Vgstation13: Skeletons are still no longer a playable race

[Megamaw]

I'm still a little surprised about this. Was there some sort of balance issue I didn't see?

I feel like it's about time we gave skeletons a trial period back on the station.

Possibly a whitelisted race, if there's concerns?

[Shadowmech88]

I believe they're a whitelisted race already. It's just that no one's on the whitelist.

[ghost]

Admins are :^)

[CptWad]

Yeah no
the reasons they were removed were due to them being overpowered meme machines
now imagine that but with undertale memers
the thread will catch flame and skeletons will be the most complained about feature again

[Megamaw]

Wait, how were they overpowered? They were a hell of a lot less sturdy than humans, and they didn't have ASIMOV on their side.

[aceedex]

Their removal was silly and pomf is dumb. Specially since he balanced them for double brute damage right when he removed them too

[CptWad]

No blood, no pain and all that, I have seen multiple skeleton+borer duos that were fucking unstoppable. AFTER the nerf.

[ghost]

They are undoubtedly the most powerful race in the game other than the test dummy.

[aceedex]

Maybe, just maybe it's because a borer is an amazing little thing that can reliably pull you out of crit and save you from just about anything except beheading, gibbing and bleeding out?

Pain and shock are almost entirely a non issue 90% of the time. Even then, if you do think no blood (which I think is fairly enough balanced with not being able to use chems other than with on-touch effects) and no pain are giant advantages, maybe you can try to balance it instead of straight up removing them and putting them in the giant RNG timewaster?

[9600bauds]

I believe it was a playerbase problem

[Exxion]

Fuck skeletons
Remove dissolve power when?

For reasons I do not know, people often become irredeemable shitters when they become skeletons, even if they were fine before
One time a fucking ERT had to be called in because skelememes occupied the bar and were upset there was no more milk

[ghost]

Readd skellies and give them NO_PAIN as well.

Put a large disclaimer on the race somewhere and actually treat skellies as valid, legitimately allowing players to murder them fnr and banning them for killbaiting if they respond with lethal force.
Shit non-shitter players get ganked as skellies, and don't play the race.
Shit shitter skellies get banned or ganked.
Non-shit non-shitters are safe from most skellyhunting because they are respected, and can handle low-end shitter faggots.
Non-shit shitter skellies have a chance to suffer to the ultimate degree to improve their robustness.

This is the best solution prove me wrong.
(I'm not even joking)

[ghost]

@contentiouscontent What a stupid idea.

[ghost]

@DrCelt
Care to elaborate, or is this another 'listen and believe' situation like "stuns totally need a rework guys even though they're the basis of 30%+ of player interactions".

[Shadowmech88]

even though they're the basis of 30%+ of player interactions

A thing being prevalent does not necessarily equate to that thing being bad or good.

[ghost]

A thing being prevalent does not necessarily equate to that thing being bad or good.

But it does mean it shouldn't be changed without good reasons due to culture shock and unforeseen issues.
Also
There's no need to derail

[ghost]

"There's no need to derail" says man derailing.

[ghost]

"There's no need to derail" says man derailing.

That's some cognitive dissonance right there.
Do you have an actual reason why validskellies (which is essentially a more extreme interpretation of the original implementation) is bad or are you just mad?

[9600bauds]

Valid races are bad in practice because people intentionally play them just so they can retaliate in "self-defense". Essentially it amounts to a shitty, valid-flavored version of banbaiting.
Also, jesus christ you're kind of insufferable aren't you?

[ihadtoregisterforthis]

Remove humans from the game. They only force forced memes and shittery, all with their special LOOK I'M DIFFERENT haircuts and if they are bald you know for sure they only greytide. They are weak to everything, in fact every kind of damage is rebalanced all the time around them. The smallest shard will kill them if they have no shoes. They are asking the AI to open EVA so they can ransack for their free harsuits. ASIMOV wouldn't be abused, or even used at all without them. Human players are the worst valid hunters and waifu faggots, on top of their names being only unfunny references to literally everything. We had rounds with two or three "Joseph Joestar". Better yet, don't remove them, make them completely valid, enabled only for nuclear operatives and wizards. And then ban them if they respond with lethal force.

This is best solution, try to prove me wrong. Protip: you can't, you have no excuse just like when maps were made 500x500

[FudgePucker]

Skelememes were bad, now imagine how shit they would be after undermeme came out.
:-1:

[Kitfox88]

being salty about undertale

lol
i miss being a relaxed skeleton robotics duder tho. ack ack

[NigglyWiggly]

Can we just add Megamaw to the skelememe whitelist
He's a cool guy and he plays a librarian skell so I have to respect that.

