Guardian Spirits

Ricotez · Post by **Ricotez** » Sun Sep 20, 2015 10:42 am #119913

Bottom post of the previous page:

they're not paranormal, they're a manifestation of your soul's power that comes out if you strike a fabulous pose

Incomptinence · Sun Sep 20, 2015 11:19 am

Traitors are getting stale anyway I don't see black market paranormal shit being too far fetched in a setting with wizards. We already sacrifice a lot of traitor flavour with our total prohibition on job specific traitor items.

Amelius · Post by **Amelius** » Sun Sep 20, 2015 4:55 pm #119939

Incomptinence wrote:Traitors are getting stale anyway I don't see black market paranormal shit being too far fetched in a setting with wizards. We already sacrifice a lot of traitor flavour with our total prohibition on job specific traitor items.

Is this actually a thing? I mean, I agree that traitor items shouldn't be LOCKED to a job, but why can't we have, say, Goon's stealth gibber cart intended for the janitor, but can be used by anyone?

Kel · Post by **Kel** » Sun Sep 20, 2015 8:22 pm #119990

I need one that stops time.
I don't care how or it's downsides. I need timestop.

Zilenan91 · Post by **Zilenan91** » Mon Sep 21, 2015 2:29 am #120050

Amelius wrote:
Incomptinence wrote:Traitors are getting stale anyway I don't see black market paranormal shit being too far fetched in a setting with wizards. We already sacrifice a lot of traitor flavour with our total prohibition on job specific traitor items.
Is this actually a thing? I mean, I agree that traitor items shouldn't be LOCKED to a job, but why can't we have, say, Goon's stealth gibber cart intended for the janitor, but can be used by anyone?

Or clown cars. By god clown cars were the best. Though goon is closed source afaik so none of this will ever happen.

Lumbermancer · Tue Sep 22, 2015 4:12 pm

1. It's stupid.
2. It doesn't fit the traitor.
3. I hate it.

Remove it.

Incomptinence · Tue Sep 22, 2015 8:20 pm

Doesn't fit the traitor?

It's a literal black market of terrorist paraphernalia maybe they pay off a space gypsy woman to unlock their soul beasties I dunno.

The traitor isn't a DND cuck class mundane fighter barred from being a real boy in a magical setting forever more.

ExplosiveCrate · Wed Sep 23, 2015 2:21 pm

Arrowheads should be a rare traitor item in surplus crates that has a 100% chance of creating a random Guardian Spirit for antagonists and a 50% chance of creating a hostile spirit in nonantags that they must face alone.

Because willpower or something.

onleavedontatme · Wed Sep 23, 2015 5:13 pm

They've been resprited as robot things now anyway.

Cheimon · Post by **Cheimon** » Thu Sep 24, 2015 12:32 pm #120914

I got to play one the other day and it was actually pretty fun. Holoparasites fits the traitor PDA well (experimental syndie tech), it's nice to be part of a team, and overall they seem like a great way to put a couple of ghosts into the round.

I will say that chaos holo's "setting things on fire" seemed a little buggy. It only worked for me when the human I bumped was in just the right intent, not if I ran them up against a wall or whatever. Why didn't the attack just set things on fire instead? Anyway, cool update.

Shad0vvs · Post by **Shad0vvs** » Sun Sep 27, 2015 9:38 pm #121639

You need to blacklist it from ops as well or else they get a team of 10.

onleavedontatme · Sun Sep 27, 2015 11:50 pm

Shad0vvs wrote:You need to blacklist it from ops as well or else they get a team of 10.

They were already blacklisted in the original PR

Shad0vvs · Post by **Shad0vvs** » Sun Sep 27, 2015 11:57 pm #121676

Kor wrote:
Shad0vvs wrote:You need to blacklist it from ops as well or else they get a team of 10.
They were already blacklisted in the original PR

Oh, I see what happened,

The ops were spawned in, and spawned in ops get the traitor uplink instead of the syndicate uplink.

onleavedontatme · Wed Sep 30, 2015 9:53 pm

I feel like the biggest flaw with these is getting someone who isn't very good as your spirit and I dunno how to fix that.

Incomptinence · Wed Sep 30, 2015 10:28 pm

Also being a 100% bigger target is a huge trade off when it is acting.

Gun Hog · Post by **Gun Hog** » Wed Sep 30, 2015 10:59 pm #122359

Kor wrote:I feel like the biggest flaw with these is getting someone who isn't very good as your spirit and I dunno how to fix that.

