We should improve blobs somewhat

[CalliopeSoups]

I feel like the opinion that blobs are a bit weak is a common one on classic currently. In my opinion, blobs are not entirely weak, a very good blob is still a very good blob. I think there's just been several factors that have come together to make their famously high skill floor even higher, these imo would be:

• Captain's new ability to auth the armory, providing crew with earlier flamethrowers and even shotguns full of flare ammo on more blob rounds.
  
• Relating to armory gear, blob nuclei only reflect energy projectiles, which means they can be very easily magdumped with flamethrowers, flare shots etc. I've seen this pretty often recently and it always seems like too quick of a kill.
  
• Lower pop on average providing blob with less low-skilled players to feed on, along with increasing player competency over time.
  

Apart from that, some of my opinions on blob:

• It's too difficult to stay hidden for a few minutes on many maps. I think this is entirely because of the randomness to their attack, making expanding through any door dangerous. You can break walls you didn't want broken and be spotted for it. I think there should either be a new, targeted attack abillity or just a change to the current one to let you delist blob tiles for attacking or something.
  
• Space spawns are too crew sided, I think they naturally always will be crew sided too. A buff in some way to reflective walls and space bridges and/or another purchase option for dealing with space stuff would help though I think.
  
• Fighting blob as crew is much less fun than playing blob, in my opinion. I think a common suggestion for this is to add some sort of spawns for the blob that are more tangible enemies to fight, and also would act as dead people respawns.
  

TL;DR I think there needs to be some changes to lower the blob skill floor just a little, without flatly buffing the blob when skilled players are already able to win.

[IPingu]

Blob definitely needs some changes, currently I've seen blobs getting stomped when its a round dedicated to them and only winning if their a mid-round antag spawn where the crew might already be struggling with its current antags.

With blob dedicated rounds, I would say the biggest problem is the flamethrower:
1. Its a weapon that completely destroys blobs who havent purchased fire-resistance, making it quite a heavy trap for newer players. 
2. With it being so powerfull, when the blob actually gets enough fire-resistance where it can match up to the flamethrower, the flamer is too weak by then. Where its damage is too little compared to the sufficiently sized blob.

I would suggest making it a much more specialized weapon compared to a jack-of-all-trades, with it being significantly effective against thick membrane cells while being only moderately good against any other cell (Lore-wise it would be more effective because its a lot more calory dense so it burns much better while other cells arent that calory dense, for the exception of lipid cells). With this smaller blobs wouldnt get completely crushed by them as it wouldnt be so terribly capable of destroying all tiles, yet also giving it an important role in the crew's toolkit for killing the blob.
Also, I would suggest removing the fire-resistance entirely. Making the player blob rely on their ectothermid cells and fire-resistant membranes. Which would make a flamethrower good throughout a blobs lifespan, from when it was small till it got big.

There are definitely other problems with blob. Like plasmaphylls and item devouring being way too reliant on the station geography, a station that is not designed for blob players to take advantage of such things. Or its lost potential of the crew being able to use chemical warfare against the blob, which I never see done since it takes too much preparation. 
Yet those are different problems from what I wanted to talk about right now.

[Lord_earthfire]

Blob definitely needs some changes, currently I've seen blobs getting stomped when its a round dedicated to them and only winning if their a mid-round antag spawn where the crew might already be struggling with its current antags.

With blob dedicated rounds, I would say the biggest problem is the flamethrower:
1. Its a weapon that completely destroys blobs who havent purchased fire-resistance, making it quite a heavy trap for newer players. 
2. With it being so powerfull, when the blob actually gets enough fire-resistance where it can match up to the flamethrower, the flamer is too weak by then. Where its damage is too little compared to the sufficiently sized blob.

