Howdy, since a new council is around. This thread will be used for synth feedback.
What do you like in synths, what do you as players dislike about the WL, is there anything you’d like or want clarified?
Please drop it here, and I’ll get Council and the Senator to work on it.
Any and all feedback is appreciated even if its small :3
Generally, synthetics tend to be cool. They don’t really have much time to RP some rounds but when they do they can be a blast.
My one gripe has been that when a newer player is trying to work out something engineering or medical related, I have seen some synthetics just take over instead of taking any time to explain or help them out, and then leave.
That could be what’s expected of the whitelist, I wouldn’t know, I won’t try to claim myself an expert.
But its rubbed me the wrong way on the few times I’ve seen it. Especially when I see it roundstart when there’s not yet much chaos going on groundside where things need to be done urgently.
Mechanically synthetics are quite flawed. It’s practically impossible to kill them or hinder them, they don’t get stunned and they have more stun resistance than even predators.
Queen slash does 45 damage, to a synth it does 22.5 damage, to a synth with protection mode on it does 7 damage
Not to include their immunity to neuro
Smartpack entirely should be removed, in my opinion; it’s not like synthetics struggle with anything like storage. I have around 80 hours as synth by now and I’ve never struggled with anything, because how handholdy it is.
is another issue of mine, the ONE time synthetics can get internal damage they can just build a repair station via this PR.
I believe damage should MATTER to synths, and not just another “I have to stand still for 7 seconds and I’m back to how I was”
The WL is barely about roleplay but more about powergaming medical. Synth is just a medbot with a bit of engineering on the side. I can’t think of the last time I saw a synth just doing a shipside roleplay round. If I wanted to play medical and spend a round doing surgery/chemline I would pick a medbay role.
This has spiralled into a larger problem in the community where synths are mostly remembered and rated on their ability to fix your leg fracture quickly instead of memorable roleplay moments and encounters. (This is partly part of a systematic destruction of roleplay on CM in general, but synth medbot meta does not help)
The synthetic role should be a free USCM aligned agent around the ship where they should be able to help in any department or way they choose, unless specifically ordered otherwise. (This does not mean I want a new meta where XOs just force synths into the medbot box once again)
Also someone needs to purge the snowflake vendor of a lot of its items. I think synths should look unique but not to the point they are dressed in armour, helmets and ponchos looking goofy as hell, or wearing flight suits.
Honestly this is a valid concern; as a Mentor I’ve noticed it too.
A synth isn’t there to steal peoples jobs silly as it is, we are a RP role first in my eyes. Though Synth is not a mentorship role. Hopefully now that two mentors are apart of the synth council we can try and guide the WL towards not fully disregarding new players; giving a helping hand more than just doing the job for the Marine.
A lot of ground side gameplay is very time sensitive; so - most synths want to get a job done quickly - it creates a divide here where, on one had we’d love to RP and teach that com-tech how to fix an APC, there is a marine dying for surgery too; so we’d have to prioritize what needs to be done and most of the time its going to the be the marine that needs surgery.
Another factor that goes into this is, when you are playing synth especially if it is shipside synth funnily enough you can go into a auto-pilot state very easily of “Do X thing, move onto Y” that you can over look things, that is no fault of any singular synth player - as you’re doing so much that sometimes it is very easy to fall into a melancholic state. It is on the synth players themselves to be aware of this issue if they suffer it and to develop resilience to it.
Personally, I am torn - on one end there is a staggering issue with the lack of punishment a synth may receive but due to how much a synth has to do, we cannot have it too punishing that the workload turns unfun.
Discussions around this are already there, Phelan was throwing around the idea of more synth organs and us having to manage organ damage more then surface level damage - but with how slashes happen they do very little organ damage.
Discussions have opened up around removing the modules that the Smartpack has, and just turning it into an aesthetic item with a light or nerfing its power usage and recharge ability so its harder to spam repairs.
and as for the PR, I personally have mix feelings around it. I think its a bandage to a bigger issue of Synth damage as a whole; I am against it first and foremost. However I am unsure with how other councilors feel.
We are working on making it punishing for synths to take damage, but its going to take time! Fairness is the goal but we cannot also make the WL too punishing to play given the amount of work we have to do.
I’ve been personally pushing towards giving synths more freedoms to stay shipside. However that is a matter of the over system that Synths are playing in, as we are basically required due to the function of ML to deploy while its rarely ordered it is the given assumption.
