Blob Balance - Limit the # of nuclei

[Boa Jacque]

Hey, I hope I don't upset any hardcore blob fans or start a slugging match between blob fans and blob haters, but I feel compelled to post.

Blob rounds are tough to balance, but heres my thinking on this one;

Blob rounds that aren't cut short typically win by default. Blobs typically take winning to an extreme, boarding the shuttle and depopulating it. This should be an accomplishment, not an inevitability. A shuttle with 5+ people trying to keep the blob out should not get wiped out time and time again.

That being said, blobs have even been discovered upon spawning and have still won.
Most of these blobs start in sci, right on top of the sci-team, or inside the monkey dome. They quickly move to attack people/monkies and absorb them for points.
Both of the above are signs that blobs are too strong. Not everyone is as good at playing blob as some of these victors, but they've proven that anyone -can- do it.

Keep in mind, that anytime you experience a win against a blob in under 5 minutes, unless 8+ people responded in force/cohesion, then it just means the blob was bad at being a blob. Probably a bad spawn choice, and definitely some unluckiness in terms of "wow the crew responded competently"

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I'm sure talk of changing blob happens every-so-often, and part of the reason nothing has been done in awhile might be a lack of a better idea being proposed than what we have now. 
So anyways, im sure you've all played blob enough to have feelings about it. 

My idea would either be to limit the blob to only being able to deploy 2 nuclei total

or

Limit the blob to only being able to spawn 3 nuclei total, but dramatically increasing the cost of doing so in a way that deploying #2 isnt a long process, but deploying #3 is unlikely to occur before the 25-30 minute mark. 

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blob growth rate seems too fast, but that might not be the value to tamper with in changing how blob is balanced.
I say this, because while the growth rate does seem too fast, it makes the blob a tough threat. 
However, its all about the nuclei. Blobs that get 3+ nuclei live at the same time are unlikely to lose under any circumstance, so lets cap out that particular aspect and force the blob to use some of its rampant growth to protect those nuclei.

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Another suggestion would be to remove the sound the blob makes when it attacks walls, but force the blob to spawn in pre-selected places in the same way the nuke rounds are governed.

This would allow blobs to expand until discovered visually, probably allowing them to grow to larger sizes pre-discovery, but definitely takes some of the power of the blob player away by not allowing them to choose their spawn.

[Musketman12]

Just disable blob on lowpop, almost all blob wins are because not enough people actually fought the blob (usually because there is not enough people actually on the station).

[YoukCat]

Musketman, Blobs will win anyway. I've played Blob about 12 times perhaps? And only the First (and maybe Second) times I've EVER played it, I have lost.
All the rest of that, wins, usually EATING THE ENTIRE SHUTTLE wins instead of JUST wins.

That is bad, because while I am good at the Blob that doesn't mean I should win every stinking time, and the entire reason this happens is because no one attacks the Blob, and even if they do, no problem. I stop caring at some point because I have 5 different Nucleus down at once and everyone is too preoccupied defending Escape Shuttle.

If we had a limit of two Nucleus, then perhaps more people will think they have a chance. If more people think they'll have a chance, then we will be stormed more and will have to actually defend ourselves.

[Boa Jacque]

basically what youkcat says.
Half the time if its a blob round, I space myself and play something else, because I know the damn blob will just wind up escaping on the shuttle alone.

The times I do fight the blob, its discovered early and I go right for firebombs/black powder/e-gun production
(and the blob still wins)

[ferriswheel1]

What about having the cost for new nuclei increase MASSIVELY with each nucleus created? Like, about a 4x or even 10x increase for each successive nucleus.

The biggest problem with a blob occurs when it reaches "critical mass", covering so much area and having so many nuclei that it's pretty much impossible to defeat short of large scale bombing. This results in the crew losing hope and calling the shuttle, which the blob then eats.

[Frank_Stein]

How about if instead of the ghost view blobs have, they are a buffed up nucleus that can move around within the blob? Then, they could either make weaker nuclei that are controlled by absorbed players, or they can drop teleport tiles to move around their body faster once they grow bigger.

[UrsulaMejor]

Having only 2 nuclei makes you ridiculously easy to kill with telescience.

Blobs aren't overpowered, people just refuse to fight them. With any combination of 10 people with lasers/flamethrowers/flame extinguishers and clever use of department resources like telescience, bombs, plasma gas, exploding tomatoes, etc, the blob literally stands no chance of winning if the crew even makes an attempt.

