Mutation category expansion

[KA101]

Equine and Turtle are planned, as is the back half of Mycus and ideally a Shaolin facility to help with the endgame content problem. Tough part is getting through the PR backlog so I can get steam up to write more content, and getting a bug fixed in the mutation code (I thought I had a good handle on it, then it unfixed itself. >_< It’s open if anyone else has a better idea).

[Llamageddon]

That’s not the right way to fix the endgame problem. You’ll end up focusing most content around the late game, and it will not be enough anyway. Just like MMOs, you’ll have an endgame of an endgame of an endgame, arbitrarily gated by time and drop requirements.

What needs to be done instead is limiting bionics, possibly with slots(e.g. 1/2 muscle slots, 4/6 power system slots, 0/1 left arm), increasing the finiteness of resources, e.g. higher tech stuff is not repairable, no alchemical transmutation of cars into steel lumps, for vehicles way way higher welder power consumption(probably orders of magnitude) and needing cable, perhaps transmission whatever for wheels, more unmanufactureable stuff, less steep power curve(lower impact of higher skills, less enabled grinding) and a focus on variation instead, rebalancing stuff so building a house or farming isn’t so much harder than making a deathmobile or becoming a demigod, buffing zombies, especially hordes, and instead making them easier to avoid, make injury and especially less immediately lethal so content doesn’t have to be balanced around that, so common enemies can be stronger.

There’s a lot of other stuff that can be done, you’re just falling into a design trap.

[KA101]

So in other words, make (some of) the current content tougher to obtain.

So noted.

[Llamageddon]

That’s a good general approach, just avoid content gating, such as severely restricting things based on needing something rare that can only be found randomly, or by skill levels. That’s easily bypassed by grinding and min-maxing, and leads to a floodgate type problem, where once you’re at a high enough level, there is nothing stopping you from becoming stronger until you run out of better equipment/reach all the caps.

On said note, I absolutely need to make a topic about some of the changes that I want to implement, particularly to crafting. Now if only my anxiety wasn’t bad enough to turn me brain-dead and on the edge of asphyxiating when I try to work on stuff…

[Bonevomit]

[quote=“KA101, post:415, topic:3755”]Slime internals are vagued up for RP purposes but can still be crit. I’m OK with Amorphous and/or Omnicellular reducing your chance to be crit, though.

You want a Perfect mutant, that’s your problem, and I’d have thought the health, resource, and addiction consequences would have discouraged mass-use of the stuff. Mutations, by definition, aren’t neat and tidy packages, they’re weird outlier things you’ve developed. The comparative advantage of bionics is that (with proper installation) they do what they say on the tin.

Basically, I have zero interest in revising how mutagens and purifier work.

Got a chance to look at that last mass-list, and I’ll consider 'em. Tough part is getting the steam up.[/quote]
I’ve gotten perfect mutants, but it’s a pain in the ass.

The problem is that the system is random. One time you could get a super-mutant and the next could get a steaming pile of crap. In game terms it amounts to a frustrating slot-machine style grinding where you mass produce mutagen and purifiers until you eventually get lucky. It doesn’t reward the player for anything besides grinding and luck, and it costs almost nothing but time.

The frustrating discouragements you added have not improved this and only serve to make the process more tedious and frustrating than it already is. The only difference is that now when you’re rolling mutagens to get the perfect mutant, you also have to deal with some obnoxious artificial difficulty like thirst or hunger, which mean nothing to someone who has made it to the late game and is attempting this. I’ve had to deal with this stuff before and it didn’t stop me from trying, it only made the process more of a pain than it already was.

Essentially what you’ve done was make the problem worse. You need to either nip this in the bud and make this kind of grinding impossible, or alter the way mutations work in order to fix it. This “frustration to cure frustration” strategy does not work, mutagen grinding is essentially one of the few late game activities that currently exist, for me it’s one of the last things I end up doing with a character before I soon get bored and go do something else. Don’t just jump to a simple answer to preserve the status quo and dismiss the reality that the system does need some reworking in one way or another to solve this problem.

Remember that the mutation system was originally made by Whales to be a bad thing, and for the most part, it still functions in the same way as it did in the original Cataclysm.