This is a problem with every team, conversion, and slave antag role in the game. You cannot fix it. You will not fix it. You just fail and move on.

onleavedontatme · Thu Oct 01, 2015 12:37 am

I could let people choose from ghosts instead of pulling randomly but I imagine that'd be just a bit controversial.

Zilenan91 · Post by **Zilenan91** » Thu Oct 01, 2015 1:08 am #122392

The spirits are also ridiculously powerful. I think you need to nerf the support one, because it's kind of insane how it can heal, teleport people, and do 15 brute on punch.

Incomptinence · Thu Oct 01, 2015 1:37 am

Stats on the ranged one look garbo. 10 damage punch 5 damage ranged wonder it its mobility and detection traps are worth it.

Thu Oct 01, 2015 4:06 am

Kor wrote:I could let people choose from ghosts instead of pulling randomly but I imagine that'd be just a bit controversial.

you could give people with a guardian spirit the ability to scramble their spirit which kicks out the ghost inside of it and pulls another random ghost
"guardian spirit stop punching me and do as i say or i swear to god i will scramble you"

TheWulfe · Post by **TheWulfe** » Thu Oct 01, 2015 5:18 am #122434

These things are really overpowered. I dunno how many times an antag has to tear through all of security with his spirit to show that.

onleavedontatme · Thu Oct 01, 2015 5:28 am

TheWulfe wrote:These things are really overpowered. I dunno how many times an antag has to tear through all of security with his spirit to show that.

>low pop with 1 sec guard
>traitor steals the armory, walks through the hallways using taser+autorifle executions
>traitor AI and 2-3 cyborgs support him every step of the way
>after he's killed 20 people by using a taser+finisher his spirit takes out a couple of unarmed assistants near the end
>spirits op nerf plus

I really don't understand. The guy tases someone and starts dumping a rifle into them and the spirit punching them a couple times while they're already fucked is the sign of a severe balance issue.

I get the complaints about healer being strong, and I've needed the punching one already, but when 20 bodies pile up through conventionall means and a few people die to the new thing, it's the new thing that gets all the blame.

Zilenan91 · Post by **Zilenan91** » Thu Oct 01, 2015 5:40 am #122442

That's honestly an extreme case. The average thing that happens is that traitors get a support stand, an ebow, and a robust melee weapon. From there they just punch everyone to death and any damage they take gets insta healed by the stand. Hell, I think support stands heal their master fast enough to space walk and can even drag them around if needed along with the obviously memey thing of hiding bodies/tossing people into death rooms full of N20 and Co2.

Another thing I saw that was pretty ridiculous was the fact that stands are unstunnable and if I remember correctly, can pull. Now, I'm not saying we should make stands stunnable or some shit, but rather that the stand can still fight and even drag away its master after he gets stunned, making it literally the best thing in the entire uplink because it can save your ass like nothing else once you go down on top of having great utility and robustness.

TheWulfe · Post by **TheWulfe** » Thu Oct 01, 2015 6:55 am #122454

Kor wrote:
TheWulfe wrote:These things are really overpowered. I dunno how many times an antag has to tear through all of security with his spirit to show that.
I really don't understand. The guy tases someone and starts dumping a rifle into them and the spirit punching them a couple times while they're already fucked is the sign of a severe balance issue.

I get the complaints about healer being strong, and I've needed the punching one already, but when 20 bodies pile up through conventionall means and a few people die to the new thing, it's the new thing that gets all the blame.

I guess its kind of audacious of me to sort of just spout overpowered without explaining why. It's the mere case of instantly popping another player. Not only that, but an unstunnable, practically invulnerable player with several utility options at their disposal that it makes almost any even encounter with it almost a sure loss even for experienced players.

K Peculier · Post by **K Peculier** » Thu Oct 01, 2015 7:15 am #122460

I freaking love the stands. Why? Because you can't stun them. The fact that the people complaining about how unfair it is that stands can't be stunned just goes to show how many people rely on stunning, and how core stunning is to the game.

Throw in a wildcard like stands in the tatortot mix? People panic when they face something they can't win with one stun. Bomb guardian is pretty bad compared to the other stands though. Lets give it a time stop ability instead.

TheWulfe · Post by **TheWulfe** » Thu Oct 01, 2015 7:27 am #122465

K Peculier wrote:I freaking love the stands. Why? Because you can't stun them. The fact that the people complaining about how unfair it is that stands can't be stunned just goes to show how many people rely on stunning, and how core stunning is to the game.

