Slimes are the worst race in the game

[Just-a-Unity-Dev]

Description

Slimes as of right now are the worst race in the game - design-wise and mechanic wise. This issue was wrote at commit 76bae5a17af4aadf67cbb94a97862272940b2a59.

First, #23340 removed the Slimeperson's ability to not rot. Please stop removing designed gameplay in the hopes of someone coding "proper death mechanics". I just want to point this out, because slimes have ONLY downsides now.

Next, people compare the slimes and dionae for the two worst races in the game - but at least the dionae are designed to be bad, slimes are unintentionally bad. Dionae, whilst slow - can still heal from robust harvest, move full speed in kudzu, and have a fairly good damage modifier set.

However, slimes are just reskinned humans. They have no interesting design features aside from being able to metabolize six chems at once and the ability to be a different color, the same two features that many other races have.

Let's compare these two's damage modifier sets.

I am mainly concerned here about slash and piercing - these two damages are very common in combat and pretty much make every other damage modifier useless - apparently, slimes take 20% more damage from bullets and knives - and before you say "they take 40% less damage from blunt," please tell me the last time you got hit by a baseball bat wielding nuclear operative.

[UbaserB]

I agree with this, but i believe they should have powerful upsides to balance out their big downsides. Like a glass cannon, but utility-focused

[metalgearsloth]

Not being able to rot is not interesting gameplay, nor are damage mods.

[UbaserB]

Not being able to rot is not interesting gameplay, nor are damage mods.

Thats not the issue of this PR, i believe they mentioned that so that they can show how the recent changes have affected the overall balance. Even though i have no idea if they support it or dont support it, i think its not relevant here.

[LankLTE]

Not being able to rot is not interesting gameplay, nor are damage mods.

Agree with damage mods, but I think not being able to rot is interesting. As an example, I had a round where an entire room of people were killed and, by the time of recovery, only the slime person hadn't yet rot and was able to tell us what had happened. I don't think it's a stretch to say that not being able to rot can lead to interesting gameplay and interesting RP.

[deathride58]

SS13 has particularly interesting ideas for slimes that could probably be tried out. Such as the ability to split their body into separately controllable bodies with enough nutrition, for instance, which would give them a very unique type of gameplay while also justifying their mechanical downsides.

This is just spitballing, though. It'd be nice to see a proper design doc for slimes at some point, as it's a concept that designers could probably get very creative with.

[K-Dynamic]

Not being able to rot is not interesting gameplay, nor are damage mods.

Round removal is even less interesting, the ghost roles are either sniped or hydroponic trays

Agree with damage mods, but I think not being able to rot is interesting. As an example, I had a round where an entire room of people were killed and, by the time of recovery, only the slime person hadn't yet rot and was able to tell us what had happened. I don't think it's a stretch to say that not being able to rot can lead to interesting gameplay and interesting RP.

Sorta contentious as MRP rules and above state you can't remember roughly 5 minutes leading to your death, but this was the roleplay I liked as a slimeperson

[QuietlyWhisper]

Y'all are fixated on rotting the issue is moreso that slimes don't currently have anything interesting other then chemical digestion

the small things like lizards new tail pulling and diona interactions with plants make them interesting

dwarves have a funny accent and interactions with alchohol

Moths can only eat cloth and can fly in no grav

Slimes are kinda just rainbow humans that are easy to kill atm

[Just-a-Unity-Dev]

Y'all are fixated on rotting the issue is moreso that slimes don't currently have anything interesting other then chemical digestion

the small things like lizards new tail pulling and diona interactions with plants make them interesting

dwarves have a funny accent and interactions with alchohol

Moths can only eat cloth

Slimes are kinda just rainbow humans that are easy to kill atm

pretty much the point my post was trying to get at - sorry if it wasn't conveyed well

[K-Dynamic]

Slimes are kinda just rainbow humans that are easy to kill atm

Well no-rot was the feature until it got removed

Immunity to N2O and being able to eat your own blood (at cost of being able to transfer blood or make ambuzol) is still interesting I guess but kinda lacking

