Pending Poltergeist Perk Ideas

[pigeon]

Poltergeist Recharge speed - 2 levels, 25% faster and 50% faster cooldown time between shots. 5,000/10,000 points

Poltergeist Force - 5 levels, 10% more force applied to the poltergeisted prop/player per level. 1,000/2,500/5,000/7,500/10,000 points

Poltergeist Chain - Anyone killed by one of your poltergeist gets a poltergeist attached to their corpse when they die. 25,000 points

Poltergeist Immunity - 2 levels, You are immune to damage from your own poltergeist at level 1, your t buddies are immune to damage from your poltergeist at level 2. 5,000/7,500 points

These prices are based on current point shop prices.

 

[Virunas]

I like it except level 2 immunity should probably be “you are immune to damage from your t buddies’ poltergeists” to make it more in line with the tripwire upgrade, and so you don’t have to rely on your teammates having the upgrades for you to be safe.

 

[Siddo]

1 Poltergeist Recharge speed - 2 levels, 25% faster and 50% faster cooldown time between shots. 5,000/10,000 points

2 Poltergeist Force - 5 levels, 10% more force applied to the poltergeisted prop/player per level. 1,000/2,500/5,000/7,500/10,000 points

3 Poltergeist Chain - Anyone killed by one of your poltergeist gets a poltergeist attached to their corpse when they die. 25,000 points

4 Poltergeist Immunity - 2 levels, You are immune to damage from your own poltergeist at level 1, your t buddies are immune to damage from your poltergeist at level 2. 5,000/7,500 points

These prices are based on current point shop prices.

I won't comment on pricing, but purely on the level of features;
1) +1 it's horrendously slow base kit

2) +0 Depending on what the prop is or what the playergeisted player is doing, it has a lot or a little force and I don't think tweaking it will meaningfully change it, but I also don't see the harm.

3) -1 I think this is probably both heavily RNG in terms of value - if Chain would give value, the initial polter already gave you the value. Also, the jank and stress on the physics engine will probably be glitch/crash/lag prone while the investment probably will not be very meaningful all in all.

4) +1 We have similar for some other collateral damage T items, so I think this could be a good addition to bring Polter in line - I think the change of making it immune to buddies' geists is better than making your buddies immune to your geist. *However* this would have significant potential gameplay effects, since it will confirm players as traitors if they take no damage from a polter explosion. Of course, said gameplay effects will be diminished greatly by the Polter rarely seeing use (with a key exception).

mythical 5 that was not mentioned, 5) Polter ammo. If you're going all in on Polter anyway, being gimped by only getting 6 shots with your purchase limits your fun; I think this might be more impactful than the force upgrade and less RNG than the proposed chain in #3.

 

[Barrel]

recursive poltergeists, if a prop is in the range of a poltergeist explosion it also gets a polterbubble attached to it

 

[Nura]

I'm all up for speed upgrade... the other ones I'm not too sure about...... putting them all together makes it sound like a pretty op t weapon

also... I don't use it enough but in the damage logs does it actually say they died to poltergeist or does it say they died to explosion?

 

[pigeon]

I like it except level 2 immunity should probably be “you are immune to damage from your t buddies’ poltergeists” to make it more in line with the tripwire upgrade, and so you don’t have to rely on your teammates having the upgrades for you to be safe.

I only suggested it the way I did because I have never been rdmed by a t buddy's poltergeist, but I have rdmed a lot of traitors with poltergeists.

2) +0 Depending on what the prop is or what the playergeisted player is doing, it has a lot or a little force and I don't think tweaking it will meaningfully change it, but I also don't see the harm.

This is mostly meant for playergeist, since if the player doesn't jump while poltergeisted then it usually does nothing to them.

3) -1 I think this is probably both heavily RNG in terms of value - if Chain would give value, the initial polter already gave you the value. Also, the jank and stress on the physics engine will probably be glitch/crash/lag prone while the investment probably will not be very meaningful all in all.

recursive poltergeists, if a prop is in the range of a poltergeist explosion it also gets a polterbubble attached to it

Something akin to Barrel's suggestion is what the original thought was, but I settled on this version of it because I figured it would be too chaotic. Personally I don't think poltergeist upgrades need to be good to be meaningful, they just need to be fun and chaotic without being so crazy that they break the server. I see this as a pseudo duration increase to the lifespan of a poltergeist shot, with the potential to briefly have multiple poltergeists going at the same time. I could definitely see it being too much for the server to handle.

I'm all up for speed upgrade... the other ones I'm not too sure about...... putting them all together makes it sound like a pretty op t weapon

also... I don't use it enough but in the damage logs does it actually say they died to poltergeist or does it say they died to explosion?

I assure you, it won't be. You have ample opportunities to escape poltergeisted props before they do enough explosive damage to kill you, so you only really get killed by it if you get unlucky with how it bounces or if you're already low. It's just much less reliable than almost every other t weapon. When you stick a player with it, they need to be standing still or moving in a specific direction, so it usually takes 4-5 seconds of spam clicking to use it on a player, and the counterplay is to just not jump.

Logs are kinda bugged with it, I made a bug report if you want to see the details. Basically explosion damage is all logged, but it's not 100% accurate because the player hit directly doesn't actually take the damage shown, and if you die to fall damage as a result of the poltergeist it's usually marked suicide.

 

[Virunas]

I only suggested it the way I did because I have never been rdmed by a t buddy's poltergeist, but I have rdmed a lot of traitors with poltergeists.

How about nullifying damage both ways for the same lvl 2 upgrade?

 

[Siddo]

Something akin to Barrel's suggestion is what the original thought was, but I settled on this version of it because I figured it would be too chaotic. Personally I don't think poltergeist upgrades need to be good to be meaningful, they just need to be fun and chaotic without being so crazy that they break the server. I see this as a pseudo duration increase to the lifespan of a poltergeist shot, with the potential to briefly have multiple poltergeists going at the same time. I could definitely see it being too much for the server to handle.

I think both of these aren't particularly amazing solutions. Even if we use the metric of "fun and chaotic but not crazy", I think both Barrel's and yours would fall outside that scope.
If the goal is a measured dose of chaos without necessarily being strong or amazing, I think a better idea might be...

Introducing:
Repulsergeist
The final pulse of the Poltergeist works like a discombobulator.