This will basically never happen, as we do not want to limit the expression of synths, their personalities or quirks; While yes some-times it can get goofy, that is on the synth themselves less so the issue of the overall WL. The vendor is there because we are putting trust with WL holders to not be overly excessive or dress in a manner that would be deemed not subtitle for a synth.
This is a very subjective view of the WL; and is again defendant on the WL holder - there is nothing against our Rules for min-maxxing builds unless it is clearly for the expressed purpose to disrgard role-play and basically just do it to be the best support. As, in my eyes its against the spirit of the WL to use this role to steal peoples jobs to chungus on support. Synth is a RP focused role in my eyes; mechanical second - even if the mechanical side of things is the RP.
I’m going to try and push towards addressing this issue, and try and encourage synths to build towards more RP focused and relaxed gameplay. However due to the systematic disregard for roleplay as you put it, its going to be a slow process.
I would personally like to see some change to synthvivor. As that role has now just become a crutch to most survivors, to the point where there are round without doctors and engineer survivors “because we will just have a synth anyway”. And add to the fact it’s practically immune to drone damage, it is an absolute menace to anyone who tries to fight it (seen one go to the point of throwing their weapon to finish a drone because the synth casually ventured next to the hive).
I honestly don’t have much to contribute. Synth players are cool, straight up never encountered a low-rp or griefing synth yet. Plenty of fun roleplay memories of synth players but a few key people are hard carrying the majority of synth interactions for me anyways. Some are focused on doing their job and that’s totally fine because that’s how the server is. Synths all look unique and you can tell who one is based on their drip which I like a lot.
Maybe work on the application side of things and communicate the scale more, seems a lot of people make applications with the idea that they’re quick and easy only to get a reality check and a “I’d resubmit this bro” which you can tell is jarring for a couple of them, the actual application could probably use a edit to explain things a bit more.
From my time on the council I know how these players work. It is not subjective to say its powergaming, people used to carry a bible around to store their engineering tools more efficiently inside it until it was nerfed. There was a good few months where the only discussion in the synth chat channel was just about how to carry more items in your loadout. Synths are not meant to be pack mules.
I don’t remember seeing any synth in the movies wearing so many ridiculous items. Talented spriters in this community have made synth appropriate clothing and it goes unused by the majority.
If you need a piece of clothing to give you a personality, be distinguishable and different that is self admittance that you are terribly forgettable. You should stand out and express your personality through your roleplay not your fucking dress up items. This is exactly part of the problem. A player should remember your synth’s personality/quirk from your roleplay interactions with them, not what you are wearing.
I can’t have my point proven better than this statement above right here.
The view here is very reductive; the drip isn’t meant to be the personality, but is apart of it. I get the notions.
The idea here, is that synths being easily identifiable on first glance, is a pretty handy thing - telling the difference between two synths is a positive, and the fact synths can be easily identified on first glance is also a positive.
but like wise- it shouldn’t be the only thing a synth is, and luckily enough i haven’t seen any of that. While a lot of synth players - myself included joke around with the amount of clothing items we get and that the synth WL is a dress up game. If a Synths quirk and personality wasn’t unique enough for a councils standards it wouldn’t get the WL.
This to me seems like a issue on individual synths rather than synths as a whole; as discussions around synths min-maxing with loadouts was under your council and not ours.
The Synth WL has been pushing away from that standard for a long while. Most discussions with synth WL holders has been on mechanics and how to improve, views on WL apps and feedback with maintainers on changes.
(edits are just grammar correction that I missed because I am a goober)
This is not what a synth should look like, this doesn’t fit aliens at all.
I’m sorry if this sounds too harsh but the sad reality is the majority of synth personalities/quirks do not come across in game. I doubt the majority of people who claim that they do could list me 10 synths and their personalities/quirks without looking it up. People notice them and recognise them by their dress up not much else. Considering 90% of synth interactions are “fix my fractures”.
I would agree that this is an issue not across the entire WL but with certain individual players. I would though argue its the councils job to make sure these personalities are shining through dialogue and interactions, instead of it being remember who wears what. I would also argue that it is the councils job the facilitate a good roleplay environment which fits with the aliens/cm atmosphere. Allowing synths to dress up in all these items, conflicts with the goal of preserving the atmosphere in favour of wanting to look individually cool, and it should probably be addressed.