[Just-a-Unity-Dev]

Immunity to N2O and being able to eat your own blood (at cost of being able to transfer blood or make ambuzol) is still interesting I guess but kinda lacking

i completely forgot about those two - but it reinforces my point even more

[LankLTE]

Y'all are fixated on rotting the issue is moreso that slimes don't currently have anything interesting other then chemical digestion

I'm only bringing up not rotting as I felt it was, at least something that was going for them. The intial issue also pointed out "removing intended gameplay in the hopes of someone coding "better death mechanics"" which had sparked discussion of it. That said:

the small things like lizards new tail pulling and diona interactions with plants make them interesting, dwarves have a funny accent and interactions with alchohol, Moths can only eat cloth and can fly in no grav

Having been responsible for moths / lizards, I will say that I both intended to work with slimes & also had a design doc up for it- but I honestly had no idea for a good design philosophy with slimes nor did I have any ideas for interesting and good upsides- I was very vocal about this and had asked for suggestions without getting anything I was really happy with.

I would enjoy coding other upsides but I don't know what would be fitting and interesting. The rework idea I did settle on, which I wasn't particularly happy with, did have damage modifiers & not rotting (in addition to other things) to make them "hard to kill".

[chromiumboy]

Not rotting isn't an interesting mechanic to base a species around, IMO. It doesn't have any effect until you've been dead for at least 10 minutes, and even then its dependent on you being rescued by someone else. Species mechanics should impact how the user actually plays the game in some way

[asperger-sind]

Dionae, whilst slow...

Pretty sure dionae had their speed modifier removed so they're as fast as other species now, making slimes even worse.

...only the slime person hadn't yet rot and was able to tell us what had happened. I don't think it's a stretch to say that not being able to rot can lead to interesting gameplay and interesting RP.

Ridiculous edge case, this implies several people got killed, left unnoticed for long enough to start rotting, didn't get permakilled in any way shape or form (in the modern age!), nobody quit the game or ghostroled and then the slimeperson decided to cooperate and didn't go "i remember nuffin!" Arguing that a feature should be removed or kept based on events that happen once every decade is not good.

Slimes have historically been tossed around balance-wise, the most interesting (and now-removed) feature was slimes not having to breathe at all, it was later phased out for nitrogen breathing with a slower breathing speed, but we only got nitrogen emergency tanks somewhat recently and actual nitrogen tanks were very few at the time making this more of a downside than anything.

Mind you, this would work very well now as an upside, now that gas tanks aren't virtually infinite and hardsuits have legitimate downsides while slimes are still very weak to barotrauma, now that we have suit storage and guns can be inserted in it, but this was balanced around the game 2 years ago where we had different flaws and concerns.

Slime DR isn't completely horrid either, but it got left in a vacuum when other balancing changes were made. A notable example is Flareguy's tool damage overhaul which lowered damage on tools across the board, issue is that now crowbars which were extremely common as improvised weapons had been phased out to deal lower damage. Another example is the introduction of things like piercing damage for lizards or security vests getting nerfed (which balanced out slime DR to be actually strong)

While you don't see antags using improvised weapons and there's not a lot of blunt damage coming from antagonists, it is certainly useful FOR antagonist slimes that want to deal with them getting bashed over the head with crowbars and toolboxes by the (still at large) validhunters.

A large issue with slime balancing is that they were very out of sync with the overall meta and balance structure of the game, just around the time hardsuits started getting nerfed slimes had their upside of not having to breathe removed, when combat balance was adjusted or new solid weapons introduced slime DRs were left out, when chemicals started getting overdose thresholds and had balancing changes made to them slimes still had 6 metabolization slots.

Slimes were good, they competed with humans for the spot as the meta species, but now when other species have been rebalanced or introduced to be strong or solid choices even in somewhat niche fields, slimes had their upsides become irrelevant or had them removed while newly introduced upsides (like no rot) are just pointless.