I would suggest making it a much more specialized weapon compared to a jack-of-all-trades, with it being significantly effective against thick membrane cells while being only moderately good against any other cell (Lore-wise it would be more effective because its a lot more calory dense so it burns much better while other cells arent that calory dense, for the exception of lipid cells). With this smaller blobs wouldnt get completely crushed by them as it wouldnt be so terribly capable of destroying all tiles, yet also giving it an important role in the crew's toolkit for killing the blob.
Also, I would suggest removing the fire-resistance entirely. Making the player blob rely on their ectothermid cells and fire-resistant membranes. Which would make a flamethrower good throughout a blobs lifespan, from when it was small till it got big.

There are definitely other problems with blob. Like plasmaphylls and item devouring being way too reliant on the station geography, a station that is not designed for blob players to take advantage of such things. Or its lost potential of the crew being able to use chemical warfare against the blob, which I never see done since it takes too much preparation. 
Yet those are different problems from what I wanted to talk about right now.

Good enough when the station has something else to take care off and laughable weak when its blob-only kinda sounds like the blob game mode itself is maybe in need of a closer look, if im honest.

[Comic]

Good enough when the station has something else to take care off and laughable weak when its blob-only kinda sounds like the blob game mode itself is maybe in need of a closer look, if im honest.

Blob only mode could be more interesting if there was a way for the blob to have an off-station base that the crew has to take down to prevent the blob from reappearing? Functionally I would think this would mean spawning elsewhere or on a different z-level with the ability to 'invade' and create a nucleus on the station once they've had some time to create a foothold?

I'm speaking out of my ass as I haven't actually played blob yet but if the issue with blob mode is that it's too easy for the crew to focus them down, having a backup that isn't just respawning x amount of times could help, and would differentiate it more from flock. Maybe leave a slime trail in space so it's trackable? I think having ghost spawns for blob would also help- maybe being able to spawn stationary turrets that can be player controlled, or some kind of mob that can infect/possess crew like The Thing- maybe piggybacking on the marionette code.

[Kotomata]

good thing to note right now is that flamers are hilariously and obscenely overpowered vs blob tiles to the point of completely overshadowing all other methods of attack
flamers currently damage blob tiles as fast as they can fire: this makes fire res and ectothermids much much weaker, as fire res blob tiles only take 2 hits from a full auto flamer to die, and ectothermids drain BP so fast that they almost immediately stop working
as for thick membranes and nuclei, holding down the fire button deletes thick membranes in seconds, and nuclei, while tanky, do not fare that much better, especially when you consider that any tile the blob makes next to their dying nucleus will die INSTANTLY to flamerspam before they can even make it into a fire-resistant membrane

flamers used to have a cooldown of sorts, where the flamer would spawn hotspots, the blob tile would be damaged, and you would have to wait for the hotspots to clear for the blob tiles to be damageable via flamer again. now that this is gone, blob balance is more or less out of the window; many blob upgrades and structures make a lot more sense when you have the cooldown in mind, but are pointless without it

that aside i've always held the opinion blob should get some buffs to their earlygame and nerfs to their lategame, there was an idea floated for blob rounds that they would start on an asteroid/meteor or whatever and spread for a couple minutes before hitting the station, which I thought was pretty cool. as for late-stage blobs, its harder to say, because blob can upgrade infinitely. maybe blob upgrades should be capped so that they can be balanced more effectively? idk

also while im here, can we remove the esoteric gamer mechanic "you spread slower when further away from nuclei"? is this even documented anywhere? i sure couldnt find it on the wiki page but maybe im blind. the whole point of blob is to spread as wide as possible so why does it invisibly slow down the further it gets from starting location? i dont like this mechanic one bit

also also blob abilities should really start hotkeyed because evidently the tutorial is not good enough to teach people this is possible (i have seen too many non-hotkeying blob players)

[IPingu]

flamers used to have a cooldown of sorts, where the flamer would spawn hotspots, the blob tile would be damaged, and you would have to wait for the hotspots to clear for the blob tiles to be damageable via flamer again. now that this is gone, blob balance is more or less out of the window; many blob upgrades and structures make a lot more sense when you have the cooldown in mind, but are pointless without it