[gbasood]

Skelevalids are an interesting idea but we'd need to restrict who has them even more than we do now.
@NigglyWiggly unrelated
@aceedex Just because a thing exists and is 'balanced' doesn't mean it actually belongs in the game.

[aceedex]

@gbasood That's some very shoddy reasoning right there. Not only just putting balanced in quotes as if that made some sort of argument, but arbitrarily declaring something as "doesn't belong" without giving any sort of explanation is very silly

[NigglyWiggly]

@gbasood

Unrelated

But he started this issue though

[Megamaw]

Not a lot of discussion going on this past week.

Again, I'm not saying 'oh add it back forever all at once', I'm saying there should probably be a trial period to see how people do, and if only some of them actually behave, whitelist those people.

I don't see how this is a challenging plan. Just make sure shitters and people playing solely for skeleton memes can't play the race.

[Ephx1]

people playing solely for skeleton memes can't play the race.

People... didn't play them to be funny spooky memes? Then what _did_ they play them for?

[9600bauds]

Racial bonuses

[Megamaw]

I played 'em because I liked skeletons. Some people just like skeletons.

[Megamaw]

Like, is there a reason not to bring them back, at this point? I'm legit curious.

They've been nerfed to hell and back, and most of the other races already have become significantly more powerful in comparison. They're not going to be an 'optimal' choice for powergamers.

Is there any reason to hold back on bringing them back, other than 'muh meme races'?

[CptWad]

We could have the big burd @d3athrow chime in

[ihadtoregisterforthis]

What about a skeleton blacklist to go with it? Racebans for complete memers out of the charts, including but not restricted to Undermeme. I can already start naming ckeys.

Of course after all this unecessary removal low level shitters are more likely to get banned even when doing the same as any other race would get them a note _at most_, but hey

[Exxion]

As much as I hate skeletons, I kind of have to be in support of a trial period to see if they'll be awful again

[Iamgoofball]

honestly chicken man probably just disabled them because of undertale memers

[9600bauds]

this was before undertale was released

[Megamaw]

@ihadtoregisterforthis That's a novel idea! I can dig it.

but yeah, they were disabled before undertale's release-- i was taking a break from SS13 at the time, so I missed the context for it.

[Megamaw]

so this issue's gotten a lot of big bursts of discussion, but, uh, i'm kinda new to github. who can actually do something about this?

[Shadowmech88]

Mechanically? Literally anyone can make the code to do it.
Administratively? Probably only Pomf, considering he was the one that removed skeletons in the first place.

[SangriaMonkey]

I like how all the shitter skeletons just turned into shitters after an hour.

[Megamaw]

i posted a bit in the thread about skeletons, and now that sawbones is gone, there seems to be a more positive sentiment about re-adding skeletons than there was before. @d3athrow , would you consider adding a trial period or whitelist?

sangriamonkey, yeah, the problem isn't the skeletons. it's the players.

[gbasood]

Skeletons are just a meme race and should stay whitelisted.

[Megamaw]

@gbasood okay but there's no one on the whitelist.

y'know i keep hearing this 'meme race' buzzword. can you please explain, without using simply 'meme race' as your argument?

[Ephx1]

Skeletons do not fit on the station, and yes, I know there's wizards. However wizards are their own thing that are usually once every ten rounds or so. The fact is that they were placed in as a joke, and that is what they became, a joke. So every round we just had an assembly of bones walking around because of the spooky scary joke, and yes again, I know that joke isn't relevant anymore. Yes, clowns and mimes don't make sense on a station either, but then again absolutely half of the jobs don't, but they're still grounded in science fiction, with cultists and wizards being a slight dash of magic to the mix.

So now, we had a race of silly skeletons that walked around making bone puns that had no real reason to be on a station at all other than they were placed in as a quick joke. Aaaand yes, clowns probably wouldn't be on a station, I got that, but they at least sort of extend to a logic of having entertainment for a patch work crew that's budding off of a research project on plasma.

I've said it a million times before and I'll say it again, if they were some sort of creepy race that was human skeletons with alien technology embedded in them and basically re-animated that would be neat. Otherwise they're incredibly idiotic.

[SangriaMonkey]

But featherless green vultures with blue blood and halo armor make perfect sense. Especially when one of the game modes involves them burglarizing the station.

Lore.

[gbasood]

Skeleton flavor is, basically, just the ability to shout memes because you are a walking meme and the ability to not make any logical sense just by existing.
Vox flavor is hoarding, "Sorry I don't speak Common", racism, etc.

