Mutation category expansion: Game balance derail

[Stretop]

Don’t forget that buddhists have never met mutants in real life.

They have never met demons in real life either. So what?

For all we know if mutants would be real, armies of buddhist monks would go on an anti-mutant crusade the likes hasn’t even been seen in Warhammer 40,000.

No. Crusading is really not a buddhist thing. They do not go out of their way to spread wiolence around the world.

Especially if these buddhists are living in a world where they see mutated humans and monsters tearing apart innocent humans everyday.

Hello? We are in the world of Cataclysm. Last innocent humans died like five days ago =)

Buddhist writing is filled with heroic monks and martial arts ripping various demons and monsters a new asshole.

But not “because they are demons and monsters”. They did that because that “various demons and monsters” actively did something strongly disagreeable.

In fact, making martial arts very “pure human” based would make it a very good balancing device.

At the end of the day martial arts are individualistic thing. Much like mutations. “Pure humans” are, however, collective creatures. So making martial arts very “pure human” is not only illogical, but theme-unfitting as well.

Mutants are already too good at HtH combat with all their mutations.

Exactly until they meet real human army with real armor and real weapons. And, by the way, real battlefield tactics.

I have a strong feeling

Never belive your strong feelings. They are irrational.

P.S. For further reading: count how many non-humans are here: “Thus have I heard. Once upon a time the Lord was staying at Râgagriha, on the Gridhrakuta mountain, with a numerous assemblage of monks, twelve hundred monks, all of them Arhats, stainless, free from depravity, self-controlled, thoroughly emancipated in thought and knowledge <…> together with the eight Nâga kings and many hundred thousand myriads of kotis of Nigas in their train, viz. the Nâga king Nanda, the Nâga king Upananda, Sâgara, Vâsuki, Takshaka, Manasvin, Anavatapta, and Utpalaka; further, the four Kinnara kings with many hundred thousand myriads of kotis of followers, viz. the Kinnara king Druma, the Kinnara king Mahâdharma, the Kinnara king Sudharma, and the Kinnara king Dharmadhara; besides, the four divine beings (called) Gandharvakâyikas with many hundred thousand Gandharvas in their suite, viz. the Gandharva Manogña, the Gandharva Manogñasvara, the Gandharva Madhura, and the Gandharva Madhurasvara; further, the four chiefs of the demons followed by many hundred thousand myriads of kotis of demons, viz. the chief of the demons Bali, Kharaskandha, Vemakitri, and Râhu; along with the four Garuda chiefs followed by many hundred thousand myriads of kotis of Garudas, viz. the Garuda chiefs Mahâtegas, Mahâkâya, Mahâpûrna, and Mahârddhiprâpta, and with Agâtasatru, king of Magadha, the son of Vaidehi.”
“Ripping various demons and monsters a new asshole”? Not going to happen.

[Pthalocy]

New thread possibly?

[Logrin]

Alrighty then, I’ve got a little bit of free time to blurt out my opinions on what’s being discussed (though feel that said discussion should get it’s own thread))

For the most part I believe that the early/late game difficulty/reward, unused content, the limiting of characters and production/repair of high-tech items hinges upon the implementation of a working faction system.

*Forget Shaolin temples being like they were/are when nothing else in the cataclysm is ((And we’re stateside for that matter)) The secret martial arts should be handed out at world creation to fitting factions. X are known for their martial artists, etc.
*Factions could be an item sink for the player, in that dumping stockpiled/unwanted items improves their standing (Better equipped, better able to attract more recruits, etc.) and the player’s station within the organization.
*Factions should have their own thoughts on things. Group A hates mutants, group B accepts them–etc. This decides which factions hate each other.
*Joining and building up a faction (As discussed at length in a thread about claiming territory) should run afoul of other factions, attract raiders and as the group captures and maintains critical structures–XEDRA.
*XEDRA and the nether should be the ‘endgame’ one way or another. Deciding to explore the other side or being targeted by power-armor clad commandos all but requires the support of a well-equipped faction.
*Players should of course be able to make their own faction or stage a coup detat with enough support. A group of rag-tag NPC companions founding a new world order is just the sort of thing to keep players occupied with missions and maintenance.

[Synthetic]

-snip-

The fact that you needed to explain to me why we shouldn’t add mechs means that nothing I am saying is getting through to you and I don’t think I can explain myself any better. I don’t think that anybody else here shares your opinions either, so this conversation is quickly becoming pointless.

