Holoparasites

[TheNightingale]

Holoparasites. 12 TC for a summoned creature that teleports to you and helps you out in combat. They can fight your enemies, heal you, or set people on fire, depending on which type you choose. Damage the holoparasite takes is transferred to the owner, and if the owner dies, so does the holoparasite.

The problem is, they're really powerful, especially for 12 TC. They have counters, sure, but at the moment, they pack more bang for their... crystal... than any other traitor item (except possibly the emag).

Solutions?

[metacide]

Increase TC cost to 14 or 16?

Maybe also a clear link between the parasite and the traitor when it's active, perhaps have the traitor change hue to match the parasite?

I'm not sure if there's already dramatic big red text to say who it appears from or not, but that too if not.

[TechnoAlchemist]

We already have a thread for this!!!
(They are incredibly cost efficient if you have a half decent partner)

[Remie Richards]

Increase TC cost to 14 or 16?

[onleavedontatme]

I can increase their cost to 14 but I'm not sure how that would make them more or less balanced.

What item can the traitor buy now with 8tc that makes them too strong that they wouldnt be able to buy at 14-16?

At 16 though the traitor wouldnt have much room for utility gear to do things other than combat, and as far as combat goes they are pretty terrible against any ranged weapons. They are also completely incapable of dealing with shields and armour. So basically any member of security will have a massive advantage against them.

Also I already have a nerf PR up. Id prefer them to be weaker than make a traitor trade all their TC to watch another player fight for them, especially when there is a good chance the other player will be godawful.

[TechnoAlchemist]

I can increase their cost to 14 but I'm not sure how that would make them more or less balanced.

What item can the traitor buy now with 8tc that makes them too strong that they wouldnt be able to buy at 14-16?

At 16 though the traitor wouldnt have much room for utility gear to do things other than combat, and as far as combat goes they are pretty terrible against any ranged weapons. They are also completely incapable of dealing with shields and armour. So basically any member of security will have a massive advantage against them.

Also I already have a nerf PR up. Id prefer them to be weaker than make a traitor trade all their TC to watch another player fight for them, especially when there is a good chance the other player will be godawful.

The only issue is that nobody besides the captain, hop, HoS, and warden will have lethal ranged weapons at round start.
Meaning that an officer who runs into a holo parasite has no option but to retreat, since stuns are completely impotent against traitors with holoparasites.

[Bluespace]

I have killed multiple people with holoparasites with nothing but a water bottle or some sort of stun.
The correct way to deal with them is to completely ignore the holoparasite and kill the user whilst dragging them.
A simple case of adapting to a threat.

[lumipharon]

you can't even tell who their master is unless you actually see them pop out of them - then there is the fact that holoparasites are fast, and can't be slowed or stunned.

Chaos parasites set people on fire by TOUCHING THEM, they don't evenneed to click, just run around and everyone you run into is roasted.

The other day on birdboat, because of a spider outbreak like 20 people were in medbay. Holoparasite comes in, sets fucking everyone on fire, and 90% of the people die.

[Zilenan91]

The way to nerf/somewhat buff holoparasites would be to make them less combat oriented, but far more utility oriented. Think about it. 99% of traitor items you can buy are sheer utility, emags, toolboxes, noslips, encryption keys, binary keys, C4... almost none of them can be used to kill people.

That's probably why I like the bomb parasite a lot. It doesn't fight, it just messes with people and gives its owner a huge edge in fights because it nearly one shot crits people with said bombs, but doesn't out right kill them.

[onleavedontatme]

I can increase their cost to 14 but I'm not sure how that would make them more or less balanced.

What item can the traitor buy now with 8tc that makes them too strong that they wouldnt be able to buy at 14-16?

At 16 though the traitor wouldnt have much room for utility gear to do things other than combat, and as far as combat goes they are pretty terrible against any ranged weapons. They are also completely incapable of dealing with shields and armour. So basically any member of security will have a massive advantage against them.

Also I already have a nerf PR up. Id prefer them to be weaker than make a traitor trade all their TC to watch another player fight for them, especially when there is a good chance the other player will be godawful.