One of these things is more enjoyable than the other.

If you think I'm wrong in this regard, go ahead, tell me how a skeleton player makes the round more interesting.

[Ephx1]

But featherless green vultures with blue blood and halo armor make perfect sense. Especially when one of the game modes involves them burglarizing the station.

Compared to an assembly of bones that attained sentience, yes, they do.

[Exxion]

Again, let it be known that I absolutely despise skeletons and seriously hope they do not stay in permanently
But a trial period can't hurt

[SangriaMonkey]

I don't see how vox add anything significant to the game. The players range from obnoxious to cringeworthy and the only vaguely flavorey thing they do is speak in broken english with extra prepositions, which might as well be a meme since there's no requirement or good reason to do that. The vitriol surrounding skeletons seems a little disproportionate by comparison.

[gbasood]

Besides, we already have an undead playable race and it's plasmen

[Megamaw]

@gbasood so wait, if someone actually wrote up honest to god lore on skeletons in spess, you might be up for it?

fuck it, writing something now.

[NigglyWiggly]

I actually wrote up a big lore thing for a book that's in the library archives.
I'll go copy it down onto a pastebin so it's easier to find

[gbasood]

@Megamaw I'd be up for lore in any form
I am actually okay with players being whitelisted as skeletons on a trial basis as is but I'm doubtful that we'll see quality play come out of it
Worth trying but I'm a cynic

[NigglyWiggly]

Oh shit I completely forgot to go copy own that book, I got distracted by goonchat, I'll do that right now, while I'm thinking about it

EDIT: http://pastebin.com/CsdF8Y18

[gbasood]

@NigglyWiggly literally just meme lore

skellington
fascination with puns
holy shit it's a fucking skellington

[NigglyWiggly]

They are called Skellingtons.
Like that's the actual name of the race.

This was also written at a time when skeleton players typically used pun names. They also existed at the time so yeah.

[gbasood]

Alrighty then
But if skeletons continue to exist solely to be a pun race then why should we keep them
Either change them or they should die off

[NigglyWiggly]

Well I wrote the book right before Pomf's changes happened and made them set in stone as actual human skeletons, so my hopes that the idea of 'Aliens that look like skeletons' would catch on were put down pretty quickly. I don't really know what could be done about them, they're actually pretty well balanced as they are right now, the only problem I know of is that they get hungry.
And they can never eat.
Ever.

[Exxion]

Also when they try to eat or drink, it spams up the chat of everyone nearby
In the Nightmare Bar of however long ago that was, it was impossible to hear anyone talk over all the skeletons drinking

[Megamaw]

Should I write up a different lore piece, if that'd help at all?

[ihadtoregisterforthis]

For the drinking give them a large cooldown, I'm almost sure that whatever they eat goes to the ground on the first bite.

Niggly's lore is fine enough. It's already more fitting than vox's, less bullshit than dionaea's and, unlike grays', it exists.

[Megamaw]

For those of you who wanted alternative lore, I have a first draft for my proposal. http://pastebin.com/G6fzW5fc

[NigglyWiggly]

Pretty good.
The only thing we need is for Skeletons to not get fucking hungry anymore, and maybe get them some better sprites.

I'd actually be okay with allowing playable skeletons, but it's not really up to me

EDIT: For a quick comparison of why the sprites need some work; here's the skeleton sprites next to some unused plasmaman sprites.

[NigglyWiggly]

And here's a quick proof-of-concept style edit:
I may have made the colors too dark, but I feel like having skeletons be almost entirely white is silly

[Megamaw]

That one on the right may be a little dark, yes. Having a proper nostril is a great touch, though.

perhaps we could have different colors for skeletons? that one gives a rather ancient, unearthed sort of feel

great job on it, though!

[Megamaw]

very little has been said in the course of, well, over a month

Do we have any word from @d3athrow yet?

[Intigracy]

Eww skeleshitters.

Skeletons should remain a special thing like catbeast and lizard and shit.

[Megamaw]

@Intigracy Please explain your reasoning for this.
.
If your reason is from a balancing standpoint, even before skeletons were nerfed to hell and back, they were outclassed mechanically by every other race. (which, if for some reason, I need to explain why, I will, but that'd be a long post.)

If it's from a 'they make no sense in lore!' standpoint, I've already outlined a proposal for lore, which, indeed, is more than Greys have.

If you have no reason other than 'that's the way it should be', then I don't have any counterpoint to a non-argument.

[Intigracy]

Can you name a Skeleton player that wasn't a shitter?

