A potential mutations rework?

[Amoebka]

@Coolthulhu, could you give me your opinion on reworking mutation categories? I'm working on a rather big mutation rebalance and would like to you know if you are interested in such a thing for Bright Nights. Since the rework is entirely based on gameplay considerations (and not whatever realism people mean when they talk about humans growing tails), it is ill-suited for mainline DDA and would likely have to go into a mod otherwise (with crippled functionality due to lack of hardcode support). I know you've previously mentioned that strongly game design related rebalances potentially go here, so I figured I should ask.

The main goals of the rebalance would be: 1) To give each mutation path its own distinct gameplay niche and playstyle. 2) To better balance the number and quality of pre- and post-threshold mutations between different paths (currently some paths don't have unique post-threshold mutations at all). 3) To reinforce the flavours of different mutation paths by incorporating more iconic features of the animals they are based on. 4) To make different paths more competitive between each other from the power level perspective.

In case you are interested, I would like to discuss some specific details to make sure we are on the same page and the rebalance is generally consistent with the design philosophy you chose for Bright Nights.

[Coolthulhu]

Regarding your goals:

1. This is certainly consistent with BN.
2. BN will be moving away from hard thresholds. I'd like thresholds to be more like "you're bear-like enough, you can now mutate high level bear stuff". Or even just stronger requirements per individual mutations, such as 8 arms requiring chitinous body, mandibles, venom and web weaving.
3. I don't like mutation trees being mostly just animals (especially mammals), but iconic features sound like a good idea to flesh out the niches. A mantis shrimp tree would be interesting and distinct.
4. This is certainly consistent with BN.

[Amoebka]

Alright, so for the immediate future:

2) Is it fine to still define mutations in terms of pre- and post-threshold for now? Supposedly the post-threshold mutations will later migrate into "high-level" ones that require certain investment, while pre-threshold are entry level and can be gained any time. Going completely freeform with just prerequisites seems risky, because it makes balancing harder (impossible?), as players can first obtain prereqs, get the high-level mutation they want, and then go into a different path, losing prereqs but not the reward. I'm mostly afraid it will encourage too much minmaxing ending with non-descript samey amalgamations of "good stuff" since tradeofs aren't enforced.

3) My current intent is to make mutation trees less about specific animals and more about "types" of animals, to avoid trees that are too similar. I certainly would want to reduce the number of mammal mutations in favor of more exotic clades. For now I plan to remove "Beast" category (too broad, isn't meaningfully different from feline/lupine, Chimera is the same concept but better) and merge "Rat" and "Mouse" into a more generic "Rodent" (the two trees aren't sufficiently different). I would also want to add a crustacean-inspired tree and a snake-inspired one at some point. I planned the crustacean to be a general lobster, but if you absolutely insist on mantis shrimps let me know which details about them are must-include.

In addition to these, I have a few broad questions:

4) Are mutations that belong to no category welcome? I'm guessing yes if you want to ditch thresholds eventually.

5) Are sexually dimorphic mutations allowed? I.e. only female wasps having stingers, only male moose having huge antlers, etc. These are very recognizable differences that most people know, and I would like to include them, for the sake of common sense. This would, of course, make character gender not purely cosmetic. Generally I would try to balance the categories to be fair for both, and in any case the amount of these mutations is intended to be low - one or two per category, mostly for flavour.

6) In DDA they want to make mutated bodyparts incompatible with bionics. We don't do that kind of stuff here, right?

[Coolthulhu]

2. Yes. I didn't start the de-thresholding work yet and I can't predict when would I finish it. The player won't be able to keep a mutation that loses prerequisites - attempt to lose the prerequisites will instead kill the mutation first (with some weighting factor, to avoid heavily dependent mutations being very unstable).
3. That's good. Lobster is fine, mantis shrimp was just an example of strong theme. Though I want to implement co-related mutations (mutations that increase/decrease chances of other mutations) some day and then cat, mantis shrimp etc. could emerge without being explicit categories, just being more likely to come with other themed mutations.
4. They're fine. If a mutation doesn't fit anywhere, it doesn't need to be forced into a category. I'd like thresholds to be less about categories and more about individual mutations - when you have enough lower level themed mutations, you can gain the higher level themed mutations. Alternatively, allowing crossing multiple soft-thresholds, as long as they aren't in conflict.
5. I'd rather avoid having character's sex be involved in balancing, except maybe as an chance modifier for certain mutations. As if it was a 0 point mutation correlated with the dimorphic mutations. A strong mutagen could mutate sex if it really wanted to make the player gain a sex dimorphic mutation.
6. I'd like some soft incompatibility. Not "bionics don't work in mutated body parts", but rather bionics not working together with certain mutations (metal claws with mutation claws), stat gains not stacking, lower slot limits (once those are enabled). Also possibly having many big bionics causing worse mutations to be selected or having mutations cause certain bionics to act as if they had certain faults. Mostly at high levels of each, though - not "CBMs or mutations, pick one", but "CBMs + mutations, pick a combination that adds up to 100 points or less".

[LyleSY]

I’ve been thinking about some more Dino mutation trees besides raptor. Fun?

[lightsPage]

Mostly at high levels of each, though - not "CBMs or mutations, pick one", but "CBMs + mutations, pick a combination that adds up to 100 points or less".

Any limits like these should be optional somehow, in a similar spirit to freeform character creation.

[MrOlaf]

The only issue I have with mutations is that the ones in game are not extreme enough and bonuses only sound impressive on paper, meanwhile they offer no to little in-game advantage. There's just a handful of mutations (mostly post-threshold) which seriously alter your playstyle ie. pain immunity, eating the dead, size advantage/disadvantage.

[Coolthulhu]

Closing as old and not well defined. The issue is being discussed actively on discord. If we reach a clear design, it may be worth adding a wiki page.