Remove reagant blob until you can fucking balance properly.

[Oldman Robustin]

We find the blob in incinerator before the Level 5 biohazard announcement even shows up.

I haul down all the blob fighting tools from security. The crew is alert and prepared.

JK THE BLOB MADE ITS FACTORY RED SO NOW EVERY 10 SECONDS IT SENDS OUT A MINIBLOB THAT HAS SMOKE WHICH LIGHTS EVERYONE ON FIRE WHEN IT DIES.

THE ONLY NON-SPACE ROUTE TO THE BLOB IS A 1x1 MAINT HALLWAY. IF ANYONE ON FIRE, THEY LIGHT EVERYONE ELSE ON FIRE AS THEY PASS THEM.

DID I MENTION THE FIRE SMOKE LASTS NEARLY AS LONG AS IT TAKES THE BLOB TO GENERATE A NEW FIRE SMOKE MINIBLOB?

THE CREW IS NOW PERMANENTLY ON FIRE.

FIRE SUITS DONT BLOCK FIRE DAMAGE, YOU WILL STILL EASILY DIE TO FIRE DAMAGE IN A FUCKING FIRESUIT NOW.

ALSO ACID BLOBS DESTROY ALL YOUR EQUIPMENT THE MOMENT THEY TOUCH YOU.

ALSO EXPLOSIVE MINIBLOBS BECAUSE FUCK EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING. YOU NEED TO KILL THE MINIBLOB BEFORE IT GETS IN MELEE RANGE, GOOD LUCK BECAUSE THEY MOVE 2x FASTER THAN YOU RETARD.

WHO CODED THIS SHIT AND THOUGHT "YEA, THIS SEEMS LIKE A BALANCED CONCEPT".

YES I DED, YES I MAD.

[Steelpoint]

I recall firesuits were nerfed to not fully block fire damage by someone, I disagreed with that but what can you do?

Also I'm pretty certain Goofball's responsible for any and all Blob changes.

[Bluespace]

>go afk as skin melter blob
>win
it could happen

[Alex Crimson]

I have no idea why spores transfer their reagent in melee. I thought it was in the smoke cloud only and their melee did minor brute?

[Steelpoint]

Tbh I would really prefer if we just scrapped the RNG blob reagents and went back to the original, green, version. I feel the reagent's add to much complexity, difficulty and randomness to the game mode.

[Alex Crimson]

I disagree. Its one of the most interesting aspects of the mode now. Going back to the normal green blob would be boring as shit at this point. I think it needs to be easier to identify the blobs type before you get whacked by it, and certain types need to be completely removed(acid blob is fucking insane).

[Steelpoint]

At the very least some of the more insane reagent's were removed (I think). I recall that one reagent that essentially melted anything it hit. That was over powered to all hell.

[Alex Crimson]

Acid? Pretty sure that is still very much in the game.

[Steelpoint]

I thought it was removed? Or maybe it was re added or something.

Whatever the case is, its the most overpowered reagent the blob can get by far. If the blob gets the acid reagent you can essentially just end the round there and then.

[ThatSlyFox]

The blob has a 50% chance of winning. What do you think happens when we remove the reagents?

My answer to this is to have chemicals that can counter blobs. For example I know that a fire extinguisher(water) fucks up certain blobs (forget which one).

[Steelpoint]

The blob has a 50% chance of winning. What do you think happens when we remove the reagents?

My answer to this is to have chemicals that can counter blobs. For example I know that a fire extinguisher(water) fucks up certain blobs (forget which one).

This is kinda what I'm talking about, reagents add a huge layer of complexity to a already complex and highly demanding game mode. This not only makes it very difficult to balance but also frustrating to the crew and the blob.

The default green blob is the best, in my opinion, simply because its far easier to balance something when you don't have to worry about the core gameplay of the blob changing every round.

