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Ideas for a wraith rework
#1
Spooktober is coming, and what better time to put some work in on everyone's most/least favorite antag, the wraith?  I've had a thread about this before, and I'm probably going to rehash some if not most of it, but I've got some new ideas as well, and I'm going to lead with them.

First off, the extreme difficulty in actually fighting a wraith turns many people off.  It's fun to play, less so to fight.  I'd rather not completely remove its ability to avoid getting attacked if it wants, since I feel like there's a niche for an antag that's intended to be survived rather than defeated, so my personal opinion is that the best way to make wraith more engaging to fight is to give it more incentives to actually manifest.  Ultimately, this means buffing manifested wraiths, and therefore wraiths in general.

The big thing I was thinking was abilities that wraiths could only use while manifested.  At the moment I've got two ideas.
Pestilence Cloud - this ability summons a smoke cloud of a randomly chosen but dangerous poison/disease reagent, centered on the wraith.  Potentially able to kill a whole lot of people, but it puts you at risk since you have to be right in the middle of them to get the most effect out of it.
Ectoplasmic Shell (better name tbd) - this ability can be used to provide you with a sort of force field that absorbs a certain amount of damage before failing.  As long as it's up, it reflects projectiles, so egun spam and the like can't be used to effortlessly take you out, and it also gives you a melee attack.  Like, some sort of glowing sword or scythe or something along those lines.  Hurts like hell, causes bleeding, can sever limbs.
I'd also suggest having the WP gain from Haunt scale with your WP regen, so it still provides a meaningful bonus after eating a bunch of corpses.  Of course, this runs into the "million WP and nothing to spend it on" issue, so if that's implemented I'd recommend having abilities upgrade to require more WP but have a shorter cooldown at certain WP or WP regen thresholds, as I suggested in the previous thread.
Having the Haunt manifest and the "walked over salt" manifest function identically w/r/t WP regen might also be a good idea, it seems like it'd be simpler code wise but I don't code so maybe it wouldn't.
You could also have manifested wraiths leave trails of miasma as they move, just for style.

I also have a few ideas for abilities for wraiths to use any time, manifested or not.
Corrupt - pretty much a cosmetic ability.  When used a number of tiles around you gain appearance changes - floor tiles become void tiles, walls bleed, things that shouldn't have eyes start having eyes, that sort of thing.
Infect - when used on a player, it puts 20u of spiders in their bloodstream.  When used on an npc mob like a monkey, it puts 20u of a random chem from the following list into the bloodstream: Spiders, spider eggs, corrupted nanomachines, venom, strychnine, or rajaijah.
Rend Space - when used, it causes a dark anomaly to randomly spawn somewhere on station.  Potentially very destructive if people are busy/not paying attention/lazy.

With regards to currently existing abilities, I feel that the cooldown for poltergeist could be reduced, and/or they could be given greater reign to move around and do things - flockminds can spam flocktraces, so there's some precedence for an antag that can effectively duplicate itself, albeit in an antag that's still in development.

I realize that some of these ideas could make wraiths significantly stronger, and would likely require extensive playtesting, but I can't think of a more appropriate time to try out buffing the spookiest antag than the spookiest month.
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#2
Gonna bump this. There seems to be a consensus among both those who hate and love wraith that it should be more fun to fight, particularly if people want to make it more common.

Making wraith some fighting powers when Manifested seems like a pretty interesting idea. You can Manifest to kill people more easily and get points, but you're also making yourself vulnerable.

From a quick look, I don't see too much issue with the Corrupt, Infect, Ectoplasmic Shell, and Pestilence Cloud abilities, nor shortening poltergeist cooldowns, miasma trail when manifest, or lowering cooldowns in exchange for higher point costs. Not too sure about Rend Space though, seems a little too much, though more because people seem to not really understand how to deal with them or where to find them than anything else. Perhaps make it easier to stabilize?
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#3
The thing about Wraith for me is that it's just incredibly... how do I say this, annoying? Very very frustrating to fight against. The only real counter to it is salt and that is incredibly unreliable and relies on the Wraith making a mistake. Then if the Wraith does manifest it gets its ass beat in three seconds flat. I just find going against a wraith incredibly annoying. Even all of its abilities are less atmosphere building or spooky and just straight up frustrating. "Oh block all my vision." "Oh random emags", etc etc etc.

It's like personified frustration that you can't do anything to combat.
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#4
(09-17-2020, 12:41 PM)TheMaskedMan2 Wrote: It's like personified frustration that you can't do anything to combat.

To a degree, I think this is the niche of Wraiths.

As a ghost they mostly shouldn't be able to harm you as much as make your frustrated in a way that you end up harming yourself

But you're right in that it needs tweaking to make it more fun. Crew needs more options to both catch the Wraith and to really beat the crap out of them.


