Goonhub
09-20-2025, 11:58 AM
Hi, it's me, the guy that complains about changeling all the time. This entire post is my opinion. You can nitpick it apart but I don't think that's the point of the post.
I don't think ling needs a fundamental rework. What sucks is having your agency as a player taken away by something that's two (four if you include the aggressive grab!) clicks of someone else's mouse. In regular death you have options for gameplay without respawning. In the hivemind you are dependent on someone else giving you the opportunity for gameplay. When limbcritters are so blindingly obvious and will give you away, there's not a strong incentive to use them. It's not the same as traitors or gangs, who have an IC reason to RP that isn't just "i'm a monster and eat things" - vampire has it's own issues, but the thrall mechanic gives you agency and gameplay as a player, and being juice boxed by a vampire leaves you open to be cloned. The hivemind does not do any of this. It's a distinctly unengaging sort of emergent gameplay.
When you are unconscious being killed you can't hear what someone is saying as they eat you. There is little/no room for RP there. If you run away once you feel unwell that's considered metagaming. It feels like you are forced by the rules (if not the letter of them then by the community's attitude) to stand there and get eaten- maybe I'm a little superfluous but I'm pretty outspoken on this issue.
I don't mind dying in this game. Sometimes it's emotionally charged, great, sometimes it's funny, also great, sometimes it's frustrating but your own fault- you learn. Changeling feels, 9/10 if not more, a cheap way to die. It's like being TTV'd into oblivion with no warning. I rarely see it done well. Leaving the hivemind to either be cloned I've heard be described as metagaming again- which it isn't really, unless you go yelling about who killed you- but there's this expectation you HAVE to stay in the hivemind or it's bad form. But the ling has no obligation to engage with the hivemind, and often is too focused on, well, doing what they do, so won't.
It's the gameplay equivalent of your little brother coming in, snatching the controller off you, and saying that if you don't sit and watch him play he'll tell mom.
I think the key to making ling feel less cheap is to engage the people it eats more. QoL for the hivemind would be huge. I DID suggest making the hivemind a physical place- a fleshy room in the same vein as the afterlife bar, but with a screen locked to the changeling and an intercom-style communication. Maybe other things could go in that room. I didn't get that far as the idea was pretty instantly shot down by an admin, but I'll float it again. I think improving gameplay (adding gameplay at all, actually) for people inside the hivemind would include it greatly.
I don't think ling needs a fundamental rework. What sucks is having your agency as a player taken away by something that's two (four if you include the aggressive grab!) clicks of someone else's mouse. In regular death you have options for gameplay without respawning. In the hivemind you are dependent on someone else giving you the opportunity for gameplay. When limbcritters are so blindingly obvious and will give you away, there's not a strong incentive to use them. It's not the same as traitors or gangs, who have an IC reason to RP that isn't just "i'm a monster and eat things" - vampire has it's own issues, but the thrall mechanic gives you agency and gameplay as a player, and being juice boxed by a vampire leaves you open to be cloned. The hivemind does not do any of this. It's a distinctly unengaging sort of emergent gameplay.
When you are unconscious being killed you can't hear what someone is saying as they eat you. There is little/no room for RP there. If you run away once you feel unwell that's considered metagaming. It feels like you are forced by the rules (if not the letter of them then by the community's attitude) to stand there and get eaten- maybe I'm a little superfluous but I'm pretty outspoken on this issue.
I don't mind dying in this game. Sometimes it's emotionally charged, great, sometimes it's funny, also great, sometimes it's frustrating but your own fault- you learn. Changeling feels, 9/10 if not more, a cheap way to die. It's like being TTV'd into oblivion with no warning. I rarely see it done well. Leaving the hivemind to either be cloned I've heard be described as metagaming again- which it isn't really, unless you go yelling about who killed you- but there's this expectation you HAVE to stay in the hivemind or it's bad form. But the ling has no obligation to engage with the hivemind, and often is too focused on, well, doing what they do, so won't.
It's the gameplay equivalent of your little brother coming in, snatching the controller off you, and saying that if you don't sit and watch him play he'll tell mom.
I think the key to making ling feel less cheap is to engage the people it eats more. QoL for the hivemind would be huge. I DID suggest making the hivemind a physical place- a fleshy room in the same vein as the afterlife bar, but with a screen locked to the changeling and an intercom-style communication. Maybe other things could go in that room. I didn't get that far as the idea was pretty instantly shot down by an admin, but I'll float it again. I think improving gameplay (adding gameplay at all, actually) for people inside the hivemind would include it greatly.