The only issue is that nobody besides the captain, hop, HoS, and warden will have lethal ranged weapons at round start.
Meaning that an officer who runs into a holo parasite has no option but to retreat, since stuns are completely impotent against traitors with holoparasites.

I agree thats an issue yeah. However that issue wont really be fixed by making them cost slightly more.

A growing number of things that are stun proof is why I made that post about spreading lethals out from the armoury but it turned into autorifles while I was gone.

Another solution would be making them stunnable (force recall if tased) but I dont really want a taser to be the perfect response to every problem.

[J_Madison]

They're a god awful new meta item.

Why god awful? Because nothing compares to it. It's second to none.

Change the price to 16 or more telecrystals. I'd even go as far as 20, but I'll say 18.

Why?
Put it this way, why would you want someone with an unstunnable, super utility, stealthy, dangerous murder and killing machine at round start?

Think of it as someone starting off with a fucking golem that can hide and shit, at roundstart.

[onleavedontatme]

I mean I know theyre strong but I think youre exaggerating a bit.

The melee potential of every single one of them is objectively worse than the 2tc dagger.

All of them basically can not hurt you once you grab a riot shield/armour.

The most powerful one (healing) can drag you (slowly) away spamming heal, but thats just an inferior version of a lings powers (of which they still have 6 points to spend).

The ones with "super utility" dont really work well as killing machines either.

20tc for one would be a horrible deal.

[onleavedontatme]

You're not the only one to say stuff like "second to known" either someone seriously argued with me that a single parasite is stronger than a subverted AI+cyborgs.

Will probably bump them to 14 though.

[Not-Dorsidarf]

I can increase their cost to 14 but I'm not sure how that would make them more or less balanced.

What item can the traitor buy now with 8tc that makes them too strong that they wouldnt be able to buy at 14-16?

Adrenal implants

[Amelius]

> People actually think holoparasites are good.

They're just the new meme item. That second person you purchase for 12 TC? Unreliable, you could get any old chucklefuck from obs, and they probably won't do what you want. Plus, they easily kill you by accident.

Holoparasites have several glaring weaknesses. They're slow and have to close distance to do anything, they block the master's LoF due to being melee, making you kill yourself. They give you two points of weakness instead of only one, and one of them cannot dodge because they're as slow as a goddamn jugg. They prevent you from purchasing any other more useful equipment. In fact I've found the easiest way to do away with any holoparasite is to just stun the master and drag them away while beating them to death - it's basically impossible for the slow stand to catch up with you. Top that up with unreliability, and I won't touch them with a ten foot pole. I've tried using them and, honestly, they're really really blase compared to any other piece of equipment (I'd rather buy 12 soap than a holoparasite), even if support has teleportation for !FUN!. If anything, they're overpriced.

Chaos is the only one that might be OP.

Git gud.

[Not-Dorsidarf]

> People actually think holoparasites are good.

They're just the new meme item. That second person you purchase for 12 TC? Unreliable, you could get any old chucklefuck from obs, and they probably won't do what you want. Plus, they easily kill you by accident.

Holoparasites have several glaring weaknesses. They're slow and have to close distance to do anything, they block the master's LoF due to being melee, making you kill yourself. They give you two points of weakness instead of only one, and one of them cannot dodge because they're as slow as a goddamn jugg. They prevent you from purchasing any other more useful equipment. In fact I've found the easiest way to do away with any holoparasite is to just stun the master and drag them away while beating them to death - it's basically impossible for the slow stand to catch up with you. Top that up with unreliability, and I won't touch them with a ten foot pole. I've tried using them and, honestly, they're really really blase compared to any other piece of equipment (I'd rather buy 12 soap than a holoparasite), even if support has teleportation for !FUN!. If anything, they're overpriced.

Chaos is the only one that might be OP.

Git gud.

In response to the "Can't catch up", only unrobust idiots will try, instead of popping out of his face, tanking the hit, and memeing you until you're slow

[Incomptinence]

Oh so like any weapon drawn out in close quarters then. How different.