Adding back the cooldown would be great. Since how it currently stands, fire resistance for blobs doesn't offer you as much as before, because it only makes a crewmember refuel more commonly rather than offering bigger protection.

that aside i've always held the opinion blob should get some buffs to their earlygame and nerfs to their lategame, there was an idea floated for blob rounds that they would start on an asteroid/meteor or whatever and spread for a couple minutes before hitting the station, which I thought was pretty cool. as for late-stage blobs, its harder to say, because blob can upgrade infinitely. maybe blob upgrades should be capped so that they can be balanced more effectively? idk

Allowing a blob to spread beforehand before being shot at the station sounds cool, although I would want the blob having the ability to actually be able to choose where they are placed. Since a part of the fun is strategizing locations before planting. 
This would also get rid of just unlucky rounds where a crew finds the blob seconds after they plant, where - unless the crew is stupidly incompetent - its impossible for the blob to win. It also allows the band-aid fix of blobs being able to respawn if they are killed too quickly to be removed.

also while im here, can we remove the esoteric gamer mechanic "you spread slower when further away from nuclei"? is this even documented anywhere? i sure couldnt find it on the wiki page but maybe im blind. the whole point of blob is to spread as wide as possible so why does it invisibly slow down the further it gets from starting location? i dont like this mechanic one bit

I have never known this in my 2k+ hours of playing SS13.

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Good enough when the station has something else to take care off and laughable weak when its blob-only kinda sounds like the blob game mode itself is maybe in need of a closer look, if im honest.

Mid-round blobs honestly shouldn't even exist, its either even more stacked against the blob (Because cargo already has a large budget for flamethrowers, medical/botany has obtained a good quantity of medicine or a cheeky scientist luckily being able to use their BP flamethrower) or its stupidly easy for them (Since a good quantity of the crew might be dead because of the antags, allowing for only a few people to fight a blob, that is supposed to be fought by the entire station).

[rando212]

I 100% agree that blob needs some sort of buff as it stands right now blob is in a state where the skill floor is so high that newer players need at least 2-3 blob rounds before they get a good grasp on what they are supposed to do and possibly even more if they just get stomped within the first 5 minutes of spawning which is not exactly unlikely. On top of this even if you do get past the skill floor hurdle blob is a antag where only the top 5% of players or less can actually get a win without the crew just being to apathetic to try, and at least in my opinion when 9 out of 10 blob rounds are just flat out stomps that isn't a fun antag for someone to play or for crew to fight.


One change I some other people have mentioned is how flamers should not be able to damage blob without cooldown and while this would be a great change I feel like more has to be looked at for fire damage. Part of the reason that flamers can be so devestating to a blob is that not only is the damage insane but blobs are unable to place tiles on areas that are on fire, and while this makes sense this comes with the issue that if you have 2 or even just 1 person with a full auto flamer spaming at a area or especially your nucleous you can flat out be defenseless. And when a full tank of fuel on a full auto flamer can take around 33% of a nucleouses health being unable to place any tiles for that entire time just feels terrible to play against. So part of my suggestion with the flamer damage cooldown is that possibly a new upgrade or a feature added to the fire restiance upgrade is that you are able to place tiles on on fire spaces with a health penelty so you are at least able to try and fight back.