Limit blob rounds to rounds with 15 or more players, and make it so monkeys don't count for any evo points. Then, if the blob wins, the crew deserved to lose.

Edit to add:

Possible, less drastic tweaks:

1) make ribosomes stronger but more costly, forcing the blob to take care of them properly. Increase the spread speed cost of not having them to force blobs to use them and manage resources. This makes ribosomes powerful secondary targets to the crew.

2) limit the health of fire membranes so that they're easier to take out with assistant available weapons like toolboxes and force blobs to couple them with thick walls and mitochondria fit effective barriers.

3) Eliminate biomatter storage in excess of your production rate, and change lipids to increase your maximum biomatter reserves by 1. Make them have a very high cooldown and low health, giving the crew more secondary targets to fuck up the blob with.

Point being, part of what makes blobs hard to kill is the nucleus being its only vital component. Making more organelles into secondary targets forced the blob to manage more resources.

[Nnystyxx]

After all the times I've ended up in lowpop with blobs, or had something I've tried to do be paralyzed by them, or tried to kill them with a ship only to find I couldn't get through the ONE layer in front of the nucleus because the mining laser cutters are too slow/weak, I've begun to find blobs just kind of unfun.

It always just ends in "oh what's that? blob is on the shuttle? guess you're just fucked and nobody can get on the shuttle and they get knocked over and eaten. as usual"

EDIT: The only especial fun I've extracted from it was the time this one blob spread over so much of the station, he actually ate the AI, replaced its core with a nucleus, and replaced the turrets with slime launchers.

PS: Fuck the auto-end caused by beating the blob early on or the blob spreading through much through some random space bullshit. That's a garbage mechanic that does nothing but jackknife its way into rounds to arbitrarily end them. The game is perfectly capable of having latejoin antagonists. The way it works in dedicated blob rounds is you kill a nucleus, and if the game doesn't end you shit your pants and look for the next one. It's so predictable.

[lambskin]

I understand the blob hate in this thread, but it's a vicious cycle. People don't find fighting the blob to be fun so they suicide, causing people who fight the blob to not have fun fighting the blob since they can get overwhelmed easily, making them commit suicide in future blob rounds. Fighting the blob can actually be a tense and exciting experience for both the blobs and the players.

Every blob round I've had where I ended up consuming the station was because only one, maybe two people would actually try to fight me at once. If the crew works together, forming squads and advancing on two or more fronts then even powerful blobs can be defeated. Remember, the blob overmind can only be in one place at a time.

[Xeram]

I understand the blob hate in this thread, but it's a vicious cycle. People don't find fighting the blob to be fun so they suicide, causing people who fight the blob to not have fun fighting the blob since they can get overwhelmed easily, making them commit suicide in future blob rounds. Fighting the blob can actually be a tense and exciting experience for both the blobs and the players.

Every blob round I've had where I ended up consuming the station was because only one, maybe two people would actually try to fight me at once. If the crew works together, forming squads and advancing on two or more fronts then even powerful blobs can be defeated. Remember, the blob overmind can only be in one place at a time.

This.

The main problem with blob, (Aside from it happening on lowpop rounds and being able to spawn close to people as long as they don't have line of sight), is that people hear blob and they just fuck off forever and don't help deal with it because they think blob is impossible to fight.

If you're fighting the blob head on where it is focusing, yes it is almost impossible to fight why are you trying to fight an entire blob where it is currently focusing you nerd.

When blobs expand they inevitably have to let their nucleus out of sight, people seem to treat blobs as "Gotta fight the entire blob" instead of "Gotta kill the blob's nucleus" It's actually really easy to sneak up on a blob's nuclei if it's busy fighting somewhere else as its trying to spread. Not to mention that with a little work, toxins and telescience can achieve their dreams of justified nuking of portions of the station by sending bombs to nuclei, most likely with some AI help.

[lambskin]

Yeah blob rounds are one of the few times that you can justify bombing the station as a non antag. Opening up space tiles really slows down the spread of the blob, since they have to both buy space tiles and wait for the cooldown.

[UmbraDrake]

I'm not sure that they need less nuclei, but honestly, the rhibosome just ends up being way too quickly recharged and makes it impossible on lowpop.

Not sure if this is a 'disable-blob-on-lowpop' or 'longer recharge on rhibosome' argument, take your pick.