Could Lizard Nerfs please be stopped until there's a justified reason to nerf them?

[Alexalmighty502]

Recently I noticed some Unfair changes to lizards in this game that I feel are massively unjustified. Since the start of me playing space station 13 I've always enjoyed playing as a non-human character mainly focusing on lizards due to my uninterest in skeletons and roaches. however, in my experience, they seem to be considered "substandard" from the very beginning. The first thing I noticed is the fact they are considered inhuman to ai's (this being the same with other non-human races) technically giving the AI and borgs the right to freely ignore and harm them (though thankfully it's frowned upon by the majority of the community and is normally considered to be grief by the admins [this doesn't mean I haven't had any negative experiences with borgs/ais as a lizard while not recently I have had negative interactions with ai/borgs with their defense being "he isn't a human"]). 

The next downside is that you now must spend a perk point to be a non-human. While this might be a touch better than paying points earned through playtime to be a lizard/nonhuman you still must spend a point that could otherwise give you a situational edge. (cat eyes and survivalist being some commonly picked positive perks) I feel like this should be more similar to accents where they cost 0 points considering there's no real buff you get from playing lizard.

Now onto the biggest (and in my opinion the most extreme and uncalled for nerf) the debuff to thermoregulation. While I do understand that lizards are cold-blooded in real life this game puts great emphasis on speed, dodging, and maneuverability. This and the fact that this game generally takes place in space where hull breaches are common causing significant drops in temperature mean that all lizard players are more commonly disadvantaged compared to all other species.

The final issue (and the most minor) is the inability to use many of the lawbringer settings due to the fact that your s's are multiplied causing your vocal commands to fail to the point of lizard hos's being a "meme"

While I hate for these issues to become a "race" thing the fact that this server very much about equality and inclusivity while also negatively impacting lizard players is absurdly hypocritical and unfair to those wanting to play as lizards or other even races

NOTE: This required a lot of liquid courage(ie alcohol) to write so I apologize for any grammar or spelling issues.

[Sov]

i don't know much about the thermo regulation changes

but getting the lizard racial passives of see invisible and +1 dark vision for a single trait point is a pretty good deal. A regular player can't see invisible people at all without a gene like xray

This lets you see through chameleon, cloak of darkness (both the genetic and vampire versions), see bloodings, and while mostly useless see invisible ink. As a Hos...that's pretty damn powerful

[CommaIndividual]

i don't know much about the thermo regulation changes

but getting the lizard racial passives of see invisible and +1 dark vision for a single trait point is a pretty good deal. A regular player can't see invisible people at all without a gene like xray

This lets you see through chameleon, cloak of darkness (both the genetic and vampire versions), see bloodings, and while mostly useless see invisible ink. As a Hos...that's pretty damn powerful

Agreed.  I mean, Skele costs more and has objectively more downsides than good parts and I still love it.

Edit: I mean that it would be objectively better to just go not skele than to pick it, almost feels like it should be a trait that gives points instead. Still love it though. I am getting off topic though, this thread is about Lizards, not Skeles, sorry!

[kyle2143]

While I hate for these issues to become a "race" thing the fact that this server very much about equality and inclusivity while also negatively impacting lizard players is absurdly hypocritical and unfair to those wanting to play as lizards or other even races

This comes up every so often by some players who are really attached to playing as lizards. Frankly, I find that incredibly insulting and ridiculous at the same time. Much like everything else in this game, lizardmen are a work in progress, so things are going to take some time to find a balance. Especially since nobody gets paid to work on this game and are doing it in their free time.

The goal that the administration collectively want mutantraces to move towards is "Make them feel distinct gameplay wise from humans". That means that they are going to be different. So they'll have pros and cons to them. Full stop. Trying to equate game design of different videogame races with real life racism is offensive. I'm not sure if you're doing it by accident or on purpose to try to force a change in the design. 

As for the specific "unfair" changes to lizards right now, I'm unfamiliar. But as a general design philosophy on player selectable choices at round start, we do not want to make things that give certain players a non-trivial advantage over the default character setup. So it's good to err on the side of caution when adding new things to a round start mutantrace and make it be less desirable from a competitive standpoint. Especially considering the fact that you don't have to play as a lizard.

I'm starting to think that we should remove lizards and other mutantraces from round-start character selection and make them races that you can turn into over the course of the round like how we have werewolf serum and vampire serum. That should prevent people being so attached to a certain playable race and they can stop trying to use irl racism as an argument to get their way about game design.

[CommaIndividual]

I'm starting to think that we should remove lizards and other mutantraces from round-start character selection and make them races that you can turn into over the course of the round like how we have werewolf serum and vampire serum. That should prevent people being so attached to a certain playable race and they can stop trying to use irl racism as an argument to get their way about game design.

