I love soul for the sake of soul, and if this is disregarded I have no qualm with that. However I do think it could be fun to make origins actually, y’know, matter. As of right now origins are only fluff, and as far as I’m aware they don’t actually show up anywhere (It might show up in records but I’m not 100% on that)
So… why not have Origins have actual benefits, or detriments?
I don’t have any real good ideas as to what they would be, but they could be something like
+1 Firearms for United Americas (United States) Because 'Murica
+1 Leadership for Convict (Gang Affiliated) To try and ellude to the idea that they were a gang leader?
Obviously these aforementioned examples aren’t at all balanced, and if the origins were to have actual benefits or detriments then it could bring about more origins to the table. Green Card could be expanded to specifically 3WE or maybe if we’re really pushing it UPP.
Why is this good for the game?
It makes Origins feel like they actually matter rather than just being fluff.
On the one hand. Love me some fluff.
On the other hand. It’d be nice for the origin to actually mean something. Someone who lived in the USA their entire life would learn different skills than someone who lived on say Luna.
If you all have any ideas please comment them below as I’d love to see more ideas.
(That includes new Origins)
Edit: This could also cause some imbalance between 'reens and Bugs, so maybe add specific “Hive-Mind Lineage” for xenos? Things like
High-Temperature Hive: Take 5% less damage from fire
Subterranean Hive: Enter tunnels 10% faster
Again, not concrete things, just spit-balling ideas
I think making origins matter in some regards would be really cool. The big thing is I wouldn’t want it to effect gameplay too much. Fluff and thematic changes to things would be 100% good to go though.
I would heavily incentivise avoiding benefits for any origin as it leads to min-maxing. It would be better for us to stick with neutral and negative origins with a corresponding fluff description and fluff item to RP around.
I feel like the suggestion which makes the smallest amount of work for contributers and has the smallest impact on balance would be origin-locked loadout items. We’re already hit with a pretty big list of items as-is, so assuming that the bullet was bitten for potentially fucking with people’s existing loadouts, then divvying them up between existing origins could help show-off who is Gang Affiliated (colored scarves, cigarettes), vat-grown (Weston-Yamada merch, broken hi-tech gear), and outer colonies (biome-related gear to show they’re from a specific climate), and so-on.
I’d find it really hard to have this work further without a major rebalancing. As an example, Baystation has (though are on their way out) human gene-adapts. You’ve got aquatic humans with
+Brute resistance,
+Oxygen resistance,
+Sharp Teeth (knife-like bite attack)
~ Higher body Temp
-Toxin weakness,
-Reduced speed
They additionally have blue skin and notable teeth.
This works, because you can easily tell the subspecies of human you’re looking at, and the benefits are met with trade-offs. However, that was also all done within a setting that didn’t prioritize combat above all else (this is obvious with the Grav-Adapt, who takes 20% more burn and brute damage with brittler bones in exchange for . . . breathing better), and would probably not work well in CM unless Marine “strains” were considered. I’d be for it, but I digress.
yeah… I wouldn’t want it to be anything like entirely different species, just ways to have the origins be something more than just, “Yeah pick one, doesn’t really matter. At all.”
At least in Baystation - and others like somr options on Aurora or TG/Bee/Fallout, it’s less “different species” and more “humans designed to love in/adapted to live in different environements”.
In Bay, this manifested as “Humans, but natural statistics altered so you’d survive better somewhere cold and aquatic.” In Warhammer 40k terms, the Catachan Jungle Fighters all look like Rambo with bigger muscles and more endurance, which could translate to MP/Survivor-like stats.
and that’s the issue.
With CM’s balance like it is, there’s no meaningful way to make balanced origins that impact gameplay but also matter. If we raised the temperature more on the arid maps, then maybe people used to those could benefit from not needing gear/equipment to manage it, or if there was a polluted map with toxic air, or some sort of immersive-sim style “only people with the criminal background know thieve’s cant so they can see secret weapon stashes.”
That all sounds cool, but with a game so focused on combat, you can’t reflect it well in gameplay unless you add a ton of new variables, or sacrificed some gameplay balance.