Throw in a wildcard like stands in the tatortot mix? People panic when they face something they can't win with one stun. Bomb guardian is pretty bad compared to the other stands though. Lets give it a time stop ability instead.

EDIT: Scratch that. A portable unstunnable player is an I-WIN button in almost any combat that isn't a outnumbered lynching and you know it.

Ironically you gush about how the unstunnability makes it unique. But the traitor is the one whose most abusing the stuns, as he's probably packing his own, he wants his encounters to be 'Guy with stun vs guy with stun with unstunnable buddy'.

Lets walk through basic combat against someone with this thing.

Killing, non-armoury (Arresting is not even an option when someone has this item, that's the threat this puts out if that tells you anything):
Urist McOfficer fights the summoner. What was once combat on the same level, now not only does he has to dodge both the summoner's stuns he has to dodge the guardian type. Even if he disables/stuns the guy, he moves to kill... Except he can't finish him off in melee because he'll get faceraped by the spirit, or the spirit drags him away, and you have to re-engage him again.

Well, just break out the armory every round there's a guardian spirit

Now you have a traitor item that single-handedly warrants the unleashing of armory. And even then you're still fighting a traitor on the same level as you, while still dealing with the other player that is still constantly attacking you at the same time, but can't really engage it.

Incomptinence · Thu Oct 01, 2015 9:38 am

It costs 12 TC any stuns beyond a prod will have to be stolen as per normal. If you encounter a guy trying to leverage one of these as his primary weapon don't engage him run scream if you can (might be emped) a mob totally crushes using these every tator I have seen bring one on fighting to a populated shuttle ended up dead as a doorknob. If they ambush you with the prod an esword is more direct if we are talking ranged an ebow still serves and revolver is still the 1v1 king of tator purchases. This duelist crap is ridiculous, not duh it isn't fair 1v1 he has tator items for a reason. If it is shielding the traitor from stuns then it is also blocking stuns from him to you. Hypothetically they could combo it with adrenals for all his TC but that is a fair bit of front loading when the crux of your plan is stealing a weapon anyway.

Xhuis · Post by **Xhuis** » Thu Oct 01, 2015 11:20 am #122498

Holparasites are fun, but extremely powerful. They either need a TC increase or a nerf in their abilities.

Incomptinence · Thu Oct 01, 2015 11:43 am

Only thing in the current price range I think can maybe make them unfair is EMP kit at 5 tc. Do you think they are worth 16 TC? That's 2 points more than a singularity beacon or a hacked module and basically what nukes would pay for an energy shield (wonder if I will see that one again after the ballistics change to armoury).

Post by **Jacquerel** » Thu Oct 01, 2015 3:52 pm #122529

As you can't afford both these and a good weapon, I'm not sure I'd say much of a price increase is necessary. They're already more than half of your budget.
Maybe bump it up a single point so that Guardian/ESword is no longer possible, but I can't imagine that's really much of an issue.

Cheimon · Post by **Cheimon** » Thu Oct 01, 2015 6:02 pm #122553

I think they're good at the moment. The obvious thing to do if one starts dragging a stunned master away is to smash it. So long as you've got some kind of ranged weapon you're dealing instant cloneloss damage to the traitor, which is very good indeed.

Zilenan91 · Post by **Zilenan91** » Fri Oct 02, 2015 12:19 am #122607

The only way about stands is to either make them and thus their masters take a lot of damage from being EMP'd while manifested, or make them cost 16-18 TC. Currently they're very underpriced with almost no weaknesses to getting one.

onleavedontatme · Mon Oct 05, 2015 3:47 am

Zilenan91 wrote:That's honestly an extreme case.

It's one I've witnessed repeatedly. The above story was from a round I'd just watched before posting.

Zilenan91 wrote:The average thing that happens is that traitors get a support stand, an ebow, and a robust melee weapon. From there they just punch everyone to death and any damage they take gets insta healed by the stand. Hell, I think support stands heal their master fast enough to space walk and can even drag them around if needed along with the obviously memey thing of hiding bodies/tossing people into death rooms full of N20 and Co2.

A stand+ebow would cost 24tc before any "robust melee weapon", so I'm a bit skeptical that particular combo is your "average" round.

The teleport won't work if the atmos at the beacon location is fucked either.

