New newling feedback thread

[bandit]

https://github.com/tgstation/-tg-station/pull/9306

Major change, WIP, could use suggestions

[DemonFiren]

...and this is all about eating appendices, why?

[Cheimon]

I like some of the concepts you've got here. Getting rid of stings is an interesting one, though it will make stealthy confrontations somewhat harder. Starting off with 2 evolution points instead of 10 sounds great, as a way to make changelings have to work their way up, though a changeling with all the powers sounds very tough to deal with, and I suppose at that point your'e relying on the 75 chemicals limit to do the trick.

That melee stunner sounds like a nightmare to deal with as security. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not. It should only happen once, I suppose, but 5 should be enough to strangle someone or at the least grab their taser/baton/cuffs, stun/restrain, and then strangle/eat them.

I assume you can bite while strangling rather than only when aggressive grabbing, since otherwise you've got to have two ways of subduing your opponent or you just have to crit them before you start eating. Which would be a shame, being eaten alive sounds fun (in a way).

Rewards for eating other changelings sounds annoying. I used to really enjoy the teamwork part of changeling: it wasn't based on 100% trust, but helping out your alien buddies was a genuinely fun part of the game. Then they removed ling hivemind from being a standard power, and now you're actively giving changelings incentives to kill each other as much as possible. Antag v antag is going to whittle down the amount of danger the normal crew sees quite rapidly if it's like this, I think, and that would make this mode less fun. Now you might be thinking 'changeling as a group always took over and never called the shuttle', but if you're doing an overhaul like this then you can give them an incentive to do so and make sure the round doesn't drag on too long, without encouraging them to kill each other asap and/or never ever work together.

Appendices is an interesting, if slightly odd, idea. I like the concept of the 'absorbed' getting back into the round faster (debraining and recorpsing was always a pain), but I don't like the idea that if they don't have an appendix you still get 50% of the reward, and I don't like the idea that this provides a limitless source of appendices so long as your opponent gets cloned (because, of course, the appendix gets grown back). If you could make it something that suggests a changeling should only go after a given person once in a round, that could be very interesting. Maybe not the appendix, though, because lots of people will then get the useless appendix removed anyway to spite changelings. Maybe. Unless you gave having an appendix some sort of tangential benefit, which wouldn't fit with that organ's apparent uselessness.

Would you change the objectives of changelings? Steal X's brain was always a crappy one.

[Remie Richards]

Cheimon Rewards for eating other changelings is already in, has been for atleast 8 months if not longer, Manshroom just took it from the absorb proc (since he's removing absorb)

[Lovecraft]

Changeling is one of the antagonists options I keep off along with cult and this change won't alter this.

[Cheimon]

Cheimon Rewards for eating other changelings is already in, has been for atleast 8 months if not longer, Manshroom just took it from the absorb proc (since he's removing absorb)

Has it? My bad then, I still don't like it as a concept. I used to love team ling, and then I stopped playing as changeling because it stopped being as fun.

[Xhuis]

RRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

[PKPenguin321]

I just don't get why this is a needed change, or how this change will benefit changeling as a mode. That, plus the fact that this nerfs changelings by giving them only 2 evo points at the start (meaning we'll be seeing a LOT of failed early changelings), and they get more points by pretty much murdering people (kill person, get points that help you kill more people, kill more people, get more points to kill even MORE people, etc.), makes me dislike this even more.

[Saegrimr]

Seems like a huge removal of the stealth aspect of things, probably not gonna go over well for a while.

Also that PR is a mess, is this a trend where I can just go attempt to code something I want in and have Remie do all the work fixing it for me? :^)

[Man_Shroom]

Would you change the objectives of changelings? Steal X's brain was always a crappy one.

Changelings will probably have the objectives of "steal 3-4 genomes, kill X, escape. They will also have hivemind communicating, and /may/ be guaranteed to not have each other as targets.

The fact that they get more points by pretty much murdering people (kill person, get points that help you kill more people, kill more people, get more points to kill even MORE people, etc.), makes me dislike this even more.

I will be adding a system that allows you to get points from any mob, and nerfing the biting to not instakill.

Humans for 2 points, monkeys for 1, simple animals for 0.5 and xenos for 4.

Seems like a huge removal of the stealth aspect of things, probably not gonna go over well for a while.

Lings will keep all of their stealth abilities, I just gave the axe to stings(and parapensting). They can still transform, avoid being tracked by the AI, turn into monkeys(in future it will be simple animals), all that good stuff.

Also that PR is a mess, is this a trend where I can just go attempt to code something I want in and have Remie do all the work fixing it for me? :^)

m-muh first pr

[Tokiko2]

I kind of agree what Firecage posted on the PR page. Newlings don't seem to have any incentive to not space/gib the bodies they rip the appendix out of. Why let them be cloned if they'll just call you out on being a ling?

Maybe give them some kind of bonus if a body they killed gets cloned? Or an ability that makes people forget who attacked them?

