point.

[KingOfThePing]

This leads to either vampires having to kill their victims or being exposed basically immediately. 

 

I don't agree that thats an improvement. 

[limette]

I think it is. It means they would have to spend the round actually being vampires rather than suddenly becoming a force at 1:30, and then killing victims or being exposed. The current system has the same result, just on a massive delay where no RP surrounding the vampire being a vampire exists.

I don't see the benefit to having an hour to two hours of buildup where the vampire is completely unknown as a vampire, and does naught but stealthily drink blood, rather than just allowing them to be obviously a vampire and get more blood more quickly.

Edited August 7, 2022 by limette

[Butterrobber202]

if the memory removal happens, vampire drain rate will need to be massively increased. It takes AGES to kill someone via blood drain as a vampire, and its designed to do that to encourage people to let their victims live.

[limette]

That seems fine to me, and I could do that. 

[Doc]

Doesn't this just make Vampire into Changeling, but with different abilities?

Isn't Changeling also reviled for the way it encourages taking people out of the round?

[Marlon P.]

What would incentivize me to not drain everyone I grab completely dry to kill them? Vampires and borers are the only antag types that are incentivized to keep their victims alive. I catch and release. WIth this change I'd have to just catch and kill.

[Roostercat]

2 hours ago, Doc said:

Doesn't this just make Vampire into Changeling, but with different abilities?

Isn't Changeling also reviled for the way it encourages taking people out of the round?

Ditto with this. Vampires being forced to either kill or get instantly exposed is just lame, and really just dumbs down vampires by a lot to begin with, making them a TDM antag, essentially. Only so much roleplay is going to happen when killing has to be the end result.

[TronHoward]

5 hours ago, limette said:

I've noticed a number of vampires going nearly the entire round time silently harvesting blood using forgetfulness, and having interacted with them a number of times I've never felt "Oh, you fell over, you okay?" to be engaging at any point.

Being on the shit end of that experience is frustrating for me too. I had a bit of time to think about this on the way home. maybe we could add a RNG mechanic to the forgetfulness, so hypothetically one in X succs will result in the victims memories being intact, and then from there, you could add an RNG for the vampire noticing the victim being lucid, forcing their hand one way or another.

 

[Captain Gecko]

6 hours ago, TronHoward said:

Being on the shit end of that experience is frustrating for me too. I had a bit of time to think about this on the way home. maybe we could add a RNG mechanic to the forgetfulness, so hypothetically one in X succs will result in the victims memories being intact, and then from there, you could add an RNG for the vampire noticing the victim being lucid, forcing their hand one way or another.

 

I agree. While I don't want vampires to feel forced to drain people to death, having stealth-vampires 99% of the time until they decide to go full antag at the last few minutes. a RNG-based forgiveness system could work, we could also have the Vampire being unable to tell if that guy has been affected or not mechanically speaking (and only having to rely on their victim's roleplay to know)... Or we could make it a very blood-hungry ability, meaning that the Vampire ends up being very limited in how much people they can drain.

[limette]

8 hours ago, Roostercat said:

Ditto with this. Vampires being forced to either kill or get instantly exposed is just lame, and really just dumbs down vampires by a lot to begin with, making them a TDM antag, essentially. Only so much roleplay is going to happen when killing has to be the end result.

how much roleplay is going to happen when the end result is that nobody remembers and everyone has to play dumb ive seen a lot of "this would require killing and going loud immediately" but can someone quantify to me the benefit of having people just forget everything you do while you stealthily suck blood for an hour? it seems like a random "you must wait this long to antag" timer for no real reason - what roleplay does "Oh, you fell up, you okay?" generate that is a net gain to the round and server? i really feel like id rather an open and dangerous vampire (or one that has to actually roleplay their way out) than stealth sucking for 1:30 and i'm just wondering what the opposite POV is as to the roleplay that might generate

maybe just give them a store of blood to start with honestly? enough to get off the ground at roundstart (like a traitor, for example) and maintain their ball rolling by sucking rather than silently accruing blood for the first 1/2 of the round this actually seems like a better solution in my head now that the changeling comparison was made by @Doc - not mandating you take people out of the round, but also not having a mandated period of doing absolutely 0 antagging of substance - you have stores to start with, get out there and antag
 

1 hour ago, Captain Gecko said:

I agree. While I don't want vampires to feel forced to drain people to death, having stealth-vampires 99% of the time until they decide to go full antag at the last few minutes. a RNG-based forgiveness system could work, we could also have the Vampire being unable to tell if that guy has been affected or not mechanically speaking (and only having to rely on their victim's roleplay to know)... Or we could make it a very blood-hungry ability, meaning that the Vampire ends up being very limited in how much people they can drain.

i think RNG solutions are almost always bad ones - here, for example, it'd be an RNG where you bet on whether or not your victim is just ignoring the message or actually got the message RNG'd away anyway, which would generate issues staffside until people adjust
it'd also probably be the same as now sometimes basically; some people roll stealth all round. but others will fail their first stealth check. just seems like the worst of both worlds where you get both, but in a way the antagonist player is likely not prepared for.

