[Suggest/Conversation] Vore-Related Traits For All Species

[Wickedtemp]

Earlier in the year, a PR was made and...pretty much instantly closed down. Not instantly as in actually instantly, but where some PR's are left open for a full month or more for discussion purposes, https://github.com/VOREStation/VOREStation/pull/4839 This one was closed six hours after it was posted, before any meaningful conversation could take place. It's been brought up between players a few times and the general opinion seems to be one of interest, and I figure it's worth talking about outside of discord, where conversation can at times move too quickly to follow, get side-tracked or otherwise derailed, or simply shut down because one or more people started getting tired, irritated, angry, or just had to go do IRL stuff. Forums are much better suited for this type of thing.

So..Iunno, I'd just like to talk about it. Reasons for it, reasons against it, through a medium that allows for proper responses, that hopefully won't get sidetracked, and where people can take more time to think on things before posting.

[Scree]

The issue is that people on discord were yelling about trash eater, "weeh,they stopped us having trash eater" and so on, but when you look at the PR it did a lot more than just add trash eater. You can't just put in a whole slew of changes then rally up the discord throwing accusations around of "some random guy" closing it and act like it was the least contentious thing that got it closed.

Barging into the discord and having an argument about the trash eater trait is like going into congress and introducing a bill that's like "tax the poor, also america is great" and when the bill gets denied they kick up a fuss and accuse everyone that voted against it of hating america.

[Aces]

You can have the conversation and invite the people who support it to come "converse" in this thread all you want. Even though it's not a real conversation because its opponents are not being invited to the discussion, and probably don't know this thread exists without you telling them.

In any case, I'm still going to veto it when you put up the PR. My point is now as it was then. I'm not getting rid of the things that make the different races special and unique to each other by letting everyone do it. I know for a fact that things like trash eater especially will not be used for its intended purpose when, say, a human player is using it. They'll just abuse the trait because it's convenient. When everyone is eating literal garbage, including humans, it's going to feel very wrong, and you're going to be reminded that this was all thanks to some stupid decision by the developers, rather than believe it's part of the world you're playing in. These sort of traits are restricted to races for a deliberate purpose of keeping some semblance of immersion.

Trash eater is just the example I use because it's the one I find most absurd. The same logic applies to all the traits that would be unlocked for all races. Do you want a human able to bite limbs off with hard vore? I don't. How about blood sucking? How about no?

Don't like it? Make a custom species. Humans can't suck blood. Too fucking bad.

And in case someone doesn't want to read my whole post, they can gather my sentiment with a simple - support

[Aces]

Also, to answer this old question.



Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should, and if you were playing a custom species named "human" who could somehow suck blood, I would expect an admin to make you change your custom species to say Vampire or something, just because sucking blood is not something humans are able to do.

[Scree]

Also that PR tried to give xenochimera trash eater.

At the time there wasn't a reagent tag for xenochimera, and now I'm tempted to make use of it because as far as the lore goes xenochimera shouldn't be able to efficiently derive nutrition from non-protein processed food, never mind actual garbage.

[Wickedtemp]

The issue is that people on discord were yelling about trash eater, "weeh,they stopped us having trash eater" and so on, but when you look at the PR it did a lot more than just add trash eater. You can't just put in a whole slew of changes then rally up the discord throwing accusations around of "some random guy" closing it and act like it was the least contentious thing that got it closed.

Barging into the discord and having an argument about the trash eater trait is like going into congress and introducing a bill that's like "tax the poor, also america is great" and when the bill gets denied they kick up a fuss and accuse everyone that voted against it of hating america.

I'm not entirely sure if it was clarified that all people wanted was trash-eater, if that was ever stated, or if the other 3 traits were explicitly mentioned, because I was sleepy, it was around 4am for me and I don't have a perfect memory, but I know that doesn't really matter and even if it was solely about trash-eater, it would have been denied anyway. https://github.com/VOREStation/VOREStation/issues/5664 - suggested that only trash-eater be allowed, it was shut down in a day. I actually had no idea it ever came up in Git other than the first PR I linked, until this morning when I woke up and someone mentioned it to me.