[lumipharon]

>trying to out run a stand by dragging the dude that it can teleport to infinitely

[onleavedontatme]

>trying to out run a stand by dragging the dude that it can teleport to infinitely

Ive watched this work multiple times. I've seen Mekhi alone do it 2-3 times. There is the slightest delay in the stand moving again/getting its camera set and you can easily outrun it if you keep moving.

[onleavedontatme]

Also I pretty much agree with everything Amelius said to the point where I really dont have a desire to buy them personally anymore. Trying to coordinate with the other player is a huge pain and the healing type is the only one with much room for error. I always end up feeling I'd have been better off buying an ebow or something.

Hell the most reliable way I see them used is the user saying to wait till he stuns to come out and they're just a really shitty esword at that point.

Still gonna nerf the chaos ones infinite firestacks because that shit is legitimately unfair though.

I still dont know what to do about them being confusing/immune to a normal officers weapons but utterly worthless against an armory reaponse though.

[Amelius]

In response to the "Can't catch up", only unrobust idiots will try, instead of popping out of his face, tanking the hit, and memeing you until you're slow

They can't. There's a delay in the camera when they summon themselves which makes that very difficult to hit you, and even then there's no ezbutton for summoning yourself, you have to hit a button on the top right, then hit the center of the screen. That's more than enough time to make enough distance that it's irrelevant. Try it sometime.

[Amelius]

I still dont know what to do about them being confusing/immune to a normal officers weapons but utterly worthless against an armory reaponse though.

Make them stunnable but just as fast as a human. Might be cool. You get two fighters at the cost of two points of weakness and unreliability. That seems more balanced.

[Steelpoint]

I just don't understand the purpose of Holoparasites.

On one hand they are pathetically weak against anyone with a ranged lethal fire arm, they're liable to end up killing their host and they're too ineffective to do anything. Yet against anyone without that they can well, but I must question why bother wasting all your TC's on what can be summed up as a expensive player controlled energy sword.

The fact your relying on another player to be competent, on a game that is notorious for incompetency, is really the thing that makes me question as to why anyone sane would take a Holoparasite.

Maybe my opinion is skewed since if I run into a HPara I just pull out my gun and kill two birds with one stone.

[TheNightingale]

I still dont know what to do about them being confusing/immune to a normal officers weapons but utterly worthless against an armory reaponse though.

Stamina damage a holoparasite takes transfers to its owner.?

[onleavedontatme]

I still dont know what to do about them being confusing/immune to a normal officers weapons but utterly worthless against an armory reaponse though.

Make them stunnable but just as fast as a human. Might be cool. You get two fighters at the cost of two points of weakness and unreliability. That seems more balanced.

They already have a horrible time vs laserguns, itd just be a suicide button if they were weak to disabler spam as well. Its not even really 2 fighters if they share a healtj/stun pool.

@Steelpoint its fun to have a buddy I think, and they can definitely be strong if two robust players get paired. I mean youre still probably better off spending 2tc on the headset but still.

[Zilenan91]

I'm the type of guy who uses the support parasite due to how much utility it has. It can heal you up after a fight and punch people in the face during one, so it has flexibility where others do not. I've never thought any of them were glaringly OP, just a bit too powerful for their cost. It's a slightly less damaging energy sword that heals you and can teleport you. It's good.

I've never personally seen the Chaos parasite, and that seems insane and should be nerfed.

[Deitus]

i just got out of a round where a holoparasite touched me ONCE and walked away, but it still took FOUR GODDAMN ROLLS to extinguish myself. the other ones seem ok from my experience but fire parasites need a /massive/ nerf

[onleavedontatme]

i just got out of a round where a holoparasite touched me ONCE and walked away, but it still took FOUR GODDAMN ROLLS to extinguish myself. the other ones seem ok from my experience but fire parasites need a /massive/ nerf

I've had a nerf PR up for the fire parasites for ~12 days now that fixes the infinite firestacking

[Davidchan]

Parasite needs to be more heavily tied to the summoner, with Disablers/Tasers/Stun Baton hits stunning the traitor. Making the sprite phase out or randomly teleport (as reactive armor) when the traitor is stunned would be one way to help balance them out a bit. That or the traitor being stunned/incapped would weaken the sprite itself.

