Allow Hunter spawns for RP servers

[Glamurio]

So. Hear me out.

Hunters are actually kind of a perfect fit for RP. They are mid-round antagonists that specialize in stealthy maneuvering and killing targets ideally unseen. That's kind of like, what most antags do already on RP. Changeling does this, as does the vampire, and both of these work perfectly fine and have been for ages.

Hunters aren't super robust like the werewolf, and have the ability to talk, meaning the RP potential of a Hunter is great. They can communicate just fine, they can scare the crap out of people AND, they would work really well for rounds that could use a bit of antag culling, as their mechanic incentivizes playing a bit of anti-hero for extra points.

I know there are concerns, but we've had concerns regarding wizards for years as well, and then when we tried it, it worked just fine. I think the same is true for Hunters, and I genuinely think it'd be worth a testmerge. If it doesn't work, so be it, we remove it again. We tried Werewolves, that didn't work. But I think Hunters are a genuinely good fit.

[Waffleloffle]

my main concern personally is that the culture will put them in a similar place as werewolves were - being way too friendly with them on sight to the point where it becomes a weird and stifling form of Antag Trust. I don't think that all antags Need to be straightforwardly evil and hostile, especially on RP, but I can very easily see a reality where sec regularly allies with hunters to do their job, which I'm not particularly fond of

[Silent Majority]

I kinda feel like this would just end up with hunter being a late round join that has permission to rampage or valid hunt.

[Glamurio]

my main concern personally is that the culture will put them in a similar place as werewolves were - being way too friendly with them on sight to the point where it becomes a weird and stifling form of Antag Trust. I don't think that all antags Need to be straightforwardly evil and hostile, especially on RP, but I can very easily see a reality where sec regularly allies with hunters to do their job, which I'm not particularly fond of

The main difference between Werewolves and Hunters is that Werewolves had very little in terms of stealth, so they stood out all the time. If they got seen, they had to either go friendly puppy or rampage shortly after, there wasn't much wiggle room. Hunters have stealth capabilities, they can choose to be seen. It's much more of a predator vibe, pun not intended. I cannot see Hunters allying themselves with Security, safe for a truce, because they are murder machines. Unlike some other antags who may be friendly at face value, hunters typically don't have that benefit of the doubt.

I kinda feel like this would just end up with hunter being a late round join that has permission to rampage or valid hunt.

Valid hunting on RP is a rare thing, it happens and it should get ahelped. Having the power to kill doesn't mean you go rampage, traitors have a pretty similar kit to hunters if they choose to, they can also grab cloaking, katana or guns easily. If traitors don't regularly rampage, I don't see why Hunters would.

[Kotlol]

I see no problems with test merging this.
More mid-round antags is a good idea. Basically the hunter comes in and now the antags are pressured to do something QUICK cause the hunter is a foot.

It might put too much stress on them, but I think it's the right amount of stress to get the antag to come out of their hideyhole or act to start doing more killing and interacting.

[JOELED]

hunter is dope, I'd love to see how this plays out -- rp sec having a guy To Kill sounds like it would be a good energy outlet for them

[Cal]

Sounds like a pain to administration.

We saw how this went with werewolves and wizards basically make sec tense the entire round with their capability to Go Off anytime. Hunters come loaded with Killing Gear and their whole thing is to Kill People.

Not really a fan.

[Solenoid]

I think more killing antags on RP could be cool, especially ones which mesh well into the pre-existing RP strategy to do the killing stealthily. I personally feel like RP antags can sometimes feel pretty powerless depending on the sec team and the gear and abilities they get, so having a more high power but midround antag to increase the lethality during some rounds would be neat.

Something like the werewolf didn't work because it was too "cute", and was too rampagey, but I think the hunter would work fine since I don't see anyone trying to befriend them seriously. Plus, as Kotlol mentioned, having an antag who can show up and shake up the round could be cool and encourage antags to pivot.

[Cal]

Something like the werewolf didn't work because it was too "cute", and was too rampagey,

Hunters are much more rampagey. They arrive armed to the teeth with murder tools, no feasting needed.

[Glamurio]

Something like the werewolf didn't work because it was too "cute", and was too rampagey,

Hunters are much more rampagey. They arrive armed to the teeth with murder tools, no feasting needed.

While this is true, it also makes their threat more apparent and they can be focused if encountered. At least there's no "Hunter" costume where people have to second guess if this guy is wearing a werewolf costume vs. an actual killer.

[kyle2143]

I think it could work if there was some change to the hunter that compelled it to kill people. Someone mentioned werewolves on RP being all friendly and that's a similar issue. I've wanted to give werewolves a "bloodlust meter" that slowly builds over time and goes down with violence they inflict, forcing them to attack something at least.(I might do that sometime soon actually...)

I wouldn't put the same mechanic on hunters, but if we included hunters as actual antagonists, I think they could stand to be fleshed out more lore wise. If I had to come up with some mechanic off the top of my head, I'd say maybe require the Hunter to get X skulls by Y time, or kill a certain person before a certain amount of time or else, another, more powerful hunter is dispatched from the Association of Hunters to kill the original hunter for disgracing the Hunters for failing to fulfill their mission. Make it either a gibshark type thing where it is an AI mob that tracks you down and tries to kill you, or make it another player to latejoin as a more powerful hunter with a pinpointer to their targeted hunter or something.

But that's just off the top of my head. But I think it needs something gameplay wise to force it to kill or else be killed. Though, I'm still not sure it'd work for RP, might work for main tho.