Ace: I'm not getting rid of the things that make the different races special and unique to each other by letting everyone do it.

If thats all that makes custom species 'unique and special', then people lack creativity when making a custom species character and the trait system, which has a rather lot to offer other than just the few neutral traits. There are still traits regarding metabolism differences, weakness/strength modifiers, antiseptic mlems which is a personal favorite of mine, etc. A species is more than just its mechanics. Even members of the same species are still going to be 'unique and special' even when they're exactly the same from a mechanical standpoint because from a roleplaying standpoint, we know that they're different people with different life experiences. There's no shortage of opportunities to make your character 'unique and special'.

Ace: I know for a fact that things like trash eater especially will not be used for its intended purpose when, say, a human player is using it. They'll just abuse the trait because it's convenient.

I'm sure some people will attempt to abuse it. But if you think that's literally the only use it will ever have, I'm...really not sure how you've come to that conclusion. You mention humans specifically, but I can guarantee you, 100%, that there are also human players that wouldn't abuse it and just want it for vore-related fun and scenes. If it's abusable to such an extent that it absolutely cannot be given to any other species..wouldn't it also be a huge problem for Custom-Species currently?

Ace: When everyone is eating literal garbage, including humans, it's going to feel very wrong, and you're going to be reminded that this was all thanks to some stupid decision by the developers, rather than believe it's part of the world you're playing in. These sort of traits are restricted to races for a deliberate purpose of keeping some semblance of immersion.

I know its called 'trash eater', but its more along the lines of 'restricted/whitelisted item-vore' in the way that its used. It's incredibly kinky to have a giant Pred swallow someones PDA and make them 'play fetch' and goad them to 'keep reaching, just a little further' before they've realized just how far they've gone in. I'm..probably not going to feel very wrong, not any more than I do now. I personally don't care if an Unathi also eats their plate, or if a Human swallows a radio-set. I disagree that its immersion breaking as well, since its...whitelisted-item-vore on a vore server, if anything I'd expect to see much, much more of it than I do ingame. It wouldn't be anything more immersion breaking than watching a human swallow three people larger than themselves. And that's really not even immersion breaking to start with.

Ace: Trash eater is just the example I use because it's the one I find most absurd. The same logic applies to all the traits that would be unlocked for all races. Do you want a human able to bite limbs off with hard vore? I don't. How about blood sucking? How about no?

I mean...no, but that's only because I'm not into hardvore and bloodsucking. The people that are into it might be happy to hear of it. I don't see why it wouldn't be allowed. For all we know their human character has had some manner of genetic modification that enables them to properly digest blood. Or has teeth implants for biting more. Or maybe they're just a lot bigger than their scene partner and its literally an Attack On Titan scenario - I don't really care what people do in their scenes, it isn't really my business until its super out in the open, and personally the only one I'd have issue with then is hard-vore.

Ace: Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should, and if you were playing a custom species named "human" who could somehow suck blood, I would expect an admin to make you change your custom species to say Vampire or something, just because sucking blood is not something humans are able to do.

Maybe not your human characters, but I can see the appeal in making a human character with the ability to drink blood. For all we know, they have a reason for it IC. Maybe they have a small gene-mod, maybe their digestive system can efficiently extract iron (one of the reasons why we can't drink blood in the first place), maybe they have Reinfield's syndrome. Or maybe they're just a weirdo going around with a sharp straw.

Also that PR tried to give xenochimera trash eater.

At the time there wasn't a reagent tag for xenochimera, and now I'm tempted to make use of it because as far as the lore goes xenochimera shouldn't be able to efficiently derive nutrition from non-protein processed food, never mind actual garbage.

I think whitelisted species could be exempt. Or at least, Xenochimera. You made the species, so you can put whatever boundaries you want on it. Whitelisted species in general actually have the lore and capabilities of the species clearly outlined and it's expected that they're adhered to, given that they have unique mechanics already built-in and all.

