Make Wizard Hats Acid Resistant

[vampirate]

Strongly disagree with this, items that handcheck rampagers are good. You know how hard it is to land one of those perfectly?

Let’s not nerf things over one player, this is getting ridiculous. Wizard hats being susceptible to acid’s kind of the whole point of needing the hat to be effective. It makes being a wizard (far and away the most overpowered antagonist) more challenging.

I mean... it's not over one player, he just emphasizes how broken it is. I'm not encouraging breaking it entirely, only soft nerfiing it cause right now even a shield doesn't help

Acid slowly melting your gear gives them a sec to phase out. An alternative would be allowing them to have a reduced functional phase spell or increased timer on it with hat.

There's something wrong if an item that takes ten seconds to make is more effective than an energy gun.

[kyle2143]

I think that it's unnecessary to make wizard hats acid proof. Wizards have access to like a dozen hats on the wizard's den.

However there are some problems with acid instantly melting items. The Staff of Cthulu is a great point, that item definitely should be acid proof. You spend a whole point on it, it should require more to destroy than just acid.

Similarly, I've noticed that sometimes I don't even notice that an item I'm wearing has been destroyed because it's not obvious visually. I think that an improvement to be made would be to make the act of getting acid splashed in your face more visually and audibly obvious.

Also, I think that the same problem afflicts wizard ability casting where the only indication you get that you cant cast an ability (apart from it not actually casting) is some text outputted to your chat. Having a sound or an effect play would be helpful to players I think.

[vampirate]

I think that it's unnecessary to make wizard hats acid proof. Wizards have access to like a dozen hats on the wizard's den.

However there are some problems with acid instantly melting items. The Staff of Cthulu is a great point, that item definitely should be acid proof. You spend a whole point on it, it should require more to destroy than just acid.

Similarly, I've noticed that sometimes I don't even notice that an item I'm wearing has been destroyed because it's not obvious visually. I think that an improvement to be made would be to make the act of getting acid splashed in your face more visually and audibly obvious.

Also, I think that the same problem afflicts wizard ability casting where the only indication you get that you cant cast an ability (apart from it not actually casting) is some text outputted to your chat. Having a sound or an effect play would be helpful to players I think.

yeah, if you can get even five seconds before the acid melts it and an indicator, that's five seconds to phase right out and actually be able to swap hats, rather than instantly getting stunned with no recourse. Acid proof was probably an overreach, but taking away acid's instant nature is probably a good addition on multiple levels.

Though for sure if you take shield, nothing should be able to go through shield... right now a few things do including acid glasses.

[GORE]

I think that it's unnecessary to make wizard hats acid proof. Wizards have access to like a dozen hats on the wizard's den.

However there are some problems with acid instantly melting items. The Staff of Cthulu is a great point, that item definitely should be acid proof. You spend a whole point on it, it should require more to destroy than just acid.

I'd argue that the staff of Cthulhu is affected the most by mean acid-nerds. It could surely use a buff by needing different chems, several applications or a different system to destroy it. D:

The situation with acid seems to indicate that all wizards are supposed to enter the station and hide a bunch of spare robes, sandals, hats and staffs around the station to counter-balance those acid-nerds. Is that really how it was intended? To just fill your inventory with all the items available and hide them somewhere obscure?

[Sundance]

You know how hard it is to land one of those perfectly?

Actually, far easier than landing a taser shot. Throwing weaponry has always been robust. So not that hard.

Lets look at the other antagonists which I feel are more balanced, like Changeling, Vampire, Nuke Ops, Traitors and Werewolves (arguably not Wraiths, but another topic for a different thread). 

These antagonists are fun to fight against because there's no hard counter. There's always X,Y,Z depending on the situation at hand. 

If the go-to for fighting against wizards is acid 24/7 then we have a problem with wizards as a whole. That said, whenever I roll security I specifically opt out of acid attacks because there's no fun attrition that I get when fighting other antagonists (unless, the wizard is cthulu-empower wizard, they can get smooshed).

Again, I'll reiterate my previous point, wizards gotta be nerfed back a little in terms of damage output and buffed in terms of defensive output. All of the above antagonists have defensive mechanisms given to them, the wizard has to specifically choose it. This is not good gameplay, you get none of that attrition, that back and forth fighting. 

I think that it's unnecessary to make wizard hats acid proof. Wizards have access to like a dozen hats on the wizard's den.

However there are some problems with acid instantly melting items. The Staff of Cthulu is a great point, that item definitely should be acid proof. You spend a whole point on it, it should require more to destroy than just acid.

Similarly, I've noticed that sometimes I don't even notice that an item I'm wearing has been destroyed because it's not obvious visually. I think that an improvement to be made would be to make the act of getting acid splashed in your face more visually and audibly obvious.