[Marlon P.]

1 hour ago, limette said:

how much roleplay is going to happen when the end result is that nobody remembers and everyone has to play dumb

Will you have more rp than if youre dead?

[Gem]

might as well just give vampires a blood pool from the start they can use to buy abilities with, rather than relying on stealth draining or death draining. then the vampire can do as they wish.

[KingOfThePing]

I changed the ability to tell a victim of the vampire stealth sucking whatever you want to create (maybe hopefully) more interesting scenarios and allow a bit of scheming. Giving the vampire a bit of blood to get started is also a good idea, I'd say. I can look into this later this week.

[Marlon P.]

1 hour ago, KingOfThePing said:

I changed the ability to tell a victim of the vampire stealth sucking whatever you want to create (maybe hopefully) more interesting scenarios and allow a bit of scheming. Giving the vampire a bit of blood to get started is also a good idea, I'd say. I can look into this later this week.

This is the best change suggested. That freedom gives us the choice of letting them remember without forcing my hand.

My only small concern is if during the delicate dance of grab-drain-release they pop off before i finish typing message about their memory. Is it possible to toggle between a custom message, default message, and allowing memory? 3 states.

Edited August 8, 2022 by Marlon P.

[KingOfThePing]

That ist not a suggested change, that is an implemented change:

https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/14484

 

[Peppermint]

Admittedly I don't play much any more and only really chime in to do the background complaint stuff these days, so take my opinion with a grain of salt. However;

'Gaslighting, the round' isn't really very fun imo, and constantly leads to weird and uncomfortable situations. I cannot think of an antag that has led to more off-putting tickets and situations than vampire just due to how it's constructed. At which point you either ignore the obvious connotations, or people lean into them and get icky. The only thing biting and memory wipe lends itself too is gathering power for the sake of power, before either a) They stealth the entire round, b) Get caught and then play hide and seek veil walk until they hulk or c) Go around converting/thralling everyone. 

As someone else mentioned, a starting power base with the option of getting more blood back seems a much more interesting take. The only downside would be encouraging thralling and conversion too much. However it's still better than the current narrative of 'Oh, I just woke up in a corridoor with a headache and a guy I don't know, surely it was a pleasant conversation!!' gameplay loop. Antags that break logical character conclusions are just frustrating.

[Lly2]

8 hours ago, Gem said:

might as well just give vampires a blood pool from the start they can use to buy abilities with, rather than relying on stealth draining or death draining. then the vampire can do as they wish.

2 hours ago, Peppermint said:

Admittedly I don't play much any more and only really chime in to do the background complaint stuff these days, so take my opinion with a grain of salt. However;

'Gaslighting, the round' isn't really very fun imo, and constantly leads to weird and uncomfortable situations. I cannot think of an antag that has led to more off-putting tickets and situations than vampire just due to how it's constructed. At which point you either ignore the obvious connotations, or people lean into them and get icky. The only thing biting and memory wipe lends itself too is gathering power for the sake of power, before either a) They stealth the entire round, b) Get caught and then play hide and seek veil walk until they hulk or c) Go around converting/thralling everyone. 

As someone else mentioned, a starting power base with the option of getting more blood back seems a much more interesting take. The only downside would be encouraging thralling and conversion too much. However it's still better than the current narrative of 'Oh, I just woke up in a corridoor with a headache and a guy I don't know, surely it was a pleasant conversation!!' gameplay loop. Antags that break logical character conclusions are just frustrating.

echoing the opinions of both of these posts. i'd rather a vampire that can actually do things from the beginning of the round, than an antag that only appears 1 hour in. starting blood pool and/or changing how stealth suck works would be nice.