[Llamageddon]

The frustrating discouragements you added have not improved this and only serve to make the process more tedious and frustrating than it already is. The only difference is that now when you’re rolling mutagens to get the perfect mutant, you also have to deal with some obnoxious artificial difficulty like thirst or hunger, which mean nothing to someone who has made it to the late game and is attempting this. I’ve had to deal with this stuff before and it didn’t stop me from trying, it only made the process more of a pain than it already was.

Yeah, pretty much. If a problem can be reduced to grinding or another action that is essentially all about time invested, the problem still exists, it’s not any lighter, just now its effects on the gameplay are way worse.

[Synthetic]

A good way to make getting good mutations less of a grind is to focus more on mutations that have both downsides and upsides to them. As it stands, most mutation trees have a bunch of good mutations, a bunch of bad mutations, and a handful of mixed mutations.
Instead of having both a mutation that gives me +4 strength and a separate one that makes me hungry more often, make them both a single mutation. “You’re stronger, but have to feed that extra muscle mass” or something like that.
Ideally, most mutations would be give and take, rather than get a bonus with something annoying tacked on. A good example of this is slime tree mutations that grant dexterity but reduce strength, or a lot of the cephalopod mutations.
In this system, bad mutations could be the result of a Critical Failure in getting a mutation. Pure positive mutations could also be a critical success roll, rare enough that players aren’t going to grind over and over for it.

This way, players would look at a mutation tree and get a good idea of what they’ll end up as, without having to try over and over to get a bunch of superpowers handed to them.
In a word, “Adaptation” not simply “upgrade”.

[Logrin]

Not allot of time to contribute to the discussion at hand so I’ll just drop a mutation idea that popped into head.

Pelican Bill - Removes peck attack, makes eating slower, allows a tiny bit more volume to be carried and can be activated to fish without the use of a rod/spear/net

[Closet_Pankin]

So can someone tell me why hand talons were removed from the raptor tree? That’s kind of… ridiculous.

[Flashlight_Hoarder]

AKA turtle mutcat, combining siziness of cattle, shell and aquatics of cephalapod, everything epse from reptile?

Pretty much yep.

[nickspaceman]

[quote=“Logrin, post:428, topic:3755”]Not allot of time to contribute to the discussion at hand so I’ll just drop a mutation idea that popped into head.

Pelican Bill - Removes peck attack, makes eating slower, allows a tiny bit more volume to be carried and can be activated to fish without the use of a rod/spear/net[/quote]
is it really worth it? I’ve never tried fishing

[Azetepii]

[quote=“nickspaceman, post:431, topic:3755”][quote=“Logrin, post:428, topic:3755”]Not allot of time to contribute to the discussion at hand so I’ll just drop a mutation idea that popped into head.

Pelican Bill - Removes peck attack, makes eating slower, allows a tiny bit more volume to be carried and can be activated to fish without the use of a rod/spear/net[/quote]
is it really worth it? I’ve never tried fishing[/quote]

I didn’t know you could use a spear to fish in this game. O.o

[Stretop]

limiting bionics, possibly with slots(e.g. 1/2 muscle slots, 4/6 power system slots, 0/1 left arm)

Bad idea. As this thread shows - survivors are highly mutable. Are you going to provide them with “wings slots”, “tail slots”, more slots for their “Huge”-ness, more “arm slots” for “8 tentacles” and so on?

increasing the finiteness of resources,

Making player powerless is always a bad idea. Let’s see…

e.g. higher tech stuff is not repairable,

That’s just silly. Why would anyone (from in-world perspective) design something that cannot be repaired? Far better solution is to require more advaced tools for restoration of more advanced tech.

no alchemical transmutation of cars into steel lumps,

And into what they must be transmuted by our resident fullzombiehulk alchemists? Into plastic bags of chewing candy?

more unmanufactureable stuff,

Ans this is. Worst. Idea. Ever. At the end of the day crafting is what fuels scavenging: you scavenge resources to make tools, then scavenge another resources and use that tools to make more advanced tools (and useful items) and so on.

What you are proposing is exactly what turns rougelike into MMORPG - grinding vast number of entities for desired drops. Only here you would have to grind locations mapgen throws at you instead of mobs local spawners throw at you in MMO.

So in other words, make (some of) the current content tougher to obtain.