I still find the things only serve to murderbone and ease of access when the garden vareity can punch down a wall. Its basically impossible to survive one as a regular crew, even if there are several of you working against the parasite, you wont do enough damage and most traitors just stock up on healing meds and keep topping off.

[onleavedontatme]

Parasite needs to be more heavily tied to the summoner, with Disablers/Tasers/Stun Baton hits stunning the traitor. Making the sprite phase out or randomly teleport (as reactive armor) when the traitor is stunned would be one way to help balance them out a bit. That or the traitor being stunned/incapped would weaken the sprite itself.

I still find the things only serve to murderbone and ease of access when the garden vareity can punch down a wall. Its basically impossible to survive one as a regular crew, even if there are several of you working against the parasite, you wont do enough damage and most traitors just stock up on healing meds and keep topping off.

They'd be completely awful if they could get tased and it stunned both of them.

You'd just be doubling the hitbox of your character.

I don't know quite what to do about them being so melee resistant but so vulnerable to ranged weapons, but if you're normal crew you should just run away. Normal crew will usually die horribly vs wizards, changelings, traitors with adrenal, etc as well.

I often see normal crew kill them by stunning/dragging the user though.

[Saegrimr]

Maybe its just the only parasite type i've fought against but I absolutely could not outrun it, and once he landed a single punch I was slow enough that it didn't matter anymore. Is one of them considerably faster than the others?

[ShadowDimentio]

>Basically impossible to survive

Step 1: Hit the parasite

Repeat step 1 until it dies.

Or, for advanced players

Step 1: Hit the host

Repeat step 1 until it dies.

It's a shitload of fun to murderbone with a stun source and a parasite, but it's not OP. Just GIT GUD.

[Ezel]

The host is auctally more vulnerble when their holoparasite is out

2x the chance to damage the host
2x the chance to get hit

[Atticat]

just to add my cents; bombing the station with a support holoparasite is immensely easier than doing it on my own. In fact that's why I'm kinda hoping they don't get nerfed too hard. But imo having a support holoparasite is easily worth 20tc to the aspiring mad bomber.

[Danowar]

I utterly love these things, but maybe they should have a weakness to emp (just for stunning, not to cause damage)? I mean, they ARE machines, right?

[ShadowDimentio]

Not really. They're NANOBOTS, SON combined with a organic base or something.

[onleavedontatme]

I utterly love these things, but maybe they should have a weakness to emp (just for stunning, not to cause damage)? I mean, they ARE machines, right?

A) It wouldn't really help with the balance concerns people have. Anyone with armory access already easily kills parasites, and anyone without armory access likely won't have an EMP. I think only chemists (who need uranium?) and xenobiologists can get them otherwise and they rarely ever build those things.

B) I don't like EMP as a counter/balancing mechanism, because of the above mentioned rarity, and the fact that it's an AoE. "Lose if you don't have EMP, autowin if you have EMP" isn't much fun for either party.

[TheNightingale]

What if the holoparasite was immune to stuns... but still took stamina damage (at half the rate of humans)? Suddenly, an Officer isn't completely defenseless against them, but still needs to try pretty hard (read: disabler it six times).

[Tokiko2]

They'd be completely awful if they could get tased and it stunned both of them.

You'd just be doubling the hitbox of your character.

You could leave the parasite immune to disabling/stuns, just have it transfer to the host. So even though the host would fall on the floor, the parasite would still be able to continue fighting. This could also greatly help security to figure out who the host is in larger groups.

I don't like the idea of gibbing the parasite host when dying. The round is usually over for the user when he dies anyway, seems like this would just annoy the few people who actually bother with RP when they get arrested(and revived in this case) by sec.

[newfren]

I utterly love these things, but maybe they should have a weakness to emp (just for stunning, not to cause damage)? I mean, they ARE machines, right?

A) It wouldn't really help with the balance concerns people have. Anyone with armory access already easily kills parasites, and anyone without armory access likely won't have an EMP. I think only chemists (who need uranium?) and xenobiologists can get them otherwise and they rarely ever build those things.

