#Make psychosis a very threatening mechanic.

19 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

wintry aurora
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I think psychosis as of now is just a terrible mechanic. It’s very easy to spot and is flat out no threat to you or anyone around you.

Here are my suggestions.

Remove the dead giveaways of psychosis. The invisible shadows goes to the top of this list.
The debuff on your character as well you should not know if you are going insane unless you are somewhat clever or have teammates diagnosing you. Or can self diagnose with a medical scanner.

My next point would be is adding a “fake” damage mechanic. So things like fake fires are an interesting mechanic till you walk through it and take no damage. But what if you did? The whole “body can’t live without the mind” is you going so insane that you start to think you are dying.
You think the fire is real because you think it is actually killing you. So you start to scream there is a fire and begin using the fire extinguisher on it. Which your teammates see. If your character’s fake health reaches 0 your character will become comatose.

Finally I would suggest adding things like characters, your crewmates transforming into creatures when you experience psychosis.
The kicker would be having the creatures “attack” you if they get in close proximity to you.
Imagine you go outside and get blasted by a watcher so you run back to the ship thinking “shit that was close” you board the ship and your medic runs to treat your psychosis but all you see is a mudraptor charging at you. So you shoot it.

To sum it up.
Make psychosis difficult to spot
Make it a threat
Make it a threat to the sane people around you.

lost wasp
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If it gets to 100% add the chance that you brain explodes.

misty oasis
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I kinda like the idea of fake damage building up and causing a long stun if you take enough of it.

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Making signs of psychosis way less obvious has been a common suggestion for years and I support that as well.

lost wasp
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Maybe make it able to kill in rare cases

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Like a demon spawns in and chases after you

misty oasis
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This game is not Don't Starve enough for that.

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Nor is it SCP.

lost wasp
modern canyon
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I would also add an entity you can only see when your hit with psychosis. It doesnt do any damage its just allways on the corner of your screen (a.k.a the hatman)

lost wasp
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Add random jumpscares.

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The more insane, the more that happens.

viscid magnet
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Good idea, the friends turning into hostile creatures is particularly devious, maybe along those lines you could have something like your radio input being changed to creature noises (like sub parts breaking/just attacking noises)

marble compass
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I remember I tried to have a mechanic like this, where Barodrama's Worm Psychosis would make your crew look like husks - We tried a couple avenues but determined that without making Lua a dependency it wasn't conventionally possible. The devs shouldn't have a problem adding that though.

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You could even have it so that if a medic has psychosis, they see afflictions that don't exist and would misdiagnose

lost wasp
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Make it so you see clowns charging at you

marble compass
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Looks like someone managed to perform a miracle

dull musk