[imblyings]

yeah come on who nerfed firesuits

[Steelpoint]

Ergovisavi made the change here: https://github.com/tgstation/-tg-station/pull/5645

[Babin]

have chemists mix large amounts of leporazine, tank fire damage forever
have bartender serve cold drinks, significantly reduce the damage from being hot
have botany grow some ice peppers, also reduce fire damage
have atmos get their firefighting backpack and stand nearby dousing people with water; everyone should also have extinguishers because they're all over the station and fit inside a backpack
have engineers decon walls to open up areas to shoot from, cargo can do this with RCDs as well, chemists can burn them down with thermite
have genetics search for hulk to open up walls, or cold resist to attack from space (cold resist makes you fully spaceworthy aside from needing oxygen)

[deputi]

To fix this, blob splitting should produce a blob of the same reagent instead of a new reagent. I've seen too many rounds where the blob splits and can't be countered because of an ungodly combination of two reagents such as a previous round where we had fire and radioactive blobs. If the blob is restricted to one reagent, it would actually allow the crew to specialize in fighting one reagent instead of trying to fight two or more reagents at once which is almost impossible because there's no way to protect from multiple damage types.

[Oldman Robustin]

At the very least some of the more insane reagent's were removed (I think). I recall that one reagent that essentially melted anything it hit. That was over powered to all hell.

Wasn't removed. My evaporated spacesuit, bag, and all my equipment yesterday testified to that.

[Oldman Robustin]

The blob has a 50% chance of winning. What do you think happens when we remove the reagents?

My answer to this is to have chemicals that can counter blobs. For example I know that a fire extinguisher(water) fucks up certain blobs (forget which one).

I never had difficulty winning as blob before it got all the buffs. I had a 100% winrate with just the green shit after blob zombies were added.

You just have to be more creative than LOL IM GONNA BURST IN MIDDLE OF A HALLWAY and you're 90% of the way there. Plenty of blobs lose simply because they are terrible and don't know how to properly expand or pick a good location. We shouldn't buff the blob so that decent blobs are virtually unstoppable just because some idiots will lose with blob even if you put a "WIN THE GAME" button in the blob tab.

[iamgoofball]

Can you join #coderbus on irc.rizon.net? I'd like to discuss this with you in the IRC so we can get some faster feedback.

[ChangelingRain]

Acid blob is dead.

[ThatSlyFox]

The blob has a 50% chance of winning. What do you think happens when we remove the reagents?

My answer to this is to have chemicals that can counter blobs. For example I know that a fire extinguisher(water) fucks up certain blobs (forget which one).

I never had difficulty winning as blob before it got all the buffs. I had a 100% winrate with just the green shit after blob zombies were added.

You just have to be more creative than LOL IM GONNA BURST IN MIDDLE OF A HALLWAY and you're 90% of the way there. Plenty of blobs lose simply because they are terrible and don't know how to properly expand or pick a good location. We shouldn't buff the blob so that decent blobs are virtually unstoppable just because some idiots will lose with blob even if you put a "WIN THE GAME" button in the blob tab.

So literally when player controlled blobs were first added. When no one knew the meta on how to kill them quickly nor did we have x ray lasers. Times have changed oldman. The crew is more robust and well armed.

[Incomptinence]

Ergo seriously got that upset firesuits were breaking his immulshions so he ruined an important part of game balance. Lighting yourself on fire was a party trick with fire suits at best good lord.

[PKPenguin321]

have chemists mix large amounts of leporazine, tank fire damage forever
have bartender serve cold drinks, significantly reduce the damage from being hot
have botany grow some ice peppers, also reduce fire damage
have atmos get their firefighting backpack and stand nearby dousing people with water; everyone should also have extinguishers because they're all over the station and fit inside a backpack
have engineers decon walls to open up areas to shoot from, cargo can do this with RCDs as well, chemists can burn them down with thermite
have genetics search for hulk to open up walls, or cold resist to attack from space (cold resist makes you fully spaceworthy aside from needing oxygen)