Also, I think that the same problem afflicts wizard ability casting where the only indication you get that you cant cast an ability (apart from it not actually casting) is some text outputted to your chat. Having a sound or an effect play would be helpful to players I think.

Absolutely do not make them acid proof, nosiree. Melt it in 5 seconds, that's really not that much of a buff and I don't know why peeps are getting in such a twist over it. I'd like to touch on your point about indicators, as I was on the receiving end of this.

I wasn't even aware that my hat melted off. Like you said, i tried to cast a spell, got the "you're not strong enough without your wizard hat!" and was like "oof". 

If there was a chat log, it wasn't obvious enough, as you would imagine the chat log spills out pretty fast in the heat of combat. There was no noise associated with the attack either, I assumed that there'd be a glass shattering noise but there just wasn't any. 

So the situation literally went like "Hahaa, phase shift into the room, here I am, the Wizard!" to "Hey, where'd my hat go".

Big Important Edit - The acid attacks also have a knock-on effect of spell choice. Next time I roll wizard I'll probably not opt for the more fun spell combinations and instead will go for the more destructive ones. Powergaming leads to powergaming, take note.

[GORE]

Sundance wouldn't you argue that an interaction bar that has to fill up prior to the acid destroying those wizard items INSTANTLY could be a nice change to just roll with and find out how it works out.
Listen - couldn't it be fun to make wizards resistent to instant attacks could increase the viability of playing one when you are not interesting in packing half the ship of clothing on the wizard shuttle with'ya.
Stunbaton stuns would still knock ya'out long enough so that the acid may be applied.

Just perhaps - no flashbang alone or one single tile of lube or an unfortunate banana...it would put an emphesis on caring enough to fully incapacitate one and jumping that wizard by surprise.

Using powerful stuns or knockout chems...whatever suits.


That is just the general approach to a situation like this shall such a buff unfold.
The point that I am more interested is actually at least buff the Cthulhu staff through it.

It costs one point and shouldn't just end up being as easily destroyed as a piece of magical catalyst-clothing.

My take on the matter.

[vampirate]

An interesting change to staff of Cthulu rather than making it acid proof is, if it is destroyed, let the wizard hit the spell to form a new one out of whatever they're holding and it takes on the properties of that. You destroy a wizman's staff of cthulu, wizman comes back with a staff of cthulu made out of a loaf (maybe take a good fifteen seconds standing still to form the staff.

[Trustworthy]

Lets look at the other antagonists which I feel are more balanced, like Changeling, Vampire, Nuke Ops, Traitors and Werewolves (arguably not Wraiths, but another topic for a different thread). 

These antagonists are fun to fight against because there's no hard counter. There's always X,Y,Z depending on the situation at hand.

Werewolves - Silver bullets, which destroy them utterly and completely, very quickly. Very much a hard counter. No way to stop this as a wolf, unlike wizards bringing spare hats. Better kill that detective quick.

Vampires - Chaplain. This motherfucker can't be glared, hypnotised, drained, thralled, grave touched, or anything, really, and theres nothing you can do about it! Fun. Your best bet is just legging it as soon as you see them. Oh yeah and space, good luck surviving out there, lol.

Changelings - Fire. Nuff said

Point is, hard counters are important to stop certain antags wiping the floor with the crew, because soft counters are a joke, and rarely affect gameplay, for the most part. If Y is a counter for changelings, and theres a way for Chang E Ling to counter Y with Z, chances are, they'll either be packing Z, or Y is ineffective against changelings in practice. Soft counters are good in certain cases, but hard counters are necessary for certain antags, in my opinion. Lets the average greytider have a chance at taking them down, and is very useful when theres either no security, or all of security is dead.

[GORE]

An interesting change to staff of Cthulu rather than making it acid proof is, if it is destroyed,  let the wizard hit the spell to form a new one out of whatever they're holding and it takes on the properties of that.  You destroy a wizman's staff of cthulu, wizman comes back with a staff of cthulu made out of a loaf (maybe take a good fifteen seconds standing still to form the staff.

What about chem-beakers then?
Would those inhibit the properties of the chems (although perhaps in a lower amount? Striking their victim with those would grant a chance to just fill them up with those?)

Although I really dig that idea...I am afraid what a Capulettium Cthulhu staff would be able to do.

Thing is - excepting chems for the possibility of forming a staff puts loafs as one of the top-tier items - aye? Seem a bit bland...though better than HULK SMASH. I reckon.


Anyhow - I like your idea - just concerned about the implementation.