[Megamaw]

@Intigracy can you name a sec player that wasn't a shitter? consequently, should we as a result remove Security?

@NigglyWiggly seems to think pretty highly of the skeleton character that I played, at the very least.

If the problem is with the player, and not the feature, should we remove the feature, or punish the individual? The question, I think, does not pertain to the central point-- a feature should not be removed simply because 'some of the people who utilize it are dicks'.

[9600bauds]

Probe played a lot of sec and he's not a shitter

[SangriaMonkey]

I like how we're more inclined to remove content than deal with dickhead players.

[9600bauds]

Why would you like that?

[NigglyWiggly]

s a r c a s m

[ComicIronic]

Keep skellington gone, use plasmen instead.

[Megamaw]

@ComicIronic I'm interested to hear your reasoning. Please, elaborate on your thinking.

[ComicIronic]

Plasmen are scifi-justified skeletons. Regular skeletons are out of place on a space station.

[Megamaw]

@ComicIronic So, should we also remove Space Wizards and Vampires? Those are pretty, well, nontraditional for a space station. Is there any reason skeletons are different?

Again, I have a rudimentary draft for Skeleton lore, which is more than some of the other races have, if 'there's no lore, they're just there' is an argument that crosses your mind.

[ComicIronic]

Space Wizards and Vampires are both antags. Wizards in particular are meant to be deliberately ridiculous, which is why their spell invocations are mostly meme phrases and they're capable of magic in an otherwise scifi setting. Vampires are similarly cliche, regenerating in coffins and dying to sunlight.

[Megamaw]

In your own words, please explain how these two being antagonist roles changes the dynamic-- from my viewpoint, they're still both pretty big parts of the SS13 lore.

I could always supply non-antag examples, but I'd prefer to see how you respond, first.

[ComicIronic]

Because they occupy a different role in the round. Antags define the round through their actions by definition, because they decide the success and failure conditions. High-power antags can be themed to be ridiculous, because their interactions are significant.

[Megamaw]

I understand and respect your viewpoint.

However, we still, even in an extended round, have the following.

-A planet of clowns where an ore named Bananium is found, stored in banana-shaped ingots
-Mimes that can create actual invisible walls
-Killer Tomatoes, Walking Mushrooms
-Burgers and spaghetti that turn people into MoMMIs or Cyborgs
-Cutting off people's butts and turning them into robots
-Vicious Space Carp

I can go further, if you'd like.

[Ephx1]

3 of those can be done in actual science fiction things though

Tomatoes/Mushroom genetic mutants
Turning butts into robots is just silly however still completely logical, it's a thing on wheels that goes "butt"
Space carp are also genetically altered aliens/normal carp

And arguably the burgers are also fine because they have Nanites in them, a normal science fiction trope

[Megamaw]

Genetically altered carp that breathe in space?
Killer tomatoes with eyes and mouths that hop around.
Surgically removing someone's butt.

I'd be hard pressed to consider a few of these things plausible. It's pretty clear that this is not a super-serious gritty realistic sci-fi setting, even in an Extended round.

[Ephx1]

Who says they breathe?
Yes, killer tomatoes with eyes and mouths that hop around.
Surgically removing someone's rear isn't even slightly a stretch.

[ComicIronic]

They don't have to be plausible, they have to be sci-fi. Monstrous space fish is totally consistent with sci-fi.

Skeletons overstep the boundaries of slight magic that the regular game has.

[NigglyWiggly]

Reminder that you can gain a genetic power that allows you to melt off your skin and muscles and shit and then live perfectly fine as a skeleton

[Intigracy]

So do that then

[Megamaw]

So what you're asking me to do is abandon my potentially important post to break into Genetics, fuck around for about 30 minutes, and then start doing my job AFTER everything is going to shit?

Huh. Interesting proposal.

[Ephx1]

Not only is that not what he said, but you're making a big fucking leap to say you absolutely need to break into somewhere when you can just ask someone working there to do it.

[ComicIronic]

Maybe you should just give up on being a skeleshitter.

[Megamaw]

@ComicIronic Does this add anything to the conversation, or are you just using this as an excuse to say 'skeleshitter' and giggle to yourself?

[Intigracy]

Skeletons were removed because they were a meme race originally added for Halloween that gets activated on Halloween and sometimes April Fools.

Plasmen were a compromise created to have the skeleshitters still playing as skeleshitters but with spess lore.

[Megamaw]

How do you define 'meme race'? If you are saying 'they're a joke, they cannot be taken seriously', I can redirect you to several serious skeletal characters in popular culture and literature.