I think we should actually buff the wraiths health so that beating the shit out of them is more satisfying and you can do it longer. I think the crew also needs more ways of manipulating the wraith. For instance, a method of keeping them manifested, or a way to make trap items that if the wraith tries to possess they'll get stuck inside for a bit.
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#5
I think the frustration is less that it's non-lethal and more that there's no direct way to combat it.
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#6
Right now, wraith doesn't feel like a "real" antag to me, just a nuisance. I'm not annoyed by it, it's okay, it's something different. I probably would be if it wasn't so rare though.

I've only played one wraith round, but it was a super slow start (I couldn't kill people on my own, just annoy them), then I got more points than I could use, then I wasn't paying attention and walked on salt and died, then I was back to super slow start and the shuttle was there.


One thing I really like is teamwork amongst unequal partners, and that doesn't really happen by default in any gamemode. One round I played as a traitor a wraith was really interested in working together and that was a great round. I don't know, maybe it would take away from the magic of these rare alliances to have it as part of a mode by default, but I think wraith would really benefit from a human teammate.


If you had a hard-mode traitor-like human, you guys could work together. It would help alleviate the slow build up, and maybe you could spend your massive amount of points to help them out in someway, give them gifts? It would also give the crew something solid to attack if they figure it out; losing your human would be a big blow. It could give them a way to attack you easier. Maybe you could sacrifice people instead of just eating corpses for more reward, but that might be too spooky.

I do like mouse's idea of making manifesting more viable. The worst part of wraith to me was walking on a salt pile and hiding for a minute and hoping noone saw me. Making manifested wraith stronger and giving it a reason to do seems like a good change to me.
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#7
Honestly, I like the idea of the Wraith having a human companion. Kinda has a Friday the 13th Part 2 Vibe to it, yeah?

Like the human is the more physical slasher movie villain while the wraith is the more supernatural kind.
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#8
That seems fun, giving wraiths a tangible partner sounds like it would make for a good buddy cop gamemode
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#9
(09-17-2020, 12:41 PM)TheMaskedMan2 Wrote: The thing about Wraith for me is that it's just incredibly... how do I say this, annoying? Very very frustrating to fight against. The only real counter to it is salt and that is incredibly unreliable and relies on the Wraith making a mistake. Then if the Wraith does manifest it gets its ass beat in three seconds flat. I just find going against a wraith incredibly annoying. Even all of its abilities are less atmosphere building or spooky and just straight up frustrating. "Oh block all my vision." "Oh random emags", etc etc etc.

It's like personified frustration that you can't do anything to combat.

A fair amount of my post is about that, as well as a proposal to counter it - namely, giving the wraith abilities that can only be used while manifested and buffing its combat abilities to make manifesting less suicidal.
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#10
I love these ideas. Gives me Nyarlathotep vibes where it manifests as a powerful being before dissipating. 

As I always felt the wraith was analogous with eldritch stuff, here's some tweaks for the manifested form that I would feel would fit thematically:

Madness Cloud 
Instead of pestilence, it spews a cloud of a weaker form of Rajaijah, forcing players to fight among each other. This weaker form allows you to resist the urge to murder your fellow crewmembers, if only barely. This would fit in well at melee range.

Flesh Puppetry 
An advanced form of Possession, however Flesh Puppetry requires the target to be alive. The Wraith instantly jumps into and assumes control of its target, with a big red message. The wraith cannot use suicide or succumb and cannot target itself whether it be to heal or harm. This only lasts 10 seconds, in which the wraith is booted out and is manifested again a few tiles away. Dying in this form is detrimental to the wraith, it will cost itself one of its lives. Very useful and can be very deadly, depending on the circumstances. Hitting someone with the bible while being controlled will instantly force it out.

Unspeakable Horror
Mutes and makes all targets cry/sob/scream in range for a period of time. Shuts players the fuck up, effectively. 

Ectoplasmic Shell
I'd separate this from the scythe ability, so it's effectively a wraiths version of the Wizard's shield, but it instead has health as described in the OP before bursting into ectoplasm. Can be used to tank ranged attacks, however someone in melee range could also disrupt it. Hitting it with the bible (or even throwing the bible) instantly destroys it.

The Cull
The Scythe ability as described in the OP. I think it'd be more fun that instead of being a temporary direct damage upgrade, it's effectively the same damage as a scalpel, but has a chance to remove limbs AND organs (aside from hearts) upon every swipe. The downside is that the aside from this ability which has a relatively short cooldown, the wraith has no other direct offensive abilities while manifested, so use this ability wisely. 

Invoke Twilight
Literally copy and paste the same code as the darkness artifacts. Creates an area of darkness for a short time. The wraith also gains night-vision, but only so long as this ability is active.
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#11
Those are all nice ideas (and this is frankly an excuse to bump the thread for Spooktober), although with regards to the last one is there any compelling reason to not just give wraiths permanent night-vision?
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#12
I find wraiths a bit annoying to deal with since they’re just invisible. I’d enjoy more chances to see them instead of feeling like I should just lay down and die.
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