[Stretop]

I don’t think that anybody else here shares your opinions either, so this conversation is quickly becoming pointless.

1. Please, do not speak or think for others - they are perfectly capable to do this themselves.
2. Quite to the contrary: conversation is pointless when everyone have the same opinion.

Also,

is, there’s a point where vertical progression has eliminated the challenge entirely.

This problem is going to fix itself as soon, as evolving factions will be implemented. They also going to have access to this vertical progression - survivor will no longer be the only one with access to mutations, CBMs and high-end equipment. And not even one with the best access to it all.

[Stretop]

Mutation category expansion

“psycopathy” styled mutations

Hm, by the way: “psycopathy” trait is not about psycopathy at all: absence of guilt by itself is not enough to diagnose psycopathy and it does not turns someone into some kind of omnicidal maniac. For such person to be diagnosed with psycopathy weak control over urges must also be present. And without such weakness (or even more so - with trait like “addiction resistant”) survivor would be more like schizoid rather than psychopath.

[iceball3]

Yeah, hence why i put it in quotes.

[Stretop]

Then I offer to rename “Psychopath” as “Guiltless” and free it from negative undertones.

[mdtexeira]

I may post more after I finish reading this thread, but for the time being, I thought I’d just point out this:

moot point - An issue that is subject to, or open for discussion or debate, to which no satisfactory answer is found

It seems like people keeping using this phrase to imply a closed case, or a settled argument. That is not what it means. I apologize for my pedantry.

[Rivet]

Then I offer to rename “Psychopath” as “Guiltless” and free it from negative undertones.

It already implies negative connotations in some of the special messages it gives you in various situations.

In DDA the term ‘psychopath’ is specifically referring to the whole ‘diminished empathy and remorse’ aspect. It’s not a perfect word for it, but our ‘schizophrenic’ trait doesn’t really emulate actual schizophrenia, our ‘asthma’ trait doesn’t really cover all the bases for real asthma, and the food dislike traits don’t really differentiate between dislike and an outright allergy either; they’re just shorthand terms so that folks can readily understand what they do.

[KA101]

[quote=“Stretop, post:40, topic:8589”]Then I offer to rename “Psychopath” as “Guiltless” and free it from negative undertones.

It already implies negative connotations in some of the special messages it gives you in various situations.

In DDA the term ‘psychopath’ is specifically referring to the whole ‘diminished empathy and remorse’ aspect. It’s not a perfect word for it, but our ‘schizophrenic’ trait doesn’t really emulate actual schizophrenia, our ‘asthma’ trait doesn’t really cover all the bases for real asthma, and the food dislike traits don’t really differentiate between dislike and an outright allergy either; they’re just shorthand terms so that folks can readily understand what they do.[/quote]

Milk/wheat are allergies, the rest are psychological. Should specify in the description, leastwise I’m pretty sure it already does.

Psychopath v. Sapiovore: the Psychopath is still human, but doesn’t care about norms like “don’t kill or eat people”, whereas the Sapiovore doesn’t consider itself human, so killing and eating a human is taking prey, not cannibalism. In this sense, anyone with Sapiovore would generally not want to join a human faction (unless in the market for sheep’s clothing) and even then the mental changes involved in Sapiovore rule out persuade checks in conversation.

You don’t have a conversation with your prey animals.

[mdtexeira]

It seems like some people want characters to be playable and fun forever.

I love this game, but I accept it for what it is…a post-apocalypse simulator. In a post-apocalypse situation, what would you do? Personally, I’d try to create an effective defense system, and then grow food, and just live out my days. Is that what my character does? No. Because that wouldn’t take terribly long, and isn’t as much fun as raiding everything to find all the features. Lets say you are the kind of person who’d actually go out and do that…at some point you’ll still have seen most if not all of the threats, and conquered them.

In an apocalypse, none of us would be hoping that things get randomly more challenging. We’d be trying to eke out our survival, and if we accomplish it…great.

IMO, a lot of these arguments could easily be tabled in lieu of starting a new character. Go a season without facing any serious danger? New character. Is food and water and warmth no longer an issue, and will obviously never be an issue again? New character. Congratulations…your character lives ‘happily’ ever after. You won the game…play again. Afraid it will be too easy? Use a scenario. Play a weaker character.