I think that covers y'alls first points/group of points about it. On my end, I just wanna ask:

- Which items on the list of whitelisted items do you feel are the worst offenders when it comes to affecting game balance? The point was brought up a couple of times on Git I think, maybe in discord.
Here's the list for reference:

Wallet,
Egg Box
Crayon Box (and all crayons)
Cigarette packet (and cigarettes)
Candle box
Matchbox and matches
Box for KH life crystal
hot wings
Money
Soap
Rags
Glasses
Any food item
photos
pens
Paper/paperplanes
newspaper
glass shards
lipstick
lighters
lights (including broken)
post-food trash (including corncobs, banana peels, plates, etc)
broken circuitboards (charred boards you can't do anything with)
Cigarette butts
broken emags
broken bottles
bones
post-digestion version of bones
general toys
cardboard
organs, synthetic or organic
broken inflatable walls
headsets
shoes
hats
gloves
glasses
masks
collars
flashlights
Posbrain
pAI card
Intelli-core
communicators
PDAs

- When it comes to gameplay balance, are there any specific examples of trash-eater being abused in ways we as players may not have initially thought of? On the surface, it appears to just allow them to swallow a number of..small, relatively trivial items. Is there anything that Staff has seen specifically?

- If a Predator can swallow a person who is wearing all of their gear, have that gear fall off inside of them and simply hold it all in without any problem and then later cough it up to return it post-resleeve, wouldn't it also follow that they can also, potentially, swallow some of that gear on its own, and likewise be completely fine? Would a fifteen-foot-tall human be able to swallow a PDA built for someone 3 feet in size? Or maybe a collar of that size?

[Aces]

Nothing you have said has budged my opinion in the slightest. You're just repeating the same old tired points that I have already heard and rejected. You're not the first person to ask for these things, especially the trash eater thing, and you will not be the last.

Adding trash eater in the first place was a mistake. I had a strict policy of no item vore because I know from experience that players abuse every instance they can to expand their limited inventory. Making it "legitimate" will just make more players abuse it. And before you suggest "WELl juSt ban ThoSe peoPLe," I can't ban people for abusing something that seems like it's the intended design. Using a glitch is obvious, but if I ban someone for using what seems to be intentional and desired functionality of a feature, I will just end up with a lot of banned players who feel like they did nothing wrong.

The answer is still no.

And furthermore, WE ALREADY HAVE A WAY OF MAKING GENE-MODDED HUMANS. You said it yourself. Custom races. Make your own damn custom race. Regular humans should not and will not have these abilities.

I won't lock the thread right away as a matter of principle, but having this conversation is pretty pointless, because I'm still going to veto it when it inevitably gets put back up on Github, and I don't care how many people it upsets. It's still a bad idea, and adding it will cause more problems than it is worth verses the people it will please. I will not give you what you are asking for. I'll lock this thread after a month or so or whenever it tires out, but my answer is still going to be no by then.

Also now this makes me want to add a debuff for non trash eaters having junk clattering around in their gut. Eventually they have to spit it out or they take really minor brute damage over x-many steps.

[Wickedtemp]

...Okay, so your primary concern is people using it as inventory storage. Can you let us know which items in the whitelist are ones you see as being the most problematic? We could likely just remove those from the whitelist and be off to a decent start ^^

[Heroman3003]

The entire 'but muh realism' argument dies when you realize the supposedly 'unmodified' species can swallow people their size whole. Why is that a thing thats allowed to exist? Make predding exclusive to a neutral custom species trait, otherwise its unrealistic. Regular humans should not have that ability. And the answer as to why its not like that is rather simple, its because its "Vore Station". But then my question is. Why does lore only restrict SOME vore aspects? Make up your mind about whether all vore must be lore compliant or none of it. Cherrypicking which types are Okay and which aren't just makes it look like there is a bias of "I'm not into it so I'm not gonna allow it". So, what is it meant to be in the end? Believable server or vore server? Because let's be honest, vore isn't 'believable' in 99% of its iterations and literally single 1% of vore that is, is in the "forbidden because unrealistic" camp (talking about HV here). Thats why lore argument simply falls flat. How its selectively applied to much more 'believable' things than ones given free pass. HV is also vore. Object Swallowing is also vore.