>implying leporazine exists post-goonchem
>implying the bartender has any more than 9 ice cups
>implying the botanists haven't suicided at roundstart/there are botanists/botanists have successfully mutated peppers to ice peppers
>implying atmos exists to end fire instead of making it/there are atmos techs/people are aware of atmos's firefighting gear
>implying there are enough extinguishers for everyone on the station, or that one person won't hoard all of them and die
>implying cargo/chemists are spaceworthy
>implying genetics isn't almost literally impossible and RNG based
>implying any of these things can be done before the majority of the crew is burned to death/the round has ended

No, I love chemblobs, they add variety, but sometimes this kind of shit pops up where there's no reasonable counterplay. Some blob chems simply can't be worked around with any sane approach. It's a fun feature but needs rebalancing, and removing acid blob is definitely a step in the right direction. Also, how long have firesuits been nerfed..?
Apparently this fire smoke blob needs the boot, too, if what Oldman's saying is true.

[Babin]

have chemists mix large amounts of leporazine, tank fire damage forever
have bartender serve cold drinks, significantly reduce the damage from being hot
have botany grow some ice peppers, also reduce fire damage
have atmos get their firefighting backpack and stand nearby dousing people with water; everyone should also have extinguishers because they're all over the station and fit inside a backpack
have engineers decon walls to open up areas to shoot from, cargo can do this with RCDs as well, chemists can burn them down with thermite
have genetics search for hulk to open up walls, or cold resist to attack from space (cold resist makes you fully spaceworthy aside from needing oxygen)

>implying leporazine exists post-goonchem
>implying the bartender has any more than 9 ice cups
>implying the botanists haven't suicided at roundstart/there are botanists/botanists have successfully mutated peppers to ice peppers
>implying atmos exists to end fire instead of making it/there are atmos techs/people are aware of atmos's firefighting gear
>implying there are enough extinguishers for everyone on the station, or that one person won't hoard all of them and die
>implying cargo/chemists are spaceworthy
>implying genetics isn't almost literally impossible and RNG based
>implying any of these things can be done before the majority of the crew is burned to death/the round has ended

No, I love chemblobs, they add variety, but sometimes this kind of shit pops up where there's no reasonable counterplay. Some blob chems simply can't be worked around with any sane approach. It's a fun feature but needs rebalancing, and removing acid blob is definitely a step in the right direction. Also, how long have firesuits been nerfed..?
Apparently this fire smoke blob needs the boot, too, if what Oldman's saying is true.

Leporazine literally exists. The recipe hasn't even changed. I just made some and lit myself on fire. I didn't take damage from it. If you swallow phlog or cfl then you'll take damage through their metabolism effects but the fire itself won't hurt you. It's also piss easy to make en masse and there is no overdose from it. 5u plasma and 90u leporazine can be whipped up in a single beaker. This makes two 45u pills which will last you several minutes each. As an added bonus they'll also reduce damage from freezing if you're too close to a breach in space.
The other things you listed basically require people to be competent at their job. GASP. Go ahead and keep dismissing botany as if they don't matter though. Or here's an idea -- go knock on their window and tell them to make ice peppers ASAP. The mutation takes five minutes tops if you have mutagen, ten minutes if you spam a bunch of trays full of zed.
Chemists are literally spaceworthy.

[imblyings]

Yeah I think the point is that you're expecting a really high level of competency when blob usually features station crew trying to weld the blob and dying one by one to it.

[Drynwyn]

Yeaaaaaahh..... Chemblob is only nominally balanced at best. The win rate for blob seems to be quite high to me (anecdotal).

This is because that while there exists a counter for many blob types (but not all- omnizine blob I'm looking at you), there are simply too many blob types and the counters are too obscure in many cases to reasonably expect the majority of the crew to take advantage of these counters- and the majority of the crew using them is needed for any hope of victory in a blob round.

Unless, of course, someone finds the blob thirty seconds after they burst, in which case ggnore for blob.

[Not-Dorsidarf]

Acidbleb is kil
rip acidbleb

[Oldman Robustin]

Uh I definitely played Blob when xray lasers were a thing. Telescience was a thing too and that's something that current blobs don't have to deal with.

I also noticed they seem to get stupid amounts of resources now. I'm seeing them throw down 10-15 squares a minute before they even have their first node up. Shit is ridiculous.