If you're saying 'they have no lore, they don't make sense in this setting', need I remind you that necromancy is already an established art in canon thanks to the Space Wizard Federation, and I have thusly proposed a draft for supplemental lore for the race.

Which, well, is nice, because even Greys and Diona have no established lore that I can recall.

[ComicIronic]

Stop reviving this meme issue

[Megamaw]

Comic, what is your insistence on calling this a 'meme issue'? What would you define as a meme issue? Is any issue you don't want to push a 'meme issue'?

[Ephx1]

Meme Race

You do realize skeletons were added as a joke, right?
You do realize that at the time of the joke, skeleton spooky spamming was in full force, right?
I don't particularly care for them being a "meme", I hate them for separate reasons but that's probably what they're getting at.

Trying to say "there are other skeletons in fiction" is like if we made a race based off of Spurdos and said "there are other bears in fiction fug :DDDDDDDdddDd".

[ComicIronic]

Spurdo race isn't a bad idea.

[Ephx1]

Only if they get healed by burgers

[ComicIronic]

tapu tapu tapu

[Megamaw]

that's actually a terrible idea
you know what WOULDN'T be a terrible idea?

add a player poll to the server for a week asking the general population what they think we should do-- readd them, or not

[Intigracy]

that's actually a terrible idea
you know what WOULDN'T be a terrible idea?

just play as a plasmaman and be less of a baby.

[ComicIronic]

M E M E
I S S U E

[Exxion]

I still don't see how a trial period could hurt.

[Megamaw]

The best way to get this community's feedback is something directly in-game. Which is why a trial period or player poll would be important. Because there are plenty of players that don't use Github.

[ghost]

I'd support a trial period with a player poll but I'd personally vote no. Skellingtons aren't fit for scifi

[TheFriggenSawbones]

space wizards that blow up peoples asses aren't really scifi either

[kol1th]

meme issue

[Ephx1]

@TheFriggenSawbones
You aren't really good at reading either

[TheFriggenSawbones]

@Ephx1
uhhh, alright??

[gbasood]

pretty sure a trial period would be @d3athrow 's thing since it's a config thing from what I remember?

[Megamaw]

Okay, poll's over. It passed. We did it, boys.

[Megamaw]

Probably should say-- there was a player poll over the last week to decide if they were to come back.

[Ephx1]

The funny thing is that every poll ever has always had people voting for a joke option.
See: Every OOC poll ever.

[Megamaw]

nah, this was a weeklong player poll. if you had an issue, you should have voted.

[Exxion]

It was close, but yes, the return of the skeletons won.
Pomf is the only one capable of actually enabling them though, so it'll have to wait until he does it.

[Ephx1]

I did vote but even still, about 5 people total played skeleton, in the same fashion people vote for meteors/monkey round then complain afterwards, they did it as a joke.

[Exxion]

That's their own problem.
But also votes and polls are entirely different things. People take polls much more seriously, as they are more serious.

[Ephx1]

I mean, I guess if you take the joke race that was added because of "spooky skeletons" joke seriously, you must take the game _very_ seriously.

[Exxion]

Dude I hate skeletons as much as the next guy
But that's what people voted for
If they didn't actually mean their votes, too bad because that's still what they voted for
That's how votes work

[Ephx1]

Oh no, I agree, but it's going to be tiring for the backlash of people who decided the joke was bad after voting.

I mean, on top of the weeks of people spamming bone puns.

[Exxion]

The first day will be hilarious to observe, though exhausting to play
The next few days after that will just be stale jokes and LOTS of xylophones
After that, the meme will probably die and there will just be a few skeletons per shift

I just really hope the skeletiding isn't as bad after this

[Megamaw]

@Ephx1 That's why I proposed making them a whitelisted race

Everyone was super iffy about that because 'b-b-but bay uses whitelisted races!'

so you get what you get, I suppose, unless everyone suddenly decides whitelisting is a good idea NOW that skeletons ARE coming back, and it wasn't just a half-hearted excuse to NOT bring them back

[Exxion]

Technically we have whitelisted races
Just the whitelists are like one ckey long

[Megamaw]

yeah, that was just a common complaint i heard. doesn't make sense to me, but having whitelisted races makes us too much like bay apparently for some reason.

which is lame! whitelisted skeletons are a good idea.

[Ephx1]

You can't have anything bay because it's bay.
I want skrell but they have already been ingrained as bay, and they aren't furry-joke enough to have people ironically post about them in the thread constantly.

[Megamaw]

Skeletons are back. It's finally time to close this... for now.