[Rainbeon]

Pretty sure dionae had their speed modifier removed so they're as fast as other species now, making slimes even worse.

They are no longer slow but they now slip on their own blood while running away

[DangerRevolution]

I'm gonna +1 Lank, Whisper and OP:

I'm only bringing up not rotting as I felt it was, at least something that was going for them. The intial issue also pointed out "removing intended gameplay in the hopes of someone coding "better death mechanics"" which had sparked discussion of it

Removing Slime's main upside and leaving it with the downside of getting melted by bullets and barotrauma, in the hopes of "someone will come months down the line and fix this problem I'm leaving" is eh? I know that isn't the most contributing response but I'm kind of surprised this passed when I first saw the PR.

Per the request for ideas: Slimes on TG self-revived as long as your heart stayed intact at the cost of medium brain trauma iirc.

[K-Dynamic]

Per the request for ideas: Slimes on TG self-revived as long as your heart stayed intact at the cost of medium brain trauma iirc.

I'd make slimes have a mixture of random damage and cellular damage (between 40 and 60 on each revival), in addition to requiring your brain/core to be intact to self-revive

[LordCarve]

Slimes are the worst race in the game

Worse by what metric? This doesn't make sense. To some people the sprite of a slimeperson makes up for all their shortcomings, because it lets them RP as a slimeperson and that alone outweighs all the "negatives". (obligatory sarcastic interlude:) You can't RP as a slimeperson while playing any other race!! SLIME OP PLS NERF! In fact, I'd argue that chasing any sort of "balance" between races is trying to solve a non-existing problem.

What's wrong with races that are by-the-numbers worse than others? Race choice only affects the player and is 100% voluntary. Extra mechanics are fine as they add flavor, but there is no artificial "balance line" that these mechanics must approximate. Make them flavorful, make them not abusable, but making them "balanced" as compared to other races doesn't make sense. Balanced by what metric?

Here's my list what kinds of changes make sense to a SS14 race and which don't:

• Adding flavorful tweaks (i.e. slimepeople being hurt more by barotrauma) => yes please.
• Add flavorful non-abusable gimmicks/mechanics (mothpeople eating cloth) => yes please.
• Tweak the numbers (resistances/whatnots) to curb metagaming, i.e. people playing a certain race in order to gain unfair advantage over others => absolutely, please do that.
• Tweak the numbers to promote (not enforce!) a by-design statistical population breakdown (i.e. 90% players choosing dionae, even though lore-wise NT is a human corporation is a problem) => do it, but please be careful. Flavor-of-the-month comes and goes and it's easy to overnerf something that doesn't deserve it.
• Add new mechanics "because other races have mechanics and this one doesn't" => This is a poor argument because not every race needs special mechanics.
• Add new mechanics "because other races are more interesting" => This is also a poor argument. They are uninteresting in your subjective view. Conclusion: play the races you find more interesting and leave the ones others find interesting to them.
• Add new mechanics "because nobody is playing them" => This is a good example of evidence (nobody playing them) suggesting there is a problem (they are not as appealing as they should be). In this case - yes, do it.
• (list obviously not complete...)

If slimepeople seem underwhelming at the moment - I want to hear actual reasons. What makes you feel that they are underwhelming? This is reported as an issue, meaning something is wrong. My question is - what is wrong?

The only argument provided in OP was

slimes have ONLY downsides now

I don't think - and this discussion thread confirms - that this assessment of the topic is true. It's actually false (evidence already present in the thread).

But let's assume that this is true for the sake of argument. IMO this is not a problem. Far from it. There is nothing wrong with a race that "has only downsides". It adds to RP and it also adds an interesting opt-in "hard mode" decision for players (which is 100% non-invasive as it only affects the one player).

tl;dr:

In this thread we see a plethora of ideas on how to fix "the problem" (some of them are great - don't get me wrong). But nobody can pinpoint what actually is the problem with slimepeople as a race.? Everybody seems to have a different idea.

Can we please first discuss what the problem is before coming up with solutions?