TheWulfe wrote: Now you have a traitor item that single-handedly warrants the unleashing of armory. And even then you're still fighting a traitor on the same level as you, while still dealing with the other player that is still constantly attacking you at the same time, but can't really engage it.

I don't think it's a bad thing that "taser+handcuffs" is not the end all, be all, response to any threat you might ever face. I've seen solo officers kill stands by stunning their users and running like hell while harm batoning them though.

Traitors can already laugh off stuns with an adrenal anyway.

Xhuis wrote:Holparasites are fun, but extremely powerful. They either need a TC increase or a nerf in their abilities.

The problem is that if I increase their cost the traitor gets no gear for themselves, and now they're gambling all their TC on getting to be a babysitter another player antagonist.

If I nerf their abilities I'm either making them trash at combat (15 damage a hit really isn't that strong considering they can't do knockdown or even target properly), or boring to play (no utility).

Zilenan91 wrote:The only way about stands is to either make them and thus their masters take a lot of damage from being EMP'd while manifested

EMP is a trash way to balance things. Massive AOE that you auto win with or auto lose without is no fun for either party. Wouldn't really help officers anyway.

The dragging while stunned is pretty powerful though, I might have to rethink their ability to pull or whatever.

Anyway that was a lot, I probably missed some stuff/will revisit these posts later.

I have not seen them dominating rounds though, or being a no brainer option. They seem to die most of the time. Having a second player is as much a drawback as it is a bonus when you're tethered together, share a healthpool, and are very vulnerable to friendly fire.

onleavedontatme · Mon Oct 05, 2015 3:47 am

Holoparasite is a fucking dumb name though I need a new one.

Not-Dorsidarf · Sun Jul 30, 2023 1:33 am

Kor wrote:Holoparasite is a fucking dumb name though I need a new one.

Bluespace Entity

tuypo1 · Post by **tuypo1** » Mon Oct 05, 2015 11:46 am #123293

Amelius wrote:'Guardian Spirits'

Can we stop pretending and just called them stands? Anyways, I totally missed the round, but it sounds cool.

why use a refrence not everybody knows instead of a simple phrase that gives everybody some idea what they are.

Bluespace · Post by **Bluespace** » Mon Oct 05, 2015 11:53 am #123294

Kor wrote:Holoparasite is a fucking dumb name though I need a new one.

Bluespace Hologram.
Bluespace needs more offensive uses anyway.

tuypo1 · Post by **tuypo1** » Mon Oct 05, 2015 12:08 pm #123296

just go back to gaurdian spirit.

Also i think utility spirits are the wrong way to go they should be primarilary combat tools.

Post by **Jacquerel** » Mon Oct 05, 2015 12:09 pm #123297

There's so many good ways to say "hologram bodyguard" and "holoparasite" is none of them
I know it's powered by your own health, but pretty much anything involving the word "parasite" sounds like something you'd want to inject into other people, not yourself

newfren · Post by **newfren** » Mon Oct 05, 2015 12:15 pm #123299

I'm feeling something like "symbiote".

Nanosymbiote? Fuck I dunno I think it's better (and more accurate) than parasite.

tuypo1 · Post by **tuypo1** » Mon Oct 05, 2015 12:18 pm #123300

i dont see why they cant be mystical.

I should expand on my aversion to utility spirits i think if a traitor wants utility they should take a utility item.

tuypo1 · Post by **tuypo1** » Mon Oct 05, 2015 12:28 pm #123301

PKPenguin321 wrote:you could give people with a guardian spirit the ability to scramble their spirit which kicks out the ghost inside of it and pulls another random ghost
"guardian spirit stop punching me and do as i say or i swear to god i will scramble you"

people cant git gud if you get rid of them if they suck practice makes perfect.

Mon Oct 05, 2015 11:05 pm

tuypo1 wrote:
PKPenguin321 wrote:you could give people with a guardian spirit the ability to scramble their spirit which kicks out the ghost inside of it and pulls another random ghost
"guardian spirit stop punching me and do as i say or i swear to god i will scramble you"
people cant git gud if you get rid of them if they suck practice makes perfect.

tell me that again when you buy a guardian spirit and it does literally nothing all round because it's braindead

Zilenan91 · Post by **Zilenan91** » Mon Oct 05, 2015 11:41 pm #123451

ahelp it. If that doesn't work then gg.

Tue Oct 06, 2015 3:50 am

but if there was a button you wouldn't even have to worry about it not working

callanrockslol · Tue Oct 06, 2015 5:22 am

Plasmaspirit.