Also lets be really honest here, the synth WL is not difficult to attain and never has been. I’m not saying that there are no standards, but it really isn’t the pinnacle that it maybe looks on a surface viewing.
Fair point which I’ll happily accept and hopefully wait to see a real change.
I think you and the rest of the council have a good attitude towards improvement and always have good intentions towards the WL. Maybe we have differing opinions, but that’s just life. I personally however think it is important to steer synth away from being a mechanical powerhouse and more of a cool addition to the roleplay environment, and a real easy good start would be to start making synths actually look like synths.
They just see the synth icon not the name or the “drip”, all synth is at the moment is just John better at everything and it sucks.
That synth just looks like a mish mash of multiple marine gear, if you think that’s bad wait then i wonder what you think of the ones in civilian stuff.
This could be good to do. I’ve seen many such incidents. Maybe a more specific, glaring warning on the application process itself to check the accepted apps before applying to see what the standard is.
Gen 3, which is what most of our synthetics to my knowledge take, take roughly the same damage as a marine in light armor according to some quick checks. They are not impossible to kill, and never have I seen survivors say “We are gonna have a synth anyway, so we are going to avoid going engineer or doctor”. I see a doctor or engineer nearly every single game, speaking as someone who mains survsynth.
I do not know which changes you would suggest, but I’d be happy to hear some examples.
As of current, this is usable a single time per charge, for a total of 4 seconds. And as for the impossible to kill or hinder, refer to the above.
This is likely something we can encourage our players to do more. I for one love taking time to teach new players. I recently spent an entire synthetic round mentoring a nurse on surgery, and it was one of my most satisfying ones as of late. Now with two mentors as WestRover mentioned, this might be more doable to push the standard for. A good and rather simple change to make in my opinion.
What is wrong with armor and helmets, and flightsuits? The poncho I can almost understand. A synthetic in the USCM wearing armor and helmets, in a force where marines wear armor and helmets, is not exactly something that’s implausible. It makes perfect sense in my eyes and has been around for quite some time.
If so, this has always been the case. Even though I don’t see shipside synthetics do so too often, I regularly see survivor synthetics, who spend most of their round shipside, talking to research or the CL. “Powergaming medical” is likely a side effect of the high standard for expertise in support that is demanded for actually getting into the role in the first place. They play medical to its expectation and beyond.
Either way, “powergaming medical” as you call it has been around since the invention of the role. They did it during your council tenure, they did it before this, and they will likely continue to do things that some may perceive as powergaming because of the nature of the role. I do not think performing well medically is something to look down upon. Sometimes, you want to play a jack of all trades support role, while maintaining HRP. Synthetic has that, both for those that want to go shipside and roleplay and those that want to play as a non-human high speed lifesaver.
This is however something I agree with and something I want to enforce more. Quirks being visible, roleplay being encouraged. I believe that is by far the coolest part of synthetic, seeing all the roleplay avenues you have. You know this as well, having been council prior, that we do not accept non-inventive generic quirks that aren’t really quirks at all, and accept them generally because of how we believe that could add to the universe. It saddens me that a lot of people do not actually remember to USE their quirks after.
This is definitely something we can bring with us.
Well, its not that they are litterary impossible to kill (they take a whooping 11 damage from a drone), but the fact that they have almost double the amount of health as a standard marine (Most people hit feet and hands because lol no armor. It has around 15-20% melee damage reduction. And to add to this, you only have about 100-150 health you can use before you paincrit. Compare this to the 50% all around damage reduction of a synthvivor, with a whooping 250 effective health before it goes down).
And this is also not talking about how drones usualy need to either break someones leg/head to be able to fight them (double tap limb with stab and regular slash), to then tackle said human down. Synthvivor is practicly immune to internal damage from a drone, since the cap for it to reach said threshold(about 70-100? Don’t know the specifics) are reached after around 6-9 slashes AT THE SAME AREA.
But for fixes, I would just either make the colony synths damage reduction go away until they get fixed shipside (make it be an effect without maintenence for too long), or some other way where they cannot just go full terminator against 2-3 drones early game, and almost come out unscathed after killing all three.
Edit: another fix would be to lower the internal damage threshold be much lower, so that there is an actual insentive to again, not be a terminator until T2s arrive.
@WestRover. Thank you for making this thread.