[Just-a-Unity-Dev]

I believe the main issue is that slime people lack a design in it's entirely, I get what you mean by everyone has a different design because there is no main design.

Add new mechanics "because other races have mechanics and this one doesn't" => This is a poor argument because not every race needs special mechanics.

So what, we make them 1:1 with humans but slightly rainbow? What does this mean? The reason why my PR added many upsides is because slimes have already had so many downsides, it started with the addition of breathing, (lord knows how long ago that was, a year or two ago?) Then people began to unnecessarily nerf it.

I personally believe that slimes are simply a more mature version of the smaller slimes that we have that appear on station through events, and we should design them around that - that's what my PR goes for, at least.

[K-Dynamic]

I'd rather not be punished with debuffs for roleplaying a race I like thank you, sounds like a ss13 thing

Also, do you have a problem with balanced stats or adding special mechanics? Because ironically enough you can just be human then

[Just-a-Unity-Dev]

Conclusion: play the races you find more interesting and leave the ones others find interesting to them.

I have played Rain Caldwell before role timers, and science was properly designed. I have watched a very interesting race slowly get nerfed into a worse human - yes, I can roleplay as a slime, but I don't want to because there are too many downsides. I understand that the game is a roleplay game, but if we oriented it all around roleplay, then all of this would be equivalent to a Roblox roleplaying game (hyperbole but I believe you get my point, yeah?)

And we all know how most Roblox roleplays go. (jest)

[LordCarve]

I believe the main issue is that slime people lack a design in it's entirely

Not exactly sure what you mean, but in any case - the solution is to design it, right?

we make them 1:1 with humans but slightly rainbow?

If the problem is "people want to be slightly rainbow, but don't want the downsides" - then absolutely. Slightly rainbow humans would be a good solution. It's a dull solution, but it solves that problem. Do you see now why identifying the problem is the key point here?

do you have a problem with balanced stats or adding special mechanics?

The point of my post was that there is no balance baseline. What do you balance it against? Can you quantify how piercing damage reduction compares to blunt damage reduction? Which one is worth more? At what stages of the game? Is it worth more as an antagonist? Does it scale with RP of the server? And that's just one number.

Usually the way this is solved is by acute changes when obviously undesirable gameplay patterns are detected:

• Metagaming minmaxers gravitate towards playing that race because it gives them statistical advantages;
• Race is too popular;
• Race is not popular enough;
• etc.

All of the above are de-facto problems, and they warrant solutions (nerfs, buffs, new interesting mechanics) because they are in opposition of the desired state of the game (expected popularity; perceived strength).

All I'm asking is what the problem with slime people race is here, in this github issue. It's bad in what way / as opposed to what? "It's bad because my perceived strength of them is that they are underpowered/overpowered" is undeniably an argument and starts a discussion (which already happened - that's a good thing). If people generally agree that slime people are on the weaker side - at that point we identified the problem. And that's what I'm after.

Because ironically enough you can just be human then

Which happens to be an argument in support of a game design theory that in a game with per-player elective races (classes etc.) having an overpowered race is worse than having an underpowered race. An overpowered race makes everyone who is not using it comparatively weaker; an underpowered race makes only the players using it comparatively weaker. By the virtue of scale it's better to make nerfs big and buffs small (overshooting nerfs is good, overshooting buffs is bad). This is further dwarfed by the fact that rounds in SS14 are short, so your choice of race is not constraining for long. If you feel a race is too underpowered, you are less likely to play it. If enough people feel the same and race becomes so unpopular that it is contrary to the intended design - that will be deemed a problem and remedied i.e. via buffs or new mechanics. A simple yet effective balancing framework.

So yes. I don't see it as ironic that you can be human. I see it as necessary.

I don't want to [play as slime] because there are too many downsides

This is the argument towards a problem that slime people are too weak and in need of buffs and your opinion is valued. It started this discussion - now let's gather more feedback. Identify the problem and solve it.