[Drago156]

What Trustworthy said and more, the wizard is perhaps one of the most powerful antags with how well they're geared before even including their powers: no slip shoes, heal upon consumption drink, random chemical beans, space worthy magic wear. Then you include their powers, which some of the nastiest combos are so actually broken in their power that smacking them with a large gib bomb is about the only way to stop them. I think acid is perfectly fine as it is and if you really have an issue then you should prep and pack to counter it, if you're getting stunned from a glass mix, carry calomel or char. You have all the opportunity and more to go just about any place with what you're given as wizard. Also, you really don't even need a hat or any of your attire to teleport, you get a teleportation scroll with 4 charges that let's you teleport to any specific room of your choose without requiring your magic attire.

Of all the shit that comes with antags, wizards are by and far the most powerful, and about the only one that has ever personally made me want to rip my hair out from fighting them AFTER literally throwing glasses, guns, and even the X-drone at them to no effect. Wizard does not need a buff like this.

[Technature]

Vampires - Chaplain. This motherfucker can't be glared, hypnotised, drained, thralled, grave touched, or anything, really, and theres nothing you can do about it! Fun. Your best bet is just legging it as soon as you see them. Oh yeah and space, good luck surviving out there, lol.

To be honest...

How often do people play Chaplain?  On a normal round, how many can there be?

How often do people play Scientist?  Or Bartender?  or HoP?  or Captain?  How many of them can there be?

And which ones can give their hard antag counters to other people?

Hell, you don't even NEED someone to give you access to chemicals to get chemical access. It's just a hacked door away.

[Frank_Stein]

Vampires - Chaplain. This motherfucker can't be glared, hypnotised, drained, thralled, grave touched, or anything, really, and theres nothing you can do about it! Fun. Your best bet is just legging it as soon as you see them. Oh yeah and space, good luck surviving out there, lol.

To be honest...

How often do people play Chaplain?  On a normal round, how many can there be?

How often do people play Scientist?  Or Bartender?  or HoP?  or Captain?  How many of them can there be?

And which ones can give their hard antag counters to other people?

Also, the Vampire can just like, shoot the Chaplain. With gun.

[Mouse]

Ice bats work on chaplains as well, IIRC.

[Sundance]

I take both your both your points, although I would argue that Fire V Ling and Chaplain V Vampire are soft counters due to the vast array of defenses one could dish out and I needn't bother listing them all as it would be exhaustive.

Silver bullets V Wolfman is a good point and actually a bit of a bad mechanic. I don't think it's very fair, although I haven't seen it used very often. Most of the time, wolves are just mobbed by crew and borgs. I'd much prefer silver bullets to reduce the time one stays in wolf form, rather than outright melting them.

I just don't like mechanics that are "Haha, here's my ace in the hole!", it just isn't fun and doesn't encourage interesting combat. Remember: The taser back ages ago used to be far stronger and fights almost always ended very quickly because of it. This is the same philosophy.

Same with Wraith too, but tangentially. I personally don't think there's enough ways to fight the Wraith, there's only salt. That's... kinda silly. 

If anything is to be taken out of this thread, it's that the melting hats needs to be far more obvious to the wizard, and melting the cthulu staff needs to go, so that the only proper way of removing it is via crusher. 

Though, I think wizard spells as a whole probably need to be respecced. 
There's plenty of great spells, but plenty of ones that are hot garbage too (looking at you, ice burst and bull's charge) and wiz could use some more defensive stuff. 
Right now, wizards kind of pigeonhole themselves to a specific playstyle - Summoner with golems, Curser with Polymorph/Cluwne and Pyro with fireball. And then there's Rathen Secret (which is fucking OP as fuck, holy hell) and empower/cthulu wizards, which are just massive assholes. 
I don't really see much variation outside these specific playstyles. I don't think we need to start again with the wizard, just shift things around a little. 
I'll make a seperate post about it when I gather my thoughts.

[vampirate]

An interesting change to staff of Cthulu rather than making it acid proof is, if it is destroyed,  let the wizard hit the spell to form a new one out of whatever they're holding and it takes on the properties of that.  You destroy a wizman's staff of cthulu, wizman comes back with a staff of cthulu made out of a loaf (maybe take a good fifteen seconds standing still to form the staff.

What about chem-beakers then?
Would those inhibit the properties of the chems (although perhaps in a lower amount? Striking their victim with those would grant a chance to just fill them up with those?)

Although I really dig that idea...I am afraid what a Capulettium Cthulhu staff would be able to do.

Thing is - excepting chems for the possibility of forming a staff puts loafs as one of the top-tier items - aye? Seem a bit bland...though better than HULK SMASH. I reckon.


Anyhow - I like your idea - just concerned about the implementation.

I wasn't even thinking chem beakers, but metals and other stuff.  Glass staves that cut people on use, heavier metal that hits harder,  Erebite if you are a fucking mad man