[Oldman Robustin]

Yeaaaaaahh..... Chemblob is only nominally balanced at best. The win rate for blob seems to be quite high to me (anecdotal).

This is because that while there exists a counter for many blob types (but not all- omnizine blob I'm looking at you), there are simply too many blob types and the counters are too obscure in many cases to reasonably expect the majority of the crew to take advantage of these counters- and the majority of the crew using them is needed for any hope of victory in a blob round.

Unless, of course, someone finds the blob thirty seconds after they burst, in which case ggnore for blob.

I found an incinerator blob less than a minute after it burst today. He only had one resource node on its core, no factory or additional nodes yet.

It still rekt me. Even after killing 10 squares of manually spread blob, he could still spam them to his hearts content. Here I was assuming that like old blob you only got a ~1.2 resources per second with one resource node and you had to save up for a minute if you wanted to spam new squares to kill someone. Yet this fucker was able to drop several squares on me, and within 20 seconds, dropped another 9 on me to box me in and kill me.

Jesus fucking christ guys, incinerator isn't even the best location and it gets spotted very fast and yet it's still autowin because of whoever touched the blob code.

Can you join #coderbus on irc.rizon.net? I'd like to discuss this with you in the IRC so we can get some faster feedback.

I'd really like to, but I'm reluctant to add anything else until I've played newbleb myself to get a feel for how quickly I can expand and play with my new toys. Until then I'm just going off observations from a few rounds that say "holy fuck this is broken".

[PKPenguin321]

Chemists are literally spaceworthy.

With trekchem, they were. I guess maybe you could get a chemist spaceworthy with goonchem, but good luck accomplishing that before the blob's eaten most of the crew/station.

As for the rest of your points,

you're expecting a really high level of competency

In the ideal, nonexistent environment of a perfectly competent space station, everything you said is reasonable. But that kind of scenario just doesn't exist in the actual game, and even if it did, expecting that out of the crew every single time there's a blob is the opposite of both fun and varied gameplay.

[Babin]

Chemists are literally spaceworthy.

With trekchem, they were. I guess maybe you could get a chemist spaceworthy with goonchem, but good luck accomplishing that before the blob's eaten most of the crew/station.

As for the rest of your points,

you're expecting a really high level of competency

In the ideal, nonexistent environment of a perfectly competent space station, everything you said is reasonable. But that kind of scenario just doesn't exist in the actual game, and even if it did, expecting that out of the crew every single time there's a blob is the opposite of both fun and varied gameplay.

There is no "maybe" about space chemists. I've done it and know that it is possible. It's less convenient now that tricord/DD isn't a thing anymore, but it's still very doable. Before the blob bursts. It's worth mentioning that 90% of what chemists can do is available at roundstart.

Who wins the round should be foremost a matter of competency. How good is the blob? How good is a crew? Should a bad blob be able to steamroll a good crew? Should a bad crew be able to steamroll a good blob? Being on fire is one of the easiest problems to solve in the entire game given that fire extinguishers are so common, and chemists can trivially mix up pills which make you utterly immune to damage from being on fire. It's literally just "grind plasma, mix silicon and copper." It's spammable, has no overdose, and it's even easy to remember. I consider it in the same vein as "Viral outbreak, sugar is the cure, time to distribute sugar pills."

Leporazine is seriously a hard counter to being on fire, I don't know how well I can put this. It really is that good at stabilizing temperature.

I'm not saying that EVERYONE should be on their game. The whole point of me writing up a big list is that at least a few people should be competent. So the botanist wants to piss around with bluespace tomatoes this round? So chemists are busy mixing cyanide for no reason? Maybe the atmos tech will be competent this time. You have many crew members to choose from, surely someone will be good at their job. If nobody is, then the crew deserves the loss.

[Drynwyn]

He has a legitimate point though, I haven't seen a Crew win in blob in weeks.

[Jeb]

He has a legitimate point though, I haven't seen a Crew win in blob in weeks.

I've seen plenty crew-successful rounds. You playing during lowpop or something?