[Garnascus]

Others have posted extremely good reasons why this is a bad idea. Completely removing the forgetfullness ability is going to decrease overall roleplay because now you're dead. The current metagame of the vampire is to slowly accrue a blood stockpile so you get access to the fancier abilities that let you really affect the round (Thralls and noclip). The counter to this strategy is the crew piecing together a number of crew showing up with less blood than they should have and investigating from there. I have personally played and been a part of many rounds where this is happened. It was literally designed this way. You personally being unable to remember the vampire feeding on you is good for overall round roleplay. If a player was allowed to remember Dracula slurping on their neck the first thing they will do if let go is run their mouth to security and the round escalates to the "capture or kill the vamp" the first time the vampire tries to suck someone. This is bad game design and its a pitfall skull intentionally avoided when he reworked vampire years ago. 

[limette]

How about removing forgetfulness and giving them blood to start with then? Averts the need to kill to start as well as averting the need for absolutely zero vampire-based roleplay for an hour from roundstart, and lines them up closer to traitor in design in being able to pick their plan out at the start.

Overall I just haven't enjoyed it, and I haven't seen anyone here who's said that  "oh, you fell, you okay?" or the hour timer improved the round - just that they don't want people killed at the start, which this would avert as well.

The slowly accruing comes off to me as just that - a metagame where you need to accrue arbitrary points by wordlessly sucking people, rather than a tool to generate roleplay. Game-ier than most Aurorans seem to be fond of, and I've noticed vampire being the most unpopular onstation antag roundtype by far.

Edited August 9, 2022 by limette

[Garnascus]

37 minutes ago, limette said:

How about removing forgetfulness and giving them blood to start with then?

The reason being in my opinion is because it would throw off the pacing of the round. Every single antag round can be boiled down into three stages

1. The antag engages in nefariousness unbeknownst to the crew

2. The antag's nefariousness is known by the crew but the antag's identity is not

3. The antag's identity and crimes are known by the crew. The station's resources are utilized at least partially to capture or kill them. 

Some antags start out extremely well equipped because they generally can only exist in stage 3 (Mercs) or have access to strong powers and abilities right from the get go to survive (technomancer, ninja). Traitors, changelings and other crew antags have the advantage of being part of the crew and being allowed to prepare aboard the ship. They generally start out weak and grow in power as they collect resources or they start with the traitor shop and while they will probably win a 1v1 fight they will not be able to defeat all of security. Thus all of these antags are incentivized to play carefully, acquire power and attempt to accomplish their goals. The traitor might bribe a security cadet to get him a radio, the changeling needs a single person alone to kill them and enough time to do it. The vampire also needs someone alone and a little time for a drink. What these incentivize is establishing rapport with people. I need you to be comfortable to be in a room alone with me in the first place. Maybe i am your boss or someone who helped you out earlier in the round. The point is i do not have the power to reasonably fight against the station's resources so i have to be subtle, i have to be stealthy and i have to roleplay. 

If we allow the changeling more points so he can acquire more powers we ironically enough might decrease the overall RP of the round because the closer the changeling gets to being able to fight against the station's resources the less he needs to RP with other people and acquire power. The more blood we give the vampire at the start the stronger he is. The stronger he is the less he has to worry about getting blood from other people. The greater a chance he can create a few thralls before anyone notices and the greater the chance the round devolves into anarchy quicker. If i am strong enough to break into the armory or the bridge and take on half of security you're medical intern will never see me the entire round. The idea is to hit a Goldilocks zone with antag power. You would literally need to give vampires hundreds of starting blood to compensate for their victims remembering they where drained.

I wrote a lot.  You don't have to read any of it. Just the next sentence and this one explaining it. Forgetfulness is SUPER POWERFUL and if you want to remove it you need to give vampires hundreds of starting blood which would immediately let them access their most powerful abilities. 

[GreenBoi]

I think this just removes different avenues for Vamps with nothing gained and just holes left behind. Also confused on how it would even be more fun.

The mainstay Vamp combo is: Hypnotize -> Grab -> Feed

If feeding would leave the victim conscious...you just have a very straight-forward death each time.

If the victim isn't drained to death for whatever reason, they will have enough of their blood drained that it becomes mechanically harder to play (mainly screen-shake and possible collapses). I don't think it's a stretch to say this is worse than just being minorly inconvenienced. Vampire can often be OOCly boring, but I'd rather that than frustrating gameplay or deaths you can't fight to evade.

Also, yes, both the above can happen even with memory loss, but there's much less incentive to do so..

[Arrow768]

Voting for dismissal.

If the memory loss is removed the victims will immediately blab to security which would force the vampire to kill them.

That just turns vamp into a changeling re-skin.