B) I don't like EMP as a counter/balancing mechanism, because of the above mentioned rarity, and the fact that it's an AoE. "Lose if you don't have EMP, autowin if you have EMP" isn't much fun for either party.

Because of the uranium requirement it's actually easier to get emps as a botanist than a chemist because all miners are degenerates.

[Steelpoint]

Just make it that stunning/stamina damage lowers the movement speed of the parasite to around 50% of its original movement speed, but does note affect the host.

This makes non-lethal weaponry at least somewhat useful in slowing down a parasite without crippling it or the host

[callanrockslol]

Moving at 50% of move speed is crippling though.

Better idea, go to the armory and get the biggest scariest laser available, shoot them dead.

[Lumbermancer]

They shift the tator paradigm too much, they need to cost all the tc's. The wompwomp guy is ridiculous, it can kill people in seconds, and takes no damage.

[Oldman Robustin]

As long as Chaos gets fixed I don't see a reason to do anything other than tweak them.

Any of the comparisons of other items vs. Holoparasites is probably a reflection of other items being underpowered/overcosted.

Holoparasites were the desperately needed safety net for unrobust traitors (generally a majority of players) after parapens were removed and ebows were made more skill-oriented. Far too many traitors would flop and get rekt within minutes if they tried to go hostile, leading to many traitor rounds feeling like pseudo-extended. I pushed hard for traitor buffs a few months ago and this is something that is a decent solution for some of their woes.

Good players can still get creative with certain holoparasites while unrobust players can use them as a crutch to project some kind of threat even though they couldn't ever win a fight on their own.

Want to kill one? Just get your hands on a laser, or bring a heavy melee weapon down on the host. I've seen spearsistants destroy parasite hosts if they're able to land the knockdown or knockout.

[Zilenan91]

Yeah, parasites don't actually do anything if you're robust yourself since you know a lot of ways to kill people even without TCs. Parasites solely exist to make newer/more unrobust players feel good about murderboning. Though, perhaps this is a bad thing. I mean, I'm all for a good murderbone every once in a while, but when somebody spawns a mobile esword that breaks walls EVERY round, it gets really tiresome. As a player I would really like there to be more ways for traitors to do non-murderous things that harm the station because currently holoparasites make normal crewmembers irrelevant outside of RnG, which is really shit.

[Atticat]

thats a broad generalization to make boo boo

[ShadowDimentio]

There isn't a hard cap on robustness. I'm pretty robust, and the last time I was traitor I got a parasite and dunked all of security with them.

It was a shitload of fun. I taze people, the standard parasite HONKHONKHONKs them into oblivion.

[callanrockslol]

A holo and any stun is pretty much GG to anything you catch.

[Ezel]

Syringe gun with lethal syringe GG NO RE

[Davidchan]

After the last few rounds I played or observed, I'm more convinced than ever that holos need a serious nerf or change.

1) Stuns and non-damaging effects on the parasite should transfer to the owner. No question about it, the stun immune just makes it so the parasite can shield its owner from stuns allowing them to get away easily.

2) Remove parasite dragging. The abuse here is insane. Parasites move faster than normal human mobs anyways, the 3 hit crit followed by them grabbing the victim and dragging them away while slapping them is retarded. Its worse than Xenos and EVERYONE bitches about that. Flip side is if the owner goes into crit/stunned/cant stand then the parasite drags them and fucks off towards medical. There is no way to counter this especially when the parasite is faster and stronger than human.

3) The drawbacks still feel nonexsistant. Unless its a laser squad coming for the tator getting his valids, there is nothing else on the station that can even stand up to him. I literally watched a parasite rip through zombies last night and the sci trator didn't even seemed damage after going through half a dozen mobs without even having a gun. He might have had a first aid kit or hug box, but that only definitely would not out heal any damage the zombies would have done to him if he had just gone at them with an e sword. And he gets a constantly stimmed e sword wielding buddy that deals way more damage per click than anybody else can produce in melee. They can smash down walls to grant easy access to the armory, also known as the only thing that can stop parasites, and as far as I know Ion blasts and emps have no effect on these things, even though they utterly rape borgs and other synthetic creatures like drones and swarmers.