Balancing blob

[bandit]

Right now, it is almost impossible to win as blob if even one member of the crew is competent. Even if nobody is competent, if a blob is spotted early it is basically fucked. But this isn't about that. It is about the fact that one person is enough to solo blobs.

The reason: Blobs do pure brute damage. There are items in the game that are easily accessible -- riot suit, security jumpsuit, goliath plates, etc. -- that can add up to a 90% reduction in brute damage. (When Roman gear added brute protection, it was possible to get 100%.) Unlike emitters, laser cannons and the like, these require almost no effort or crew cooperation to acquire and, more importantly, have no counter. Against one of these people the blob can't do shit. They can trap them, but they will always keep plugging forward. They can crack open a nearby welder tank and try to set them on fire, but that is a risky maneuver and not always possible. One person in a fully tricked riot suit as a result can practically solo a blob. This shouldn't happen.

My idea: Keep the blob from doing pure brute somehow, forcing crew to rely on less powergaming tactics. For instance, blob spores could do, upon attack, a small amount of toxin damage -- less than a spider's bite, not enough to be a horrible danger on its own but enough to add up unless dealt with. Other ideas are welcome.

[Remie Richards]

Possible to get 100% if you're fully auged as well as having all that Gear, Btw.

Blob spores dealing toxins sounds like it'd solve this. a lot of "spores" are toxic IRL.

Done: https://github.com/tgstation/-tg-station/pull/4599

[Scott]

Toxin damage sounds right.

[Lo6a4evskiy]

Won blob against multiple people with riot suits and obviously other crew.

But I suppose there needs to be some toxin damage for piercing armor.

How exactly does paralyzing gas they release work? Do internals prevent it from doing anything?

[leibniz]

I agree that riot suits and some other stuff are very strong against the blob.

Also zombies seem overpowered to me, too much health and all.

It'd be nice if something was done about both.

Like, maybe a new kind of node that can deal with this. Toxic factory maybe, since tox dmg was mentioned?
I'm not sure if it would work, since a competent chemist could still supply them with the necessary stuff. Not sure if that is a problem.
Or the blob could pulse low range radiation from nodes for some resources.
Or maybe a node that is a cannon like the emitters.. but I'm getting carried away I guess.

[Incomptinence]

Zombies should be a little strong, they are almost 100% preventable with a little dragging or not trying to solo the blob without thine knightly riot armour.

A new node type sounds like a bad idea. Blob is very stretched for resources as is.

[Remie Richards]

Also zombies seem overpowered to me, too much health and all.

Their health isn't that bad actually, But if someone wearing armour dies, that armour is ADDED to their health. so dieing with armour and becoming a blob zombie means the zombie has quite a big chunk of health

[Lo6a4evskiy]

Killing someone with armor is also quite hard. It's a nice reward.

By the way, armor that is good against blob is usually terrible against lasers, so there you go.

I think making blob spores do toxin damage is a fair change. I mean, currently they're mostly annoying than dangerous.

Alternatively damage can be split in half between brute and toxin.

[cedarbridge]

I'm not sure if it would work, since a competent chemist could still supply them with the necessary stuff. Not sure if that is a problem.

Involving more departments in the round is always a good thing.

[Incoming]

the amount of antitox that starts in medbay between machines, lockers, and medpacks borders on ludicrous; It's not a hard thing to fight.

[Incomptinence]

Cryosting is more effective on the armoured (due to weak cold protection keeping the cold in).

Some way for the blob to artificially lower body temp through armour would work. Not exactly fluff compatible but it would work I think.

[bandit]

Yeah, I chose toxin because it made the most sense for the blob (I didn't know the clouds did toxin damage... are you sure it even works?). Cryo is a stretch, and lasers are right out.

[Oldman Robustin]

Last I checked blob had a pretty normal winrate. I know I haven't ever lost as blob when I get to choose my starting spot.

People need to understand that your blob round starts the moment the round starts. Its very easy to sabotage the power grid, hack doors, scream about nukeops on the other side of the station, release plasma in areas adjacent to where you're starting, disassemble Tcomms, and basically any number of other actions that will give you an edge over the crew.

Be creative, tell the AI you're moving the spacesuits to a new EVA room you're making, then space them all and burst somewhere exposed to space.


Blob could use another perk I guess, but its already extremely winnable for anyone who spent 2 minutes reading the wiki and understanding basic bleb tactics.

[Raven776]

Blobs already have tools to deal with riot armored people. Expose large areas to space, surround them inside you, burst open close to the armory, blast open their welder tanks.

If you play it smart as blob, you should have one back to space with enough factory and resource nodes to keep you good to go and one line of assault that riot armored assholes can reasonably take. People can still eva around to laser you from behind but it shouldn't be common and reloading those guns will take too much time with that in mind. People in front will be the tanks you have to deal with more often than not and will hopefully make people lasering you be more concentrated on one spot for fear of lasering the two or three people with riot gear (at most).