As for the balance concerns, same argument prevails. The way vore works literally right now, is literally more abusable than combination of all neutral scene traits could ever have been. Even looking just at trash eater, its already more limited and better logged than regular vore. Any actual issues with item pool can be simply solved by changing the pool. Any claims of 'big inventory advantage' are nonsensical, just try to answer me a question: How is having a bunch of items that are literally useless accessible at any time a mechanical advantage? And answer is: there is none. Trash eater in its current iteration offers next-to-none mechanical advantage. Secbus of a taur with like 3 officers inside ready to deploy? Now thats an issue.
And there are some VERY simple solutions to whole "but people will think its intended" even if there is some imaginary 'advantage' to trash eater that people somehow manage to find and try to abuse. Just put a god damn warning when you try to select it. It was done with telenom prefs. It was done with belly texts regarding being 'intentionally misleading'. It was done with translocator beacons being an easy prefbreak situation. So. What's the issue with putting same warning explaining the intended use and "Don't abuse it as infinite inventory or you will get punished"? Of course, once again, implication is that having 10 pairs of rainbow gloves in your gut is somehow actually abusable, which is ridiculous. System as it is now prevents anything actively advantageous, something you'd ever want extra inventory space for, from being carried via vore system. Much moreso than regular vore does. And if somehow there is some 'mechanical advantage' or maybe forgotten subtyping? Well, the fix for that is as easy as one-line change.
And as for bloodsucker/drainer/HV traits... Those are literally worthless balance-wise. They are impossible to properly use as a source of 'danger' because if you manage to restrain someone enough that you can actually fully enact the use of the verb upon them (with how long it takes to do), you could probably have already killed/damaged them in much simpler fashion. Trying to use those in active situations is literally a handycap. So once again, 'but muh balance' is really not applicable.

Absolute lack of compromise from yourside and complete absurdity of arguments when put in comparison with how existing features that are widely available are being handled, really does make me believe there is some plain bias against those things. And it went similar way every time. Someone proposes it, makes points for why its good, you go 'no', make points for why its bad, veto it and then ignore any argument deconstructions/counterpoints to yours, simply because you don't want it and thats end of story. Thats not called having argument, and its not 'tired old points' if you actually ignore the points past initial ones. That happened with PR, that happened with git Issue and now its happening again with a forum thread. And if reason is simply because "I don't want it", then don't cover up with absurd arguments, but just say it. "I don't give a fuck, I don't have good arguments for why it shouldn't be a thing, I just don't like it and don't want to risk seeing it". Or offer some proper response to people actively trying to present their point of view, if it really is more that, and you really do believe in your own arguments against it. Because complete refusal to have any form of compromise only makes it seem more personal than real concerns about lore or balance.

[Aces]

Okay.

I don't give a fuck, I don't have an argument you arbitrarily see as good for why it shouldn't be a thing, I don't like it, and don't want to risk seeing it.

I don't typically dig in stubbornly like this, but this is one of those things that the answer remains "No" to as long as I am in charge. This, diapers, and disposal are among those things. You might think this is nothing compared to either of those, but the people who support those things would say the exact same thing about their own fetishes. The answer is still no, and furthermore that I don't give a fuck.

As for why humans can do vore in the first place, because fuck you that's why. If you want a lore reason, there's actually a story that covers that question, which is still actively being written. tl;dr splicers became a fad in the 2090s and the influence of splicing DNA spread throughout the human genome so a substantial portion of humans is able to do vore, and also that Virgo deliberately hires people able to do that because secret lore reasons™

I am acutely aware of how vore can be abused mechanically. That is something I cannot fix without basically removing or horribly nerfing vore. Considering the name of the server, I will overlook those problems in favor of keeping vore flexible. I will not show that same leniency with other stuff.