If possible could the 1st prompt for applying be confirming you are on the discord. If the person answers no, could it advises them it is a requirement and direct them how to join.
I feel this may resolve some issues with underbaked applications.
This is a good excuse as ever to clarify my motivations for this thread.
I felt councils previous to this one created a wall between the player-base, Wl holders and people looking to apply.
It basically boiled down to people not feeling like their being heard and listened to, while also appearing to be completely silent to anyone outside of the WL.
My main goal with this thread is, genuinely to break down that wall between players and the WL - as after all Synths are meant to be an asset for the marines; of RP and trust.
A lot of changes will be take time, and will be gradual - there will be things council may universally agree on while others its going to be a mixed bag. Hopefully this council will be a breath of fresh air for the WL and the people interested in it.
with me pushing towards more clarity for the general playbase of what is going on with the WL I hope we can achieve the goal of laying better groundwork for the community at large! rather than feeling like a closed door that you repeatedly have to walk into.
I fear the entire game besides the pred WL is not RP focused. You are required to be able to RP but ig utility and efficiency come first based of what I’ve see. Besides the fact that synths always deploy, many times without being told since it has just become standard to do so, the most RP interaction you can get in the field is usually along the lines of “Hey can you fix my leg? Sure!”. The game itself is more revolved around the battle rather than it is to RP. And that’s a fundamental issue in my opinion that needs to be addressed before we can address RP for the WLs that are directly involved into the fight like synths and maybe even COs.
Hello WestRover,
I think that the synth players are, generally, some of the best roleplayers on the server, and yet the synthetic role does not allow them to necessarily elevate the community’s roleplay. I believe the synthetic council is in need of revision to restore the synthetic role to its intended purpose. The role is far too engaged in the primary game loop, and players in the role are far too scrutinized for their mechanical prowess over their roleplay.
It seems that the whitelist is caught in a paradox of roleplay where synthetics, in the lore, are suppose to be super capable, and that propels the synthetic players in game to be as mechanically capable as possible, even to the deficit of meaningful roleplay. I think it’s great that you’ve made this post, and I hope you’ll seriously consider some of this feedback. If the whitelist isn’t adjusted from within, I have a feeling it will be altered from the outside.
I believe the synthetic council is in need of revision to restore the synthetic role to its intended purpose. The role is far too engaged in the primary game loop, and players in the role are far too scrutinized for their mechanical prowess over their roleplay.
Hello hi, I’m not Westrover but I do have an opposing opinion on this. I firmly believe it’s not the synthetic whitelist or any whitelist in this matter that needs a revision. It’s more so the direction the head managers, devs, whatever, are taking CMSS13. It’s highly TDM focused and if roleplay does occur, it’s shipside only.
If you want to see Synthetics act differently, a revision is needed in the ultimate goal of what CMSS13 should be.
The overarching main difference between a marine and a synthetic is that you cannot aim hands or feet to circumvent armor, as it is innate. If you slash a synthetic in the head as a drone, not including frenzy damage, or tail stab, it will take 24 slashes (Gen 3), similarly to how it will take 24 slashes to kill a helmeted marine while aiming for the head.
The synthetic will after 14-15 slashes enter blinking red, where it will eventually slow down, begin collapsing etcetera. For reference, a marine is crit after 12 hits in the same location. Prior to this, however, it will begin dropping items, already at >10 damage on a limb. This means, in practice, if you have 3 drones, each of you need to land 5 hits each and the synthetic is dead, including where he then has to be in melee range of you to “terminate you” in the process. This, of course, doesn’t include tailstabs, or frenzy as mentioned. Add those two concepts, you’ll kill one faster, and you’ll also cripple one even faster.
If you cannot land 5 slashes each to cripple the synthetic, again not including tailstabs, and somehow manage to die to it 1v3, I believe you might be doing something wrong.
Also, another fun fact about synthetic durability:
A squad leader with B12 armor takes less damage from 4 slashes than a synthetic does. 64 damage, to be precise. 77 damage for medium armor, 91 damage for light armor and between 78-90 damage for a synthetic, RNG dependent. If marine armor covered their limbs, you’d find the main thing that separates them is their crit state, in which case they’re on their last limbs, and will get slowed down, and will constantly drop things.
For this reason, I disagree with balancing survivor synthetic around being able to be soloed by every drone at will. Removing their damage reduction would, in fact, make them less durable than the average survivor.