Borer feedback thread

[CPTANT]

Seriously how is there no feedback thread for borers?

Share your thoughts on how borers tend to play out during a round.

[Alex Crimson]

I feel like they get a little out of hand after a while. More than once ive seen the station reduced to a mess with borers crawling all over the place, or the escape shuttle filled with the damn things. Their reproduction needs to be toned down or changed.

Also a lot of people try to forcibly insert the borer into themselves. No "eww get it out of my head" but a lot of "oh shit a chem dispenser in my head! Get over here!". Feels a little powergamey.

[Armhulen]

i love them but the wiki is more than correct:
"Fill the halls with brain dead slugs and vomit, or get punched to death by the first person you meet"

[Cobby]

At "Best", they're invisible healing devices [something we have been trying to move away from] sans gearchecks

At Worst, they're validhunting antagonists [yes] because their objective [conceptually] always puts them at odds with the actual antag. Why use all your chemicals to revive 1 guy over and over when you can just memestun infect the baddy and toss him out, preventing him from killing your host, another borer's host, or future potential hosts?

[CPTANT]

One think that kinda bothers me is that it is basically impossible for borers to fail.

[Lumbermancer]

Why are we not talking about borers? Yesterday I had really cool round with more than half a dozen of these fuckers. It was a true paranoia, like I always wanted lings to be.

Everyone popping sugar pills and looking over their shoulders. One slug gets inside my head, tries to cut a deal, I yell for help. It escapes but people don't believe me when I say it did. Some guy guns me down in the hallways yelling BORER when I ask why.
I get cloned, I find the guy and kill him back, thinking he was shouting the Borer is controlling him (In hindsight, I don't really know how they work exactly). HoS grabs me and wordlessly drags me to crematory and burns to crisp.

God damn she had to be a borer! Well she wasn't, and I wasn't even angry.

Why are we not funding this?

[Steelpoint]

I had a round with borer's and honestly it felt more like background noise.

Maybe I avoided many interactions with them, I got infected with one early on, but my borer was very passive, though far more so due to me being the only person on the entire station trying to restore order and get the engine online.

Alternatively I avoided the conflict due to the rest of the crew dealing with it.

[CPTANT]

The problem is that being infected is just a buff with almost no downsides for non antag crew in general.

[Super Aggro Crag]

They're called cortical borers, not cortical entertainers.

[DemonFiren]

They're called cortical borers, not cortical entertainers.

How did I not come up with this.

[CPTANT]

Also why is it sugar that puts them to sleep?

I think it's way more interesting if it was alcohol.

That would also give me those Babylon 5 vibes.

[Anonmare]

You know you can Resist to gain control back from a borer

[Armhulen]

Also why is it sugar that puts them to sleep?

I think it's way more interesting if it was alcohol.

That would also give me those Babylon 5 vibes.

>holy water deconversion

[Dr_bee]

Also why is it sugar that puts them to sleep?

I think it's way more interesting if it was alcohol.

That would also give me those Babylon 5 vibes.

>holy water deconversion

Hey it would at least make the barman the most popular person on the station when borer appear.

[ShadowDimentio]

I move that we change it to alcohol too, at least then when borers are afoot there's a downside to popping anti-borer pills every five seconds in that you'll be a drunken wreck.

[DemonFiren]

CPTANT is right.

[CPTANT]

And if you have seen Babylon 5 you know what I am talking about.

[Jazaen]

You know you can Resist to gain control back from a borer

Shhh, some of my best borer rounds have been when infectee was unaware you could resist. It was hilarious.
Kind of. Generally, a fine tip is to avoid doing what host would find terribly evil most of the time. Or, if evil needs to be done, treating them with respect.

Anyway, a little bird told me that borer event is disabled, so they are adminspawn only.

[DemonFiren]

I only played borer once or twice and thus half of what I'm saying might already be in or may not have worked in the first place, but I wonder if it would be better if borers had assassination objectives in addition to reproduction/escape.

You wouldn't really know if the thing in your head is just going to walk you out the airlock/make you attack security/whatever because you're its target, or if it's going to give you antag by proxy.

[darkpaladin109]

I only played borer once or twice and thus half of what I'm saying might already be in or may not have worked in the first place, but I wonder if it would be better if borers had assassination objectives in addition to reproduction/escape.

Honestly that does not feel thematically fitting. I'd rather we at give them something related to taking control of people more.

[Segmented]

They're called cortical borers, not cortical entertainers.

New role. Instead of healing your host, you can slip them or make them randomly honk, like a clown. Your job is to make as many people laugh as you can.

[DemonFiren]

I only played borer once or twice and thus half of what I'm saying might already be in or may not have worked in the first place, but I wonder if it would be better if borers had assassination objectives in addition to reproduction/escape.

Honestly that does not feel thematically fitting. I'd rather we at give them something related to taking control of people more.

Which keeps any real downsides out of borers and leaves valids as the only reason to fight against them.

[ShadowDimentio]

Make reproducing require the borer to eat a brain, with one brain equals three borer spawn. This incentivizes people to not want to get borer'd because after infection they could kill you at any moment by eating YOUR brain, or if they manage and infect you to try and play along and be a good host to prevent their brain being eaten.

[Qbopper]

it's really boring when people just try to valid borers and don't do anything beyond that

I like it when new players are in a borer round because they always create the most interesting scenarios with borers, some are really distrustful and others work with them

[CPTANT]

it's really boring when people just try to valid borers and don't do anything beyond that

I like it when new players are in a borer round because they always create the most interesting scenarios with borers, some are really distrustful and others work with them

The novelty wears off quickly and they just become healing chem dispensers.

[Armhulen]

it's really boring when people just try to valid borers and don't do anything beyond that

I like it when new players are in a borer round because they always create the most interesting scenarios with borers, some are really distrustful and others work with them

well i think there has to be that group of people fighting against borers or it's really boring

[Qbopper]

it's really boring when people just try to valid borers and don't do anything beyond that

I like it when new players are in a borer round because they always create the most interesting scenarios with borers, some are really distrustful and others work with them

well i think there has to be that group of people fighting against borers or it's really boring

you make a good point, but it's still a little annoying that people instantly rush to a vending machine and stock up for themselves if they see a borer

there's not much interesting conflict in "BORERS WELD VENTS GRAB SUGAR" when the borers have done nothing to create conflict - if a borer started to mind control people into doing bad shit then yeah obviously but it still rubs me the wrong way, I guess

[Armhulen]

it's really boring when people just try to valid borers and don't do anything beyond that

I like it when new players are in a borer round because they always create the most interesting scenarios with borers, some are really distrustful and others work with them

well i think there has to be that group of people fighting against borers or it's really boring

you make a good point, but it's still a little annoying that people instantly rush to a vending machine and stock up for themselves if they see a borer

there's not much interesting conflict in "BORERS WELD VENTS GRAB SUGAR" when the borers have done nothing to create conflict - if a borer started to mind control people into doing bad shit then yeah obviously but it still rubs me the wrong way, I guess

borers need some global traitor objectives that they all get and they need to actually BE more disgusting, visually. they need to make the person also vomit blood when birthing a worm, and the singing needs to be more like vomitspeak or something. anything to make the visually a lot worse FEELING.

[ShadowDimentio]

If we make borer reproduction actually harmful (like having to eat a brain in order to do it) then people would be afraid of borers because, holy shit, if the borer wants to he could eat my brain and kill me! I'd better avoid getting infected and if I am infected I better try to nor piss it off!