I do understand getting a fair bit annoyed and tired over this ongoing race thing, but please don't remove races.  Races add spice to roleplaying and add more gameplay options and challenges!  For the skele side of things, they are very risky.  No cloning, but milk heals.  This adds challenge but also adds a fun gimmick, being a milk obsessed skeleton, which is only one of many!  Additionally, skele gets a few fun things in the kitchen as well!  My personal hope is that skele gets a new thing later as well to make up for no revives, but I am still happy with it now.

In my opinion, please don't remove races from round-start, they add so many opportunities.  They just need to be ironed out a little.

[Mouse]

Are lizards supposed to be able to see invisible?  I thought they just got infravision.

[Sov]

Are lizards supposed to be able to see invisible?  I thought they just got infravision.

they have a see invisible level of 1. This works on the things I listed.
It does not work on higher level invisibility like the grinch cloak (invis level 2). 

I also do not believe it works against the cloaking device...though I would have to double check edit: just checked cloaking device is also level 2

video demo https://streamable.com/grqnog

[Boxta]

As a avid Scalie Lizard player,  I feel they are in a  fairly good place right now, but there is some annoyances to it. The thermoregulation thing is fine, just takes a bit of time to get used to.  Soon, hopefully lizards should be able to regenerate limbs, which in it of itself is very powerfull. Id however like to see support for Lizard HOS's, so they can use the law bringer

[shotgunbill]

saurian genetics was a mistake

I'm starting to think that we should remove lizards and other mutantraces from round-start character selection and make them races that you can turn into over the course of the round like how we have werewolf serum and vampire serum. That should prevent people being so attached to a certain playable race and they can stop trying to use irl racism as an argument to get their way about game design.

[UrsulaMejor]

Soon, hopefully lizards should be able to regenerate limbs, which in it of itself is very powerfull.

It'll take quite a lot of convincing to get that through. That's quite a steep advantage, and lizards already have so many.

[CommaIndividual]

Soon, hopefully lizards should be able to regenerate limbs, which in it of itself is very powerfull.

It'll take quite a lot of convincing to get that through. That's quite a steep advantage, and lizards already have so many.

Indeed.  Still waiting for my boy skeleman to get a little buff/change/rework/re-boning/chiropractors/orthopedist checkup.  You guys are doing good work as is, though.

[Drago156]

Oh boy what have I missed and where to start...

I'll start at the thread start and work down I guess, and to preface to those unfamiliar, I attempt to play as a lizard almost exclusively and have for close to a year or more now.

The next downside is that you now must spend a perk point to be a non-human. While this might be a touch better than paying points earned through playtime to be a lizard/nonhuman you still must spend a point that could otherwise give you a situational edge. (cat eyes and survivalist being some commonly picked positive perks) I feel like this should be more similar to accents where they cost 0 points considering there's no real buff you get from playing lizard.

Yea I'm not the biggest fan of this one, mostly because it's made me realize when I go to shift trait points around that there are a surprising amount of negative traits that probably don't give out what they should for the effect you get, making it hard to balance out trait points without dropping stuff, but I can understand why it's done.

Now onto the biggest (and in my opinion the most extreme and uncalled for nerf) the debuff to thermoregulation. While I do understand that lizards are cold-blooded in real life this game puts great emphasis on speed, dodging, and maneuverability. This and the fact that this game generally takes place in space where hull breaches are common causing significant drops in temperature mean that all lizard players are more commonly disadvantaged compared to all other species.

Yea, this is the one I dislike the most. Thermoregulation for lizards is at a terrible point right now, as in you can and will shiver randomly at room temp. That alone is a bit much, but worse being is when a station breach or some chemnerd causes you to freeze to an insane temperature, causing you to be stuck at that amount of cold for an incredible amount of time in most cases and stacking a constant 30 seconds of heavy shiver. As any combat role, this is absolutely a major negative. I'm not completely against lizard thermoregulation being different, but I think at its current state it's far too low and could use a slight lift, at least so lizards are shivering in basic room temp.

The final issue (and the most minor) is the inability to use many of the lawbringer settings due to the fact that your s's are multiplied causing your vocal commands to fail to the point of lizard hos's being a "meme"

Yea dunno what to tell you on this one. It absolutely is a meme and joke to me, doesn't stop me though. It is also still possible to set all the modes, just really difficult. That said you honestly don't need the modes you can't set, considering you can get some sort of alternative gun from security to replace the missing mode. I personally am going to say I'm against this being changed.

As for the specific "unfair" changes to lizards right now, I'm unfamiliar. But as a general design philosophy on player selectable choices at round start, we do not want to make things that give certain players a non-trivial advantage over the default character setup. So it's good to err on the side of caution when adding new things to a round start mutantrace and make it be less desirable from a competitive standpoint. Especially considering the fact that you don't have to play as a lizard.