I'm not opposing you. But if we just slap a PR that changes a race without having first reached a conclusion that it is desired, it will probably get reverted or will get the race nerfed in another aspect. I don't want to say that is what happened in the past with the breathing situation, because I simply wasn't there when it happened, but from where I'm standing - it very well might have been.

I don't want a repeat of that. Do you?

[K-Dynamic]

You're overanalytical to the point where you're arguing for milquetoast coloured humans because we must be violating design principles

Submitting mutliple balancing PRs is finnicky but fine, that's a form of fine-tuning and balancing by itself, and that shouldn't be discouraged

DM the other maintainers if you continue to feel this invites disaster or something; I personally think thie issue is well-defined and fine as is

Slime PR go brrrrrr

[LordCarve]

You're overanalytical to the point where you're arguing for milquetoast coloured humans because we must be violating design principles

I'll give you overanalytical, but nothing else from that list (funnily enough, it has two items).

Here's my perspective in this: OP authored and spent a lot of time working on a significant rework based on their perceived need. Happens all the time - not a problem. But this is where it starts being different from your generic balancing PR:

Bad luck had it, the mechanic they chose to rework happens to be a minefield with a notable backlog of back and forth. Expectedly, both the discussion and the PR exploded. Even original issue includes referencing said back and forth.

I'm not pushing back on OP's PR, I only voiced my opinion that I personally don't see the state slime people currently are in as a problem (you can interpret it as "I'm happy waiting for med rework for slimes to shine"). But mine is just one opinion, same as OP's, yours, or anyone else's. Notably it's not in opposition like some other opinions (i.e. "we want no rot back" vs. "we don't want no rot back"). I just hate when people's work go to waste, in this case OP's work is on the line, so please let me protect it from the inevitable 30 angry revert attempts (this last bit is sarcasm, of course, but we both know there is a drop of truth to it).

The below in NOT A VOTE BY ANY STRETCH OF IMAGINATION. This is only an attempt exemplify that there is a divide in the community regarding what should be done about the slime people*.

Most expressed concern is that currently slime people are not interesting enough (11 opinions):

• 9x slimes have no/few interesting features, and need new ones
  • 6x they only need changes reinforcing "slime identity", not affecting balance
  • 2x improving their power in some aspects but at a cost of additional downsides
  • 1x it should be the "no rotting" mechanic
• 2x slimes have interesting features, but not interesting enough

A still-high number of opinions give suggestions/guidelines regarding the above concern (8 opinions):

• 4x they have interesting stuff designed for them, it's just not implemented
• 4x there are some current or tried-in-the-past slime features that are deemed not fit for the job
  • 1x damage mods are not great
  • 3x "not rotting" mechanic is not great

Another touched upon topic is concerning power balance comparative to other races (11 opinions):

• 5x slimes are underwhelming power-wise / need something positive to balance their downsides
  • 3x only a little bit
• 6x the only changes slime people need should make them more interesting and not improve their relative strength

* - this is how I'm low-effort interpreting the posts - trying to not be biased but nobody's perfect; one person can fall into multiple categories if they support several of them; hopefully haven't counted anyone twice. Collected from here and two related PRs.

In summary of this very-small-but-probably-maybe-(hopefully)-representative sample:

On the topic of "do slime people need new features?" 11x Yes, newly designed 4x Yes, already designed ("a.k.a. wait for med rework") 0x No

On the topic of "do slime people need balance changes?" 2x Definitely need buffs 3x Need buffs, but not too much 6x Don't need buffs 0x Need nerfs

---

Hmm. I admit - I overestimated how divided the community is on this topic. There are some aspects that people are willing to kill for die on, like the "to rot or not" and that threw me off. But other than this one particularly heated aspect, the community in general seems in agreement that slime people are feature-bland and are leaning towards considering them somewhat underpowered.

Well. That's... better than I expected. I stood up to protect OP's PR, but by the looks of it - it doesn't need protecting, and it was my bad at misreading the signals.

In any case, feel free to refer to this post, even though it's a crappy sample and methodology, it very roughly summarizes how people feel on the slime people at the moment.