Goonhub
06-24-2022, 12:00 AM
I'l have to pre-phrase this post saying that i'm an RP player and i do not know how the allergy traits affected Classic Servers.
Now for those that might not know, the traits i'm talking about are :
Allergy - Allergic to a random reagent, your body generates Histamine if it's in your system.
Medical Allergy - Allergic to a ranom medical reagent, your body generates Histamine if it's in your system.
Hyperallergy - Histamine multiplies itsself in your system
You used to be able to pick them all but they're now all set to the "Allergy" cattegory within traits, allowing you to pick only one of them. From my limited understanding this was done to protect newer players/doctors as the combination was deemed too punishing on them. But i'd like to make an apeal to undo this change and maybe make a few arguements as to why i think this.
RP Medbay can become a (boring) point and click adventure
Allot of few different ways to get hurt have been reduced or removed some of them i agree with (ethanol liver damage reduction) and then the particular allergy one i'm appealing, not so much. The end result of these changes is perhaps a more new-player friendly medbay, but also a medybay that's more boring and one that promotes less-diverse gameplay, at least in RP. Having patients that require different types of treatements is fun, patients requiring surgery would be one of those examples but someone coming in with all three allergy traits (Triple Allergy from this point on) was also a fun challenge requiring new and interesting forms of treatement.
It promoted RP between patients and between peers
Triple Allergy patients would often be long-form patients. This allowed for the doctors to roleplay a bit with their patient or would open an oppertunity to roleplay with their colleagues about this, wether it was deliberating on a treatement, teaching a colleague an effective treatement or getting a peer in the case you didn't know how to treat it. Triple Allergy was often pretty hard to treat but not immediately life threatening to a patient, allot of its effects could be kept in check with charcoal and styptic while doctors treated the patient, again opening up time to RP.
Learning is fun, it promotes it and it creates memories
I'l say that personally, finally figuring out an effective treatement to Triple Allergy was a blast. Much like many newer doctors i had no idea how to treat my first Triple Allergy patient or what even was going on, i consulted my peer at the time and they taught me about the allergy traits, consulting my PDA and some forms of treatements and although i'm terrible with names and don't remember my pers name i still remember these moments, this and all of these situations have made me better with using the tools i have available as a Medical Doctor. (it prompted me learning myself an easy recipe for Antihistamine). Not to mention these moments where someone walks into Medbay with a Triple Allergy can be memorable on their own, in fact one of these moments was memorable enough to me that i had to doodle it out , Walp coming in as a patient both being Hyper Allergic and having an Allergy to Histamine.
"I picked Triple Allergy and the medical doctor doesn't know how to treat me/I'm a Doctor and i and my peers don't know how to treat this"
I get that this can be frustrating but I'l say that, i very personally think this is the possible risk you run when running Triple Allergy. As the person picking Triple Allergy you need to live with the idea ''alright i might not get the treatement i need if my allergy flares up'' same as someone with Puritain has to live with the idea that they might get turned into a meat slushy if people don't check the records. I suppose for doctors it can indeed be frustrating but sometimes, that's just that, even in real life certain hospitals/practices might not have the required personell or equipement to treat certain patients and they're usually reffered to a different locale.
Ways to bring back Triple Allergy and make it less punishing?
Perhaps a compromise can be to reduce the combined harshness of Triple Allergy is to tweak the numbers a bit. Maybe a reduction to the amount of Histamine generated, that'd be the easiest one. Or if you feel tweaking one single of these allergy traits perhaps you can add a seperate Triple Allergy trait, that is similair but less severe then the Allergy traits combined seperately. Alternatively would be to tweat the depletion rates of Antihistamine, which wouldn't be too bad of an idea in my opinion, it's very specifically called Antihistamine (or well Diphenydramine but stop hassling me), it specializes in Histamine removal so it wouldn't be too wacky to bump up the values a bit compared to more general-purpouse flushers.
Now for those that might not know, the traits i'm talking about are :
Allergy - Allergic to a random reagent, your body generates Histamine if it's in your system.
Medical Allergy - Allergic to a ranom medical reagent, your body generates Histamine if it's in your system.
Hyperallergy - Histamine multiplies itsself in your system
You used to be able to pick them all but they're now all set to the "Allergy" cattegory within traits, allowing you to pick only one of them. From my limited understanding this was done to protect newer players/doctors as the combination was deemed too punishing on them. But i'd like to make an apeal to undo this change and maybe make a few arguements as to why i think this.
RP Medbay can become a (boring) point and click adventure
Allot of few different ways to get hurt have been reduced or removed some of them i agree with (ethanol liver damage reduction) and then the particular allergy one i'm appealing, not so much. The end result of these changes is perhaps a more new-player friendly medbay, but also a medybay that's more boring and one that promotes less-diverse gameplay, at least in RP. Having patients that require different types of treatements is fun, patients requiring surgery would be one of those examples but someone coming in with all three allergy traits (Triple Allergy from this point on) was also a fun challenge requiring new and interesting forms of treatement.
It promoted RP between patients and between peers
Triple Allergy patients would often be long-form patients. This allowed for the doctors to roleplay a bit with their patient or would open an oppertunity to roleplay with their colleagues about this, wether it was deliberating on a treatement, teaching a colleague an effective treatement or getting a peer in the case you didn't know how to treat it. Triple Allergy was often pretty hard to treat but not immediately life threatening to a patient, allot of its effects could be kept in check with charcoal and styptic while doctors treated the patient, again opening up time to RP.
Learning is fun, it promotes it and it creates memories
I'l say that personally, finally figuring out an effective treatement to Triple Allergy was a blast. Much like many newer doctors i had no idea how to treat my first Triple Allergy patient or what even was going on, i consulted my peer at the time and they taught me about the allergy traits, consulting my PDA and some forms of treatements and although i'm terrible with names and don't remember my pers name i still remember these moments, this and all of these situations have made me better with using the tools i have available as a Medical Doctor. (it prompted me learning myself an easy recipe for Antihistamine). Not to mention these moments where someone walks into Medbay with a Triple Allergy can be memorable on their own, in fact one of these moments was memorable enough to me that i had to doodle it out , Walp coming in as a patient both being Hyper Allergic and having an Allergy to Histamine.
"I picked Triple Allergy and the medical doctor doesn't know how to treat me/I'm a Doctor and i and my peers don't know how to treat this"
I get that this can be frustrating but I'l say that, i very personally think this is the possible risk you run when running Triple Allergy. As the person picking Triple Allergy you need to live with the idea ''alright i might not get the treatement i need if my allergy flares up'' same as someone with Puritain has to live with the idea that they might get turned into a meat slushy if people don't check the records. I suppose for doctors it can indeed be frustrating but sometimes, that's just that, even in real life certain hospitals/practices might not have the required personell or equipement to treat certain patients and they're usually reffered to a different locale.
Ways to bring back Triple Allergy and make it less punishing?
Perhaps a compromise can be to reduce the combined harshness of Triple Allergy is to tweak the numbers a bit. Maybe a reduction to the amount of Histamine generated, that'd be the easiest one. Or if you feel tweaking one single of these allergy traits perhaps you can add a seperate Triple Allergy trait, that is similair but less severe then the Allergy traits combined seperately. Alternatively would be to tweat the depletion rates of Antihistamine, which wouldn't be too bad of an idea in my opinion, it's very specifically called Antihistamine (or well Diphenydramine but stop hassling me), it specializes in Histamine removal so it wouldn't be too wacky to bump up the values a bit compared to more general-purpouse flushers.