[Alex Crimson]

Ive seen them win plenty of times too. Hell, i saw a giant blob close to winning get completely destroyed by 3 people with X-ray laser guns.

[Incoming]

The way blob rounds tend to go is that there's an initial vigor from the crew before anyone dies that sometimes overwhelms young blobs.

If the blob survives long enough for that first push to let up the crew ends up more in a containment situation where they're just trying to keep the blob pinned down without any real hope of gaining much ground. If the blob can breakout during this part of the round, they'll usually win.

If the blob is pinned down too long sci and engineering start bringing out the painful options, bomb, xrays, space emitter platforms, "accidental" singulos, all that fun stuff. Either they'll fuck the station too much for the crew to keep up the pressure or they'll manage to kill the blob, often times both.

If the blob survives THAT it's probably set, but if somehow the crew is STILL keeping the pressure up at this point, the round will continue until the nuke codes are automatically granted and either the nuke will be used or the blob will be forced to victory by expanding to the vault to eat the nuke.

[Alex Crimson]

I imagine crew win rates will improve once goofball buffs sleepers and medibots to actually be useful. Crew will be able to sustain themselves better. It will be much easier for doctors to set up a forward medical station to heal people up.

[MisterPerson]

Responses with "git gud" or equivalent are unacceptable responses to the thread and will be deleted.

[Oldman Robustin]

So are you just going to bitch about every new change that happened since you were gone or what

I've made one feedback thread?

The rest of any complaining is either confined to OOC (isn't that what it's for?) or was admin stuff that's on the policy forum.

In terms of in-game mechanics the only things that are really worth complaining about are the newbleb and bartender's rag.

I've seen crew win blob but its only when the blob clearly has no idea who to expand or properly place itself (talking about you, bomb test site blob).

It's not even as much about winning as it is about what blob has become. It used to be that even a team of greyshirts with welders could apply a focused attack on the blob and make a meaningful difference in pushing it back and destroying a node. With reagant blobs its pretty much "I sure hope engineering or mining+science comes with our bailout package soon because we can't beat a blob with traditional weapons anymore". Blobs spread too quickly and are too robust for even lasers to put out meaningful damage most of the time. Same reason I think malf is one of the shittier gametypes, only 2-3 professions have access to anything that will allow them to stop the AI... everyone else just gets to sit in their shocked room and let the insulatedglove master-race play the round out.

Most of all, I don't see why Blob needed a boost. Its population scaling was fairly on, a single oldblob could take out smaller crews and double blob was a serious threat for even the largest and most competent crews. When the Blob message went out with OldBlob, no matter what profession I was playing, I knew that I could make a difference. With Newblob, when the message goes out, I know that unless I'm playing one of the "elite" roles I'm probably going to be nothing more than a blob zombie in 5 minutes.

[Incomptinence]

Should have just moved the scaling back to 20:1 instead of that 30:1 nonsense. Obviously they would eventually think blob needed a huge buff when nonsense scenarios like one classic blob vs 50 people could happen.

Reagent blobing is probably a lot stronger than default expansion since the resource blobs are much weaker in production compared to a blob core as part of an old blob scaling rebalance I personally suggested.

[Oldman Robustin]

>Dark green bleb in Viro, crew has it contained to the room. Everyone is responding almost perfectly, no way is the blob going to survive this.

>Get splashed several tiles away

>YOUVE TAKEN TOO MUCH MORPHINE

>Medic drags me away

>Literally spend the next 15 minutes in Medbay unconscious

>WAKE UP

>BACK IN ACTION

>JUST KIDDING THE MORPHINE BLOB SPORE SMOKE STILL AFFECTS YOU DESPITE WEARING INTERNALS

>YOURE KNOCKED OUT AGAIN NERD, ENJOY ANOTHER 15 MINUTES ASLEEP

>JUST KIDDING YOURE GOING TO SUFFOCATE NOW, HOPE YOU HAD FUN WITH THIS BRILLIANT NEW ADDITION TO THE GAME

[Saltycut]

Agree with Oldman. Just spent whole round in morphine-induced coma after a single fight with blob spore...