If you wanted to make it so players didn't have access to a non-trivial advantage over the default setup, you've well already failed on that. Between current traits and spacebux items, there are some stand alone items as well as a number of combinations that certainly give a major boost. I would also argue that the eyes of a dev and eyes of a player are two vastly different things, so what one may view as balanced could be imbalanced to the other, and vice versa. That said I think ultimately a design choice should lean in favor of the player view, not the dev view, because without players you have no point in developing a game any further. Of course I say this not to just you specifically, Kyle, but rather the dev team as a whole. I rarely see devs active and playing on a server as a normal, stand alone crewmate just acting like any other person would, and that arguably ruins the player perspective that I think devs should have. I would also argue that it would be a good idea to ultimately have the mutantraces roughly equal in overall power/ability, otherwise you'll see something get zero use because it ultimately ruins a player's experience, which is not a good thing. Finally to close this part, your final statement here is rude, and the exact attitude I thought we were trying to be rid of on goon. This really isn't ok behaviour for any sort of authority figure, especially a dev, as you create a disconnection between the view of a developer and that of a player, and the further disconnected the two are, arguably the more tension will follow.

I'm starting to think that we should remove lizards and other mutantraces from round-start character selection and make them races that you can turn into over the course of the round like how we have werewolf serum and vampire serum. That should prevent people being so attached to a certain playable race and they can stop trying to use irl racism as an argument to get their way about game design.

Now this mess... removing or restricting access to something because of personal dislike of individuals is harmful ultimately to the community and just being spiteful. It's also notable to mention that both the WW and Vampire serum recipes are incredibly rare, have complicated and super secret recipes, and most importantly give antag powers and abilities to a crewmate, whether they're antag or not. Now, of course people are going to be attached to playable races in a RP setting, because it's an important part of their character, which can and often is a part of their identity or beliefs. That said it most certainly IS NOT excusable to go so petty as to involve racism in any fashion, in any way where it is truthfully and honestly not involved. It's dividing, insensitive, and honestly despicable, and has no place here. We're better than that, let's be better than that.

Soon, hopefully lizards should be able to regenerate limbs, which in it of itself is very powerfull.

It'll take quite a lot of convincing to get that through. That's quite a steep advantage, and lizards already have so many.

With the Arse Nath PR currently up to make it so tails don't just pop off with first use, I don't think I'm personally in favor of limb regen. It is an incredibly overpowered ability in any sense, and one that probably doesn't belong on any standard crewmate to start. I also could see potential bugs and stuff when combined with a changeling and its regen abilities. As for lizards having so many advantages, they really don't, at least not ones that in actual gameplay make any difference or can compare to what other mutantraces have, and especially contrasted with their cons. IR vision is handy, but it's niche, extremely niche. As for the ability to change scale colors, I would argue that again in actual gameplay, this makes no difference, as if someone was trying to hide their identity, they wouldn't have most of their scales showing to begin with, and that pure character appearance (just the character with zero items equipped) is a very terrible way of identifying people.

That was a lot holy damn.

[KikiMofo]

If people are going to complain about something that was added just for fun then I'd say remove the lizard race entirely.

[GORE]

Add more flavor to every mutatrance.

If you are too cold as a lizard or dislike that thermoregulation - keep some hot beverages with you. Heat up your coffee with a welder. Eat spicy food.
Get a coat. Turn on the rarely used space-heaters.

Use the options available and make choices based on the presented options.
Choosing an option that you know the pros and cons of and then complain about the pros and cons existing in the first place really bugs me out.

Mutatrances at a lot of spice to the spacemen game. Gameplay changes via mutatrances shake up the bland human flavor.

- - -

Shivering is also really not that bad. Warm yourself. Use any of the dozen things you could do to heat yourself up. How did people manage when space coldness affected one even worse? If you are a lizard in staff assistants clothing and without a space-suit in a hull-breached hallway - YOU SHOULD SHIVER.

Urgh~

[Carbadox]

I'm starting to think that we should remove lizards and other mutantraces from round-start character selection and make them races that you can turn into over the course of the round like how we have werewolf serum and vampire serum. That should prevent people being so attached to a certain playable race and they can stop trying to use irl racism as an argument to get their way about game design.

I don't have a horse in this race, so I don't have anything to say but it seems people are misinterpreting this paragraph.

Playing video games isn't a right, it's a privilege. That privilege is even greater when you're not paying for the game and you're not financially supporting the development team. Currently the dev team already directly interacts with players considerably than every average development team out there. So let's not take these things for granted.

This ain't aimed at anyone in particular, but the general vibe of this thread. Developers work on what interests them personally and I don't think it would be inaccurate to say that at Devs add some part of themselves into the game Be mindful of your criticism, unless you want all new features to be so bland and devoid of personality just for the sake of being inoffensive