It would be better to make (some of) the current content require more complex and advanced player actions to obtain; not “tougher” as “you must pray harder to RNGod to gain this”.

once you’re at a high enough level, there is nothing stopping you from becoming stronger until you run out of better equipment/reach all the caps

And what is the problem with that? Isn’t it realistic, actually?

In this system, bad mutations could be the result of a Critical Failure in getting a mutation. Pure positive mutations could also be a critical success roll, rare enough that players aren’t going to grind over and over for it.

Then those critical failures and critical successes should also be dependent on skills, like pretty much any other rolls (shooting, hitting, butchering etc.). Otherwise this would simply be an invitation to more extreme grind. Grinding is the result of randomness, it cannot be fought by changing parameters of randomness, only by reducing it, making it more controllable.

[KA101]

Telling me what I need to do tends to come off more as insulting than helpful.

I’ve ground for stuff in Metroidvanias and I know that’s a pain, so grind-gating isn’t something I aim for. Made a point to try minimizing that where there’s any reasonable way to do so (mutagen recipes are tough to make widely available, unfortunately).

On enforcing caps on how many of X (skills, bionics, etc) one can have, I’ve opposed that thanks to a rotten time in GearHead2. There, characters were strictly capped to just enough skills to be a competent fighter and have one (1) hobby skill. If you wanted to try some other hobby, well, feel free to start a new character and grind that one up.

Until and unless one can have NPCs help pick up skills that the PC doesn’t have, I’m opposed to preventing chars from being able to do everything competently.

[hr]

Alpha serum is already probably the most involved thing in the game to craft. Complexity is not the issue. Bird eggs seem to be a limiting grind-factor and perhaps they could be made more common.

Someone wanted mutations wrapped into all-mixed a while back, and I opposed that then as it removed any sense of gaining something good or bad (devaluing Robust Genetics in the process). I’m still fairly opposed to that now, as it makes mutation rather similar to bionics and trivializes the difference. I’ve shifted the balance significantly toward payoff, rather than loss, but I’ll agree that it’s a gamble.

Thing is, that’s where I want it to be. Using alien/nether parasitism to alter your biology & neurology should not be an easy, predictable, or safe thing to do. Bionics are the human solution: safer, more predictable, and comes in handy labeled cans, but takes skill to make (where possible) and significant skill to install. Mutation takes (significant, for the good stuff) skill to make, but can be found, and takes no skill to use. Its label is at best a guide, not a guarantee.

[Stretop]

Telling me what I need to do tends to come off more as insulting than helpful.

Sorry, it was not intended to come off that way.

Alpha serum is already probably the most involved thing in the game to craft. Complexity is not the issue. Bird eggs seem to be a limiting grind-factor and perhaps they could be made more common.

I see no need for that. My survivor have bird mutagen measured in plastic jerrycans despite the fact that he had to constantly interrupt his egg-hunting due to thrist and hunger. And he had some delitious scrambled eggs deluxe with that. If anything making them even more common would make things unrealistic, since there are not enough birds in-game to lay so many eggs.

[Darkfirephoenix]

Hrmm mutations…

Maybe some kind of “Salamander” mutation “tree”? (talking about the fire Lizards)

It would be MOSTLY like the lizard tree but with some mayor mutation differences (something like the “alpha” for the Lizards including alpha like stat boosts):

Heat lover: Their bodies operate on much higher temperatures and they LOVE high temperatures, immunity towards heat and fire (gain morale BUFFS from getting warm/hot but some hefty debuffs if they get cold. Including: Minor regeneration if hot/slowed healing if cold) (the fire immunity could be a different mutation)

HOTblooded: Their bodies will try and keep itself (at least) in the comfortable state at all times (higher nutrient usage if “heating up” is needed [cold temperatures around and/or not enough warmth from clothes. Nutrient usage depends on the amount of heating required] and lowered usage if no “heating” is needed [the hotter the less nutrients are needed])

Alcohol usage: They are able to drink far more alcoholic drinks than other and completely immune towards alcohol addiction. The alcohol is “stored” in a second stomach for later use: Either for heating up the body (used before butrients if avaible) or for some “tricks”