[hanshansenhansson]

I absolutely dislike that you want them to murderbone again. Extract DNA sting was nice, now every changeling takes 5 - 10 people out of the round again?

[Saegrimr]

Extract DNA sting was nice, now every changeling takes 5 - 10 people out of the round again?

Or like 20 rats in maint and a few monkeys from viro, apparently.

[RG4]

Lings will keep all of their stealth abilities, I just gave the axe to stings(and parapensting). They can still transform, avoid being tracked by the AI, turn into monkeys(in future it will be simple animals), all that good stuff.

FYI: Parasting hasn't been apart of /tg/ Ling for a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG time. Unless that changed, who ever readded it is a retard.
Atleast allow the lings to have have say 4-6 points instead of ten, they should get a few extra things instead of one.

[iyaerP]

How does this work if the ling target has a torso augment?

[Not-Dorsidarf]

You break your teeth and can only speak in lithping for the retht of the thift

[PKPenguin321]

Man_Shroom, I think honestly you had some pretty alright ideas for lings in that thread in ideas a while back, but a total revamp is the wrong way to go about implementing it. However, I did look at the PR and saw this:

New ling power, affects at melee range and has a very high chem cost.
AoE effect centered on yourself, stuns anyone in melee range for 5, whereas a baton does 7.

This is an ability that is totally awesome that I'd definitely use ingame.
I disagree with the PR as a whole, but I'd just like to say that I think that the ability ideas we tossed around and the one you're implementing are all radical, and you should make another PR with just those.

[callanrockslol]

Cheimon Rewards for eating other changelings is already in, has been for atleast 8 months if not longer, Manshroom just took it from the absorb proc (since he's removing absorb)

Has it? My bad then, I still don't like it as a concept. I used to love team ling, and then I stopped playing as changeling because it stopped being as fun.

Its been like that as a concept since before team ling. You used to need to eat other lings because there were something like 12 genomes with old absorb and it was the only realistic way to get enough.

[CPTANT]

I really lack a detailed explanation of WHY this would be a good change (as with a saddening amount of changes proposed), what are the goals and how does this change achieve those goals?

All this seems to do is make lings gimped unless they murderbone.

[Reimoo]

How come we can't make them shapeshifters like they are supposed to be?

[leibniz]

How come we can't make them shapeshifters like they are supposed to be?

I'm not sure what you mean, transform isnt removed, and with this change the shitty limit on stored identities would be removed.

[Reimoo]

Well ling gameplay has never been about stealing identities and creating paranoia. These new changes aren't bad but the shapeshifting gimmick still isn't really useful.

Are you one of them?? is kinda the idea I had in mind.

[Tokiko2]

Lings don't disguise because it's difficult. You need to kill someone in order to impersonate them well. You need their departmental clothes and ID which isn't something you can easily get from a living person.

Even then, you'll usually still only have one identity at the time because you'll need to carry around the clothes for the other identities if you want a working disguise. Most people just rather carry weapons or other useful stuff in their backpack instead.

You could add an ability that allows you to grow artificial, non functional clothes of the person you stung/absorbed for an instant perfect disguise but which could also easily out you as a ling when they attempt to strip you and realize that the clothes and items you're wearing aren't real.

[PKPenguin321]

You could add an ability that allows you to grow artificial, non functional clothes of the person you stung/absorbed for an instant perfect disguise but which could also easily out you as a ling when they attempt to strip you and realize that the clothes and items you're wearing aren't real.

while this is literally the chameleon jumpsuit but for changelings, it's also a great idea since traitors never use it anyways and it has real potential

[Amelius]

I haven't played it yet, but I have a feeling that lings might be too weak at the start. Like, unfeasibly so to even knock a few people out if you aren't super robust, and, given their numbers (fewer than traitors), it'd probably be a huge uphill battle from the start, and I fear that the rounds will fizzle out quickly.

Secondly, why remove absorb? This just means lings will space corpses immediately instead of leaving them about, and you can't really tell the difference at first sight that 'oh shit, these guys were linged' and not just shot up by a traitor or something.

Other than that, I will have to try it before I pass judgement on it. I kinda like having some antag progression/reward for doing... antagonistic things, so that I like at first glance.

[Amelius]

You could add an ability that allows you to grow artificial, non functional clothes of the person you stung/absorbed for an instant perfect disguise but which could also easily out you as a ling when they attempt to strip you and realize that the clothes and items you're wearing aren't real.

That's a great idea. It adds both risk and reward to using it. One exception however, I'd say that it'd have to disguise your backpack appropriately to maximize the speed and efficiency of use to make it helpful.

Make it so that the message doesn't appear (it's stuck / etc.) until the item would normally be stripped. Otherwise I could see people trying to strip the entire station to meta it.

[RocKeD]

This thread should be closed as there is already one for this topic: https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=3546 and the github page has been closed.