And then there's the prize of a riot armored blob. If you think a riot armored person is terrifying to a blob, think about a riot armored blob zombie wrecking shit up next to the recharging lines.

With that said, toxin damage would change the game possibly for the better, not ruin it. I'd honestly dose myself up with enough anti tox and tricord to last me the whole fight if I was tasked with being the hero the station deserved against the blob.

[Lo6a4evskiy]

Cryosting is more effective on the armoured (due to weak cold protection keeping the cold in).

Some way for the blob to artificially lower body temp through armour would work. Not exactly fluff compatible but it would work I think.

Like, uh, creating hull breaches?

Oh wait...

(I didn't know the clouds did toxin damage... are you sure it even works?).

Not sure about toxin damage, but they do blind and paralyze you. Or something. I'm not sure exactly what happens and what prevents gas from doing its things.

[Incomptinence]

Space is not an answer, goliath miners ignore it and you know the example of augments helping tip you to 100% brute immunity? Space immunity from augments is round start tech.

So instead of a 90% immune guy the blob gets to tango with the 100% immune one. Nice strategy good thinking. Wait do augments make you immune to cryosting? Fuck there goes my idea.

[leibniz]

(I didn't know the clouds did toxin damage... are you sure it even works?).

Not sure about toxin damage, but they do blind and paralyze you. Or something. I'm not sure exactly what happens and what prevents gas from doing its things.[/quote]

The cloud of blob spores only works if you dont have internals and breathe it in.

[Miauw]

For reference, there's a spore buff PR up here.

[Incomptinence]

Do augmented players take toxin damage? I can't quite recall.

[Remie Richards]

Do augmented players take toxin damage? I can't quite recall.

I created augs, and as far I can remember, they DO still take toxin damage. But I'll stick an edit once I'm sure.

Edit: The toxin damage dealt by the blob spores, uses the a /toxic reagent, which directly alters the mob's ToxLoss, which is the amount of toxin damage they have.
I believe every kind of damage besides BRUTE adjusts the appropriate Loss, So yeah, they take toxin damage.

I think you're perhaps getting confused with chems, of which robotic limbs take less/no damage from as well.

(I didn't know the clouds did toxin damage... are you sure it even works?).

Not sure about toxin damage, but they do blind and paralyze you. Or something. I'm not sure exactly what happens and what prevents gas from doing its things.
The cloud of blob spores only works if you dont have internals and breathe it in.

The clouds use /toxin/spore which has a toxin power of 0.5, it's not much, but if you stand in the cloud like an idiot it'll build up and poison you quite a bit.
And yes, it makes your vision blurry too.

[Kelenius]

The clouds use /toxin/spore which has a toxin power of 0.5, it's not much, but if you stand in the cloud like an idiot it'll build up and poison you quite a bit.
And yes, it makes your vision blurry too.

Unless you wear a mask

[Remie Richards]

The clouds use /toxin/spore which has a toxin power of 0.5, it's not much, but if you stand in the cloud like an idiot it'll build up and poison you quite a bit.
And yes, it makes your vision blurry too.

Unless you wear a mask

well yeah, duh. That's just the clouds though. I was talking more in general of the spore reagent.

[Raven776]

Space is not an answer, goliath miners ignore it and you know the example of augments helping tip you to 100% brute immunity? Space immunity from augments is round start tech.

So instead of a 90% immune guy the blob gets to tango with the 100% immune one. Nice strategy good thinking. Wait do augments make you immune to cryosting? Fuck there goes my idea.

If you can't win as blob by the time that someone gets goliath plates and cheeses their way too 100% immunity, you shouldn't win. At the very least, you're supposed to make it so damned hard for them to move at that point through a sea of factories and nodes that they would rather suicide than try to guess with node you shunted your core off to. A single guy can only do so much damage, even if he is a 100% brute resistant goliath plated jetpack hauling plasma cutter wielding riot shield toting maniac.

If you LET it get to that point, you deserve your come uppance.

With that said, I'd like to say gain that I'd be super excited to see a PR go through that stops the easy blob cheesy.

[bandit]

If you can't win as blob by the time that someone gets goliath plates and cheeses their way too 100% immunity, you shouldn't win. At the very least, you're supposed to make it so damned hard for them to move at that point through a sea of factories and nodes that they would rather suicide than try to guess with node you shunted your core off to. A single guy can only do so much damage, even if he is a 100% brute resistant goliath plated jetpack hauling plasma cutter wielding riot shield toting maniac.

If you LET it get to that point, you deserve your come uppance.