[Babin]

burning is one thing because there are so many ways to deal with burning, one of which is a hard counter, but damn man i can't defend morphine

Even if you overcome the knockout with chemistry, I don't think there is a way to deal with the overdosage and addiction effects. Dropping items is usually annoying but against a blob it's basically a death sentence.

[iyaerP]

The shittyness of goonchem strikes again!

Seriously, this is worse than the drunk punching of phazons.

[Oldman Robustin]

burning is one thing because there are so many ways to deal with burning, one of which is a hard counter, but damn man i can't defend morphine

Even if you overcome the knockout with chemistry, I don't think there is a way to deal with the overdosage and addiction effects. Dropping items is usually annoying but against a blob it's basically a death sentence.

You'd think the crew can manage fire but in a 1x1 corridor flames spread like... wildfire. As soon as you extinguish one person, another runs past and ignites all of you, then a blob spore bursts and now anyone running to the blob is going to be ignited and have to stop/drop/roll to remove flames, only to have the person behind them reignite them and you spend most of your blob fight just rolling on the ground as panicked crewmembers constantly keep lighting you on fire when the blob spore smoke isn't.

[Cheimon]

Yup, the 'running over a burning person sets you on fire' update has been very deadly. It's weird that the fire spreads so well, I would at least have expected it to be slightly RNG or based on being flammable or whatever.

[Wyzack]

Lets all take a step back and remember that this is a video game, not some serious bullshit. We are playing this for fun. Are these near unbeatable blebs actually fun for anyone except the people playing the blob? Are they necessary as a roundending event like xenomorphs are intended to be? Should they maybe be shunted to an adminbutton?

[Scones]

Blob spore is an issue that I might fix during the freeze although it sounds like a pain in the ass. The cloud applies reagents regardless of internals, directly into you.

Anyways blob has a winrate pretty close to 50% so I wouldn't say reagent blobs are fucking absurd, although Morphine/Omnizine are a little too strong for my liking (Same with Explosive Gel)

[Arete]

Blob spore is an issue that I might fix during the freeze although it sounds like a pain in the ass. The cloud applies reagents regardless of internals, directly into you.

Anyways blob has a winrate pretty close to 50% so I wouldn't say reagent blobs are fucking absurd, although Morphine/Omnizine are a little too strong for my liking (Same with Explosive Gel)

Keep in mind that "50% winrate" doesn't necessarily mean the same thing as "balanced." To take things to the extreme, if half the reagents were totally overpowered unbeatable bullshit and the other half were utterly useless unwinnable bullshit, the winrate might be 50% but you wouldn't call it "balanced." There should probably be nerfs applied to some reagents and buffs applied to others.

[Drynwyn]

Blob spore is an issue that I might fix during the freeze although it sounds like a pain in the ass. The cloud applies reagents regardless of internals, directly into you.

Anyways blob has a winrate pretty close to 50% so I wouldn't say reagent blobs are fucking absurd, although Morphine/Omnizine are a little too strong for my liking (Same with Explosive Gel)

Keep in mind that "50% winrate" doesn't necessarily mean the same thing as "balanced." To take things to the extreme, if half the reagents were totally overpowered unbeatable bullshit and the other half were utterly useless unwinnable bullshit, the winrate might be 50% but you wouldn't call it "balanced." There should probably be nerfs applied to some reagents and buffs applied to others.

It's also important to watch how round population affects this- before nukeops TC scaling was added, for example, nukeop rounds had close to a 50% win rate- but it wasn't "balanced" because nukeops lost almost all the time at high populations and won almost all the time at lower populations.

[iamgoofball]

I've got some stuff in the pipelines to work on this Soon(tm).

I should even be able to bypass feature freeze by calling it a fix! :^)

[Erbbu]

I'd like to see xray laser guns being a bit less effective vs. blobs, so it wouldn't be as binary as "If they crew gets xrays, they win". This would also fix blobs created in the late game standing no chance because the crew already researched xrays.