Alcoholic mist: They spit out a cloud of concentrated alcohol that is intoxicating to living beeings (humans get drunk FAST in it) and highly explosive (thin coud is just burning, thick cloud is explosive). So better not use anything in it that may ignite it (unless you are protected against fire)

Minor/Fire breath: Able to spit fire thanks to some extra glands in the head and stomach which produce chemicals that react EXTREMELY if combined and extra muscles to support the “spitting”. Two kinds of usage:

1. Alcohol fueled: Alcohol form the “storage stomach” is used and ignited via the chicals while beeing spat
2. Full chemical: Only the chemicals are used to spit fire, but at the cost of a high nutrition usage
   (minor variant only supplies the “fuel”/muscles for spitting, the fire itself has to be acuired via outside means [lighter etc.])

That’s all for now… (I’m getting sleepy…)

[KA101]

Fantasy-based critters default to No. Elf-A has a lot of backstory (that’s, admittedly, not well-imparted) behind how they came to be, and it still caught a lot of flak.

[Muaddib]

I was expecting an amphibian mutation, but then it got all fantasy.

[Synthetic]

[quote=“KA101, post:434, topic:3755”]Someone wanted mutations wrapped into all-mixed a while back, and I opposed that then as it removed any sense of gaining something good or bad (devaluing Robust Genetics in the process). I’m still fairly opposed to that now, as it makes mutation rather similar to bionics and trivializes the difference. I’ve shifted the balance significantly toward payoff, rather than loss, but I’ll agree that it’s a gamble.

Thing is, that’s where I want it to be. Using alien/nether parasitism to alter your biology & neurology should not be an easy, predictable, or safe thing to do. Bionics are the human solution: safer, more predictable, and comes in handy labeled cans, but takes skill to make (where possible) and significant skill to install. Mutation takes (significant, for the good stuff) skill to make, but can be found, and takes no skill to use. Its label is at best a guide, not a guarantee.[/quote]

Does it really remove the sense of getting something good or bad by mixing them though? It does to a degree, but I don’t think it removes that entirely. Mutations are basically acquired in two different forms. There’s early game where the player gets irradiated, fails a bionic installation, finds a mutagen, or other means by which they gain a random mutation. The current system works perfectly as-is for this, as mutation becomes a gamble with the potential for great payoff. The second form is where the player carefully guides their mutation by repeatedly mutating and purifying to get something that they want. Anyone who survives long enough will reach this point. This turns the risk-reward system into a controlled grind, and all but removes the negative aspects of mutation. It almost becomes the opposite of what it was, what it should be, once the player is given control over it.

Mixed mutations don’t have to be neutral; they can lean toward good or bad. If a bad mutation also gives the player a small reward for keeping it around, they might decide to keep it around as removing it is more trouble than it is worth.
Alternatively, there could be purely bad/good mutations that develop into mixed mutations. Someone might get a bunch of good mutations, but hesitate to use more mutagen because some of them could develop downsides. Someone might also want to keep a bad mutation awhile longer because it could become something useful. Such mutations would be chaotic for both young and old survivors, offer great boons with great risk, and do so without having to restrict the player.

[Coolthulhu]

Someone wanted mutations wrapped into all-mixed a while back, and I opposed that then as it removed any sense of gaining something good or bad (devaluing Robust Genetics in the process). I’m still fairly opposed to that now, as it makes mutation rather similar to bionics and trivializes the difference. I’ve shifted the balance significantly toward payoff, rather than loss, but I’ll agree that it’s a gamble.

Robust Genetics could use a devaluation. It’s a Night Vision tier trait - better than any of the 3 point traits. It makes mutations something more likely to be good than bad, even though most badmuts are more powerful than goodmuts (for example, carnivore hurts way more than not-having low hunger).

Good mutations definitely make mutations more similar to bionics rather than less.
+2 stat mut = +2 stat bionic, +10% speed mut has equivalent bionic, bio claws and mut claws, recycler and low thirst/hunger etc.

The most interesting mutations are the ones with a significant cost and a significant gain - hooves, toe talons, ursine vision, leg tentacles, arm tentacles, antennae, huge, hollow bones, woodpecker beak and unstable genetics.
All the traits that make voluntary mutating less “OK, good set, time to stop grinding” and more “this will change my playstyle, but may be worth it” and “this would be good, but not on this character”.