There have been some great arguments about what players will all do when faced with the current gameplay. They may be true. That’s our trained drive to ‘win’ the game. Right now, you can effectively win DDA…which is great. You can win in life too…create a situation where you are never forced into risks outside of your comfort zone and never want for anything. Taking away the ability to win this game isn’t great design. It’s an attempt to make a single game immortal.

If you know this game so well that you can always win if you survive a week…go play another game. There’s SOOO many games. It’s insane to design a game around people who have the rather conflicting desire to make the game ‘unwinnable’ while always choosing to play in a way focused on ‘winning’.

I just played my first character to near this point of homogeneity, where I had the gallons of mutagen and CBMs, and a diamond katana. It was fun. I have basically made the character design that I used for that character off-limits for future runs. I will never start in the evac shelter again. I will never min-max my character again. Because playing the same character in exactly the same way is what makes a game stale…not the game itself having effective sameness. If you have given yourself the most challenging character possible and still ‘won’ the game, then you beat the game on Insane. What do you do with every other game that you beat on Insane?

Go play Zangband, and let me know when you kill The Serpent of Chaos.

tl;dr - this is a simulation game; characters need not be played forever

All that being said…there’s tons of great ideas to add into the game…I just think the motivation for adding them would be more rational if it was focused on making the world feel more real, making it cooler, and more dynamic, and not focused on extending the late-game just because. There SHOULD be a point at which any sane person recognizes that this character has ‘won’ and picks up a new character, or a new game.

[Stretop]

It already implies negative connotations in some of the special messages it gives you in various situations.

Like what, for example? I do not remember anything like that.

In DDA the term ‘psychopath’ is specifically referring to the whole ‘diminished empathy and remorse’ aspect.

Okay then, back to my original point about “psychopaths”. Why would shaolin monks be against someone with ‘diminished empathy and remorse’?

You don’t have a conversation with your prey animals.

But you totally do. Look at all those people who have pigs (or dogs - in places like Korea) as pets rather than food source. Again, the fact that you can eat humans does not mean that you inevitably will eat humans. And, returning again to our Shaolin - it does not actually matter what you eat: “Taking life, beating, wounding, binding, stealing, lying, deceiving,
worthless knowledge, adultery; this is stench. Not the eating of meat.” (Amagandha Sutta)

[Rivet]

[quote=“Rivet, post:42, topic:8589”]It already implies negative connotations in some of the special messages it gives you in various situations.

Like what, for example? I do not remember anything like that.[/quote]

if (has_trait("CANNIBAL") && has_trait("PSYCHOPATH") && has_trait("SPIRITUAL")) { add_msg_if_player(m_good, _("You feast upon the human flesh, and in doing so, devour their spirit."));

That one took all of twenty seconds.

[Stretop]

That one took all of twenty seconds.

That is when you know where to look =) And that (cannibal+psychopath+spiritual) is very specific selection of traits. Any other examples (regarding specifically “cannibal” and/or “psychopath” traits)?

[Rivet]

That is when you know where to look =) And that (cannibal+psychopath+spiritual) is very specific selection of traits. Any other examples (regarding specifically “cannibal” and/or “psychopath” traits)?

I also know how to do a search-in-files.

else if(!g->u.has_trait("CANNIBAL") && g->u.has_trait("PSYCHOPATH")) { g->u.add_memorial_log(pgettext("memorial_male", "Killed someone foolish enough to call you friend, %s. Didn't care."), pgettext("memorial_female", "Killed someone foolish enough to call you friend, %s. Didn't care."), name.c_str()); }

[Stretop]

“Killed someone foolish enough to call you friend, %s. Didn’t care.”

And this is about unsightly act, not about “PSYCHOPATH” or “CANNIBAL” being bad by itself.

[KA101]

[quote=“Rivet, post:42, topic:8589”]It already implies negative connotations in some of the special messages it gives you in various situations.

Like what, for example? I do not remember anything like that.

In DDA the term ‘psychopath’ is specifically referring to the whole ‘diminished empathy and remorse’ aspect.

Okay then, back to my original point about “psychopaths”. Why would shaolin monks be against someone with ‘diminished empathy and remorse’?

You don’t have a conversation with your prey animals.

