Slaughter Demons

[PKPenguin321]

Recent antagonist-type mob that was added by KorPhaeron: Idea thread, Github pull
Couldn't find a feedback thread, but if there's one already that I somehow managed to miss then close this I guess

It is a mob that can enter any blood pool/trail/drip to instantly enter an unlimited-duration phase jaunt kind of thing. It runs pretty quickly and it's attacks do a bunch of damage (not sure of the exact numbers, but they crit in 4-6 hits in my experience). They can only exit the jaunt through another drip/pool/trail of blood. If they are pulling a human when they enter their jaunt, they take the human with them and devour them whole, healing the demon and killing the human.

AFAIK, there's no real way to see them ingame without admin intervention. (EDIT: I lied: "Adds wizard item for summoning it. Has objective to kill the wizard (and everyone else).")
If you've had experience with them or have thoughts on them, post your feedback and such here.

[PKPenguin321]

(Posting separate from the OP because I like to keep the OP unbiased.)
I had the chance to play as one on Basil earlier, and man is it fun. Can't say it was fully balanced for the crew (but my views may be skewed, as Basil is fairly low-pop and the crew was pretty unprepared). I was able to take down a Gygax from full health, kill the pilot, drag him to make blood, and eat him in it. Getting fully healed from every kill makes any fight you don't lose 100% is inconsequential (if you're down to 1% health and barely win, you can eat the guy you killed and be back at 100% instantly). Maybe make it heal less from eating people? It would also benefit the crew if they had some method of stunning it like holy water or a null rod, as it attacks quickly and it's attacks are very strong, meaning once it has you you don't really have much of an option to get away.

At one point someone was behind an airlock I couldn't open and there was no blood, so I could not get to them, so I also definitely did have a serious weakness. This was done really well and did feel like a very solid counter to an otherwise super-powered demon.

Really love these things and would like to see them in more regular use.

[Bluespace]

I want to drag alive people into the pool of blood, and have their sprite slowly sink into it while dealing damage. Only another crewmember can save them.

[Cheimon]

For something with such good escape options (just attack someone, wait for them to bleed, disappear into the blood) it is very tanky. I was watching one take many laser shots only to disappear as soon as it looked like it was on low health.

Not that it was possible to tell. Can examine texts be added so we can see if it's injured?

[Bombadil]

These things are too damn fast for being monsters with a permajaunt (as long as there is blood)

Also too damn tanky

[iamgoofball]

How 2 fight slaughter demons
step 1. Get janitor w/ backpack sprayer
step 2. Fill w/ space cleaner
step 3. Flood hallways
step 4. Never see demon again

[Xhuis]

-snip-

step 5. admin spawns blood pool and the demon kills you and fills your hallways with blood before eating you

[onleavedontatme]

-snip-

step 5. admin spawns blood pool and the demon kills you and fills your hallways with blood before eating you

step 6. Open the ban panel.

[Fr05tByt3]

-snip-

step 5. admin spawns blood pool and the demon kills you and fills your hallways with blood before eating you

step 6. Open the ban panel.

step 7. Nevermind about ban panel, we were talking about admins and that shit don't happen around here no matter how shitty shit gets.

[onleavedontatme]

-snip-

step 5. admin spawns blood pool and the demon kills you and fills your hallways with blood before eating you

step 6. Open the ban panel.

step 7. Nevermind about ban panel, we were talking about admins and that shit don't happen around here no matter how shitty shit gets.

Two admins got banned today. One by me and one by MSO after I bitched about them.

[Actionb]

Slaughter Demon is fantastic. Xenos are just live target practice for everyone by now, but that demon appearing out of nowhere and pulling your dying friend into a pool of blood, followed by loud crunchy noises, gets the "OHSHITOHFUCKOHSHITOHFUCK" reactions that make a game built around paranoia really work.
That said...

- it needs to be slower on foot. It's an ambusher, if you're just as fast or faster than your prey, why bother ambushing
- entering (and maybe leaving) a pool of blood needs a delay
- it hits REALLY hard, too hard. Don't give it pillow fists, but don't make a close encounter a ggnore situation either
- instant heal upon eating somebody is a bit too strong. Got into a fight and were hurt? Better look for some easier targets first.