Another change I really hope to see is one im actually surpised has not been done yet and that is to and that is make reflective tiles actually reflect things. Now for regular lazers and phasors and what not reflective tiles are just fine and work but when it comes to pod weaponry there at least 2 easy to obtain pod weapons that just ignore reflective tiles that being the mining phasor and the mk4 lazer. As of right now both of these pod weapons just ignore reflective tiles and damage them anyways with mining phasors being considerd kinetic projectiles rather then energy projectles and mk4 lazers causing fire on hit damageing the reflective tile anyways. I feel like if not for a blob buff that just for parity sake that these 2 projectles are reflected and by consequence would make pod's less of a impossible to deal with issue for blob.

also while im here, can we remove the esoteric gamer mechanic "you spread slower when further away from nuclei"? is this even documented anywhere? i sure couldnt find it on the wiki page but maybe im blind. the whole point of blob is to spread as wide as possible so why does it invisibly slow down the further it gets from starting location? i dont like this mechanic one bit

Afaik this is because as blob spreads every 100 tiles or so it gains a second of time before it can use spread which i agree is kinda dumb since by the time the crew "loses" and has to shuttle blob will be so slow it is actually less of a threat to crew then when they were fighting it.

[Kotlol]

It would be cooler if a blob could spawn on a meteor to prep up then crash into somewhere on the station where it wents and start spreading from there.

This way the blob can set up it's 1st form on the meteor and grow into the station.

[Mouse]

Being able to reload a flamethrower instantly by just clicking on a welding tank also fucks over blobs.  Can't even wait for them to run out of fuel and spread while they're swapping fuel tanks anymore.

[Lord_earthfire]

I think what we can say is that blobs need something to mitigate multiple flameattacks. Instantly stacking multiple fireflashes gets them down to quickly. So im personally all for a cooldown between fire damage instances. Also that makes sense to simulate a "burning" of the blob instead of a instantanious combustion.

[Mouse]

So flamethrowers can safely fire over ocean floor tiles, making it trivially easy to combat blobs.

[mralexs]

I see a few things to buff blob, 1) Make blob weak to cold attacks (like in the movie) instead of fire, 2) Make blob take DOT instead of instant melting when attacked by fire like others have said, 3) reduce the effectiveness of pod weapons against blob, 4) improve Blob awareness (IE a minimap or something), it's very difficult to focus on multiple fronts as Blob. All my successful Blob rounds have been where I and my teammate were able to funnel the crew into one area of attack and focus all our attention there. There are also very few viable starts on many maps. It's been a while since I last rolled blob but on Cog 1 the best spot was the armory, Cog 1/Cog 2 were designed with Blob in mind whereas a lot of maps weren't. Maybe the other maps could be gone over to make them a little more blob friendly?

EDIT: Just had this idea, but a melee "turret" for the blob would help as well

[Mouse]

Incidentally I should probably note that I haven't seen a single blob victory since the changes to fires.

[Lefinch]

I really can't comment on the blob gameplay as I've had maybe a handful of encounters with it. This idea is entirely offered with your request to keep that in mind so if it doesn't "make sense" feel free to ignore it. It does come off something I've observed with flock gameplay, and a very basic RTS concept that sometimes gets used that might apply well here:

Would it be useful, and engaging, to allow "Spreading" entities to the blob to have a way to both spread more stealthily, and build "Enclaves nodes"?
For example, imagine a blob being able to send a tendril down a pressurisation or disposal pipe. It's not visible to the crew while doing that, and is dictated to path down that pipe, but could emerge out of a vent somewhere and set up a potential "Decoy" or "reserve" blob area? Would this also allow the blob to spread without moving through more detectable main hallways?

[Spoodle]

You can break walls you didn't want broken and be spotted for it. I think there should either be a new, targeted attack abillity or just a change to the current one to let you delist blob tiles for attacking or something.

Special tiles won't attack unless specifically directed, so you can build them along the walls you want to keep. While it's not ideal, it can prevent this problem from happening.

Also, echoing others' sentiment, I think that the main thing that's altered blob balance significantly (by increasing the skill ceiling further) has been the elimination of the cooldown on flamethrower damage. While of course more in-depth balance would be nice for blob, that one (hopefully simple?) change would make a sizable impact in blob balance, I think. Of course, I only hope that it'd be a simple change- maybe it's not though, imnotcoder :P But big kudos to whoever would code it, though!