But you totally do. Look at all those people who have pigs (or dogs - in places like Korea) as pets rather than food source. Again, the fact that you can eat humans does not mean that you inevitably will eat humans. And, returning again to our Shaolin - it does not actually matter what you eat: “Taking life, beating, wounding, binding, stealing, lying, deceiving,
worthless knowledge, adultery; this is stench. Not the eating of meat.” (Amagandha Sutta)[/quote]

OK, I dug up a fair amount too. However, the willingness to do the act should imply that the Psychopath/Cannibal is not someone you’d want around.

Oops, you killed your friend:
“Killed a friend, %s.” (-500 morale, and you’ll be feeling that for a few days)
But with Psychopath:
“Killed someone foolish enough to call you friend, %s. Didn’t care.” (zero morale effect)

Better kill that NPC before xe has any chance to burglarize your stuff:
“Killed an innocent person, %s, in cold blood and felt terrible afterwards.” (-100 morale, 24 hours at least)
But with Psychopath:
“Killed an innocent, %s, in cold blood. They were weak.” (zero morale effect)

Someone’s pre-cataclysm photos don’t mean a thing to a Psychopath:
“Wasted time, these pictures do not provoke your senses.” (no MORALE_PHOTOS for you!)

Upside-down crucifix tombstone if a Cannibal/Psychopath dies whilst packing a bible.

And there’s a host of interactions with cannibalism when the food’s made of hflesh.

[hr]

Pets != prey.

[hr]

DDA!Psychopaths have no problem with taking life, deceiving/lying (in the sense of NPCs thinking you’re friendly before you attack them), or binding (making a zlave is a serious morale issue to most folks). If we assessed morale issues for lying they wouldn’t have 'em; as is, Skilled Liar is a separate trait.

[Stretop]

the willingness to do the act should imply that the Psychopath/Cannibal is not someone you’d want around

There is difference between “willing to do thing” and “apathetic towards doing a thing”. And “Psychopath” is not willing (not more than anyone else) towards killing, he is exactly apathetic.

[quote=“KA101, post:50, topic:8589”]Oops, you killed your friend:
“Killed a friend, %s.” (-500 morale, and you’ll be feeling that for a few days)
But with Psychopath:
“Killed someone foolish enough to call you friend, %s. Didn’t care.” (zero morale effect)

Better kill that NPC before xe has any chance to burglarize your stuff:
“Killed an innocent person, %s, in cold blood and felt terrible afterwards.” (-100 morale, 24 hours at least)
But with Psychopath:
“Killed an innocent, %s, in cold blood. They were weak.” (zero morale effect)[/quote]

Again, those strings about an unsightly acts being bad, not about “Psychopath” trait itself being bad.

[quote=“KA101, post:50, topic:8589”]Someone’s pre-cataclysm photos don’t mean a thing to a Psychopath:
“Wasted time, these pictures do not provoke your senses.” (no MORALE_PHOTOS for you!)[/quote]

That’s pretty neutral. And why someone’s pre-cataclysm photos should mean a thing for survivor, surrounded by walking dead and impending doom in the form of various denizens in the first place?

Upside-down crucifix tombstone if a Cannibal/Psychopath dies whilst packing a bible.

I appreciate that black humor =)

And there’s a host of interactions with cannibalism when the food’s made of hflesh.

One should not argue about tastes.

[hr]

Pets != prey.

Dog=dog, pig=pig. Whether it is your pet or your prey - is up to you.

[hr]

DDA!Psychopaths have no problem with taking life, deceiving/lying (in the sense of NPCs thinking you’re friendly before you attack them), or binding (making a zlave is a serious morale issue to most folks). If we assessed morale issues for lying they wouldn’t have 'em; as is, Skilled Liar is a separate trait.

Do you really not see the difference between “having no emotional problem with it” and actively “doing it”?

Also, this all is of no consequence to buddhist. Buddhist does not kill not out of fear of guilt - he does not kill because this would hinder his ascension towards enlightenment. He does not lie not because he is bad at it - he does not lie because this would hinder his ascension towards enlightenment.

[KA101]

Indeed, because I and the faction NPCs are not concerned with whether the Psychopath is actively killing anyone right now; if xe does, we can certainly act on that.

What we’re concerned about is whether we can trust the Psychopath not to mis/abuse the trust we’d be placing in xem.

Someone who wouldn’t care about enlightenment (or basic human morals) might decide that it’s easier and more profitable to just liquidate the monks (monk! you are not bulletproof!) and take the contents of the temple rather than go through the training and trials needed to become a monk.