Also:

I want to drag alive people into the pool of blood, and have their sprite slowly sink into it while dealing damage. Only another crewmember can save them.

Pleeeeease!

[Bombadil]

The problem xenos have is if they get locked in a room they can't rip open doors or rip open shutters you can easily trap xenos

[Cheimon]

Yeah, but the xenos do have options in your typical room: vents, acid, hivemind chat to other aliens to help them get out. Some rooms are designed so that this isn't possible (xenobiology containment) but it's mostly very possible to escape if you have enough of you or if you have an alien with acid vomit.

[Cheimon]

Just finished playing a round with more of them, and a few things became really clear as 'things that need to be addressed'.

First is that they can drag objects. This would be best removed entirely. It means they can immediately create massive blood trails that are impossible to clean up (without extreme resources put only into cleaning that, ie multiple janiborgs) and then they can teleport wherever they want. Removing their ability to pull corpses wouldn't stop them from being able to drag a corpse into a blood pool, since they always create blood underneath their opponents with enough hitting anyway.

Second, they're as fast as a running crewman. The examine test suggests you can run, when in fact it's not really doable. If they were slower, they would be more reliant on provximity to blood, and therefore more reasonable to combat.

Third, they're unbelievably tanky. Having 250 health, the ability to heal up with any fight won, however barely, and being nimble and able to hide in blood at a moment's notice makes them really hard to kill. The only way I've seen it done with crew equipment (IE not deathsquad) is to box it in a room with the space cleaner, clean all the blood on the floor, and beat it to death as a crowd. Hard enough with one, impossible when the wizard spawns three or more.

Fourth, the wizard can summon lots. Five, even. Pretty much impossible to defeat as they'll just swiftly gib the whole crew.

[lumipharon]

Make it slower but with a burst of speed for X seconds after coming out of blood. That would mean it could pop out of blood and ambush somoene, but would need to hurt them enuogh to slow them down before it's speed boost wears off.
Also it does a fuckload of damage, should probably reduce that a bit.

[onleavedontatme]

My own thoughts are:

-I'm very happy with how people react to them. Maybe its because they're new but people start flipping out IC in ways they dont for other enemies. I think I succeeded in making them scary at least
-They're much tankier and killing spree oriented than I'd first imagined. I guess that fits the new sprite vs the old horror looking one but still
-I feel like they need some sort of nerf but I'm not sure how to do it without robbing them of their power.
-I'm not sure how much of a nerf to give them in any case because I dont know if everything in the game needs to have "security grabs laserguns" as the go to strategy. As PK and goofball said right now its something you can defeat without having to kill or arrest, which is somewhat unique

I think Lumi's idea is one of the better ones as far as speed goes. Should fix the issue of it saxxing around the station pulling a body without making it awful in combat.

Wizard should definitely only be able to summon one

[Not-Dorsidarf]

The "dragging into a pool of blood" should be slow (and, like people said, literally have their sprite falling into the pool), make the crunching noises, make them scream, and heal the slaughter demon for the remaining health of the person over time, finishing when the dude is fully eaten. (So eating corpses doesn't get you anything, and beating people to crit before eating them alive is less rewarding than devouring them kicking and screaming.

[Oldman Robustin]

Make it slower but with a burst of speed for X seconds after coming out of blood. That would mean it could pop out of blood and ambush somoene, but would need to hurt them enuogh to slow them down before it's speed boost wears off.
Also it does a fuckload of damage, should probably reduce that a bit.

This is the best suggestion here. Have a 20s buff that makes demon move at current speed upon exiting a pool, then slightly slower than normal crew after that. This will prevent I from just roaming freely for kills and keeps it tied to blood

[ChangelingRain]

The problem is, right now they basically just pop up, robust a man, drag them a bit, and instantly leave for a full heal, so that wouldn't change how they play much; it'd only matter if they got trapped and unable to reach blood.