With that said, I'd like to say gain that I'd be super excited to see a PR go through that stops the easy blob cheesy.

The problem is, there is nothing a blob can do to prevent this happening. You can burst in / steal from the armory, but that requires you to pretty much be warden, HoS or captain already (there's probably not enough time before you burst to break in from space, and even if the AI decides to let you into the armory people tend to take that pretty seriously as a threat). You basically can't do shit about augmentations or miners. You can put down as many nodes or factories as you want, but a) most blobs are too busy trying to stem the tide of welder and laser guys to build up that amount of resources and b) even if they do, they will just get chipped away at slowly by the invincible guy. I've seen it happen and I've been the one it's happened to: a blob is damn close to eating the entire station, well-positioned, got a head start, and then one guy he can't do shit against ruins it all. It all depends on whether someone does it. That is literally all it depends on.

[Scott]

Blob requires a big head start to win. It doesn't help that it is announced there is a blob every time, so you don't have a chance to expand enough most of the times. Once the crew finds you, if you aren't ready you never will be, it's just a slow death.

[Reimoo]

I won my first round as blob having spawned without any prior knowledge of the gamemode. I even got found out somewhat early. All I did was erupt in disposals and cover chokepoints with strong blob and factory mobs. Honestly, it's babby's first RTS, People just need to git gud.

[Rumia29]

Have you guys ever considered if the crew were less than competent to deal with a blob?
Trust me, it's a nightmare, and the human population will wish they had a soloing badass talked about in this thread.

[Incomptinence]

It doesn't take a genius to put a riot suit on.

[Ikarrus]

To solve the early detection problem, blobs could be given a point rate boost for the first X minutes of its life.

But keep the announcements. I'd rather the game mode be about fighting the blob than whether or not you'll get seen or not.

[Rumia29]

It doesn't take a genius to put a riot suit on.

Sure, any retard can put on a riot suit. But I'm talking about "don't use diagonal attacking of blobs, stand right in front of it and hit it." kind of retard.
Even then, you're glorifying riot suits way too much. They aren't THE ultimate armor you make it out to be, it still has flaws.

[Incomptinence]

As far as blob is concerned the flaws are currently reduced down to lack of space protection (not a huge problem when it can barely hurt you with internals on and hey you were slow anyway) and slower movement. It isn't the ultimate but it is just sitting there ready to be used anytime easy peasy. Yeah people who don't diagonal attack are pretty dumb, the people who go off to sulk in the corner about not liking the round or even get in the way then complain even more latter because it went badly FOR SOME REASON are worse.

[Raven776]

In a recent blob outburst, late round blob eruption below cargo, I saw a group of three people with welders straight attacking a blob, getting shot from behind by a durand with a laser rifle because they kept dancing around in front of it. Sometimes the crew is incompetent...

[Jalleo]

In a recent blob outburst, late round blob eruption below cargo, I saw a group of three people with welders straight attacking a blob, getting shot from behind by a durand with a laser rifle because they kept dancing around in front of it. Sometimes the crew is incompetent...

I think we have to tick that as human error to the extreme.

[Incomptinence]

No they need to be flashbanged, set on fire then bombed all with prior warning.

[Alex Crimson]

Could you give the blob some kind of acid spray ability? Seems like it would be useful against people wearing armor to negate the brute damage. Maybe just make the game mode like malf AI by giving the blob several abilities to choose from by spending points right after it bursts. Like...

A fire-resistant shield tile
As i mentioned before, an Acid Spray that melts armor or does toxin/burn damage
Ability to boost growth speed at the cost of no longer spawning mobs for a while
Ability to move your core at a very large resource cost

Eh im sure you guys would come up with better stuff. But i think you get the idea.

[Rumia29]

Alex, half the stuff you suggested is already in the game.
"Fire-resistant shield tile" Strong blob
"Ability to move your core" Making a node, then swapping to it at a resource cost.

[Alex Crimson]

I thought the strong Blob tile just had higher health rather than resistance to fire damage. But i dont know the coding on the thing.

and yeah the swapping thing is similar. But i was thinking more of being able to teleport it anywhere your Blob has reached, rather than swapping with another core.

As i said, my ideas are not great. I just think Blob would be more fun for all involved if the Blob could change its playstyle a little depending on what abilities it buys. Which in turn forces the crew to change how they attack it.

[Rumia29]

Strong blobs block out atmosphere, and by extension, plasma fires. It technically has no "resistance to fire damage", if you're talking about burn dealing weapons. Which, it might as well, since it has more HP.
Also that swapping thing sounds OP. The current way of doing it is fine and balanced IMO.

[Lo6a4evskiy]

What about suicide blob that when destroyed releases acid that poisons people unless they are wearing full bio suit/space suit? Obviously with ability for blob to blow it up.