Revenant Minor Antagonist Design Document

src/en/space-station-14/round-flow/proposals/revenant

@@ -0,0 +1,98 @@
+# Revenant Remix
+
+| Designers | Implemented | GitHub Links |
+|---|---|---|
+| 0.anonymous (Discord) | :x: | TBD |
+
+## Foreward 
+
+I've been watching rev development and it seems like a trend of players / maints to want to focus on Wraith (See https://wiki.ss13.co/Wraith, https://github.com/space-wizards/docs/pull/325, https://github.com/space-wizards/docs/pull/262, feedback therein). 
+I see this as basically a brand new antagonist and not what Revenant is based on (see https://wiki.tgstation13.org/Revenant). I see this as basically throwing the baby out with the bathwater completely replacing a current antag with one more threatening, so why not try and try and revitalize the current one and cement it having a notably different design philosophy and focus while allowing for a more Wraith-dedicated ghost to also exist?
+
+## Origins
+
+Revenant as it stands is basically a direct port of the SS13 TG station revenant antagonist, working essentially identically. In SS13 this role was essentially ghost+; you still have access to ghost chat but you can cause a little havoc and spread a little spacing. Your goal is to harvest bodies for essence to buy abilities and as a way to regain health, and the Chaplain and other crew basically try to stop you.
+However, your ability to directly harm crew was extremely muted, restricted specifically to the Blight spell (aoe stun damage and a slow toxin injection) and breaking windows, and ability use both cost health, revealed you, and stunned you for several seconds on use. Some other servers include abilities to animate objects, but again these were capstone abilities of a successful revenant and essentially the full extent of its power.
+Revenant was not an antag that would punch you in the face, take over your body, and explode your corpse. Revenant was more an opportunistic scavenger that could finish off a lone, injured crewmate to eat but would not be an active threat.
+
+## Background 
+
+Revenant's initial port to SS14 was a bit controversial as it was able to stack hundreds of HP and blight was extremely powerful. Revenant could basically spam knockout / poison medbay and feast and there was nothing anyone could do to counter it.
+As you might expect, this was swiftly nerfed. Revenant was capped at 150 essence from regen & Blight was removed. However, the antag was left to languish after these massive nerfs, and this has led to significant issues with the antag.
+
+The Revenant is currently, undeniably, unpopular. The most common source of a revenant is the coinflip between it and Dragon when Ninja calls in a threat, and the revenant is always considered the "lame" result. This and rev's natural spawn conditions force it to be very late into a round (around 50 minutes currently I believe) which, as a "snowball" antag, also completely cripples it.
+As noted by Warpedzone's document, revenant simply has no ability to actually drive a round. While a rev is difficult to kill and can recuperate safely, the antagonist simply cannot do anything to actively generate bodies to consume besides spend 45 seconds to break a reinforced window and gradually spread spacing. As you might expect by an ability completely countered by emergency EVA, this is not effective.
+A revenant currently is basically at the complete mercy of luck for having crew be crit or dead to harvest, and is completely shut down by a single crewmember paying attention in their general area. Malfunction and Overcharging lights are also extremely underwhelming, being basically incapable of emagging borgs without assistance and dealing zero damage often respectively. 
+Essentially, a revenant does nothing but waste an antagonist and, at most, slows down medical's ability to revive patients by adding another 200 damage onto each victim. Compared to the dragon, which is an active threat, the revenant naturally feels like a letdown.
+
+# Proposed Design Philosophy
+
+The Revenant is a minor solo antagonist with the aesthetic and physical build of a ghost. The goal of a Revenant is to consume the souls of the station's inhabitants, gaining life essence and unlocking powerful abilities to disrupt the crew and further the fall of the station.
+The Revenant has two states; intangible, and tangible. A revenant is typically intangible, which grants it invulnerability to damage, faster speed, and allows it to travel through walls to better explore the station. Upon using abilities a revenant will become tangible, which slows it down somewhat, makes it vulnerable to being harmed, and limits it to phasing through airlocks as a means of escaping harm.
+The Revenant is capable of speaking and communicating with players, but does not have access to dead chat like its predecessor. 
+
+The following are tenants of the Revenant's design:
+
+## Spooky Ghost
+
+The Revenant is a ghost. Abilities and actions should fit this; a Revenant is not going to punch you in the face, detonate a bomb in medical, hurl a fireball at you, or turn you into a cluwne, but instead threaten the crew through more subtle and supernatural means.
+In contrast to most antagonists that directly threaten the crew, the Revenant should instead be almost an environmental hazard and an existential threat to the station itself with most of its actions. A Revenant's presence will not be felt by carp corpses. bullet casings, or spacing as much as the station itself gradually becoming more and more dangerous and falling apart into gross disrepair, with only the most powerful revenants manifesting things obviously supernatural. 
+
+## Health is Fuel
+
+The Revenant's HP is its Essence. Essence is consumed to activate a Revenant's abilities. Essence can be regained passively over time and by harvesting souls, with living crew providing larger amounts of essence. 
+As abilities make a Revenant vulnerable, a Revenant has to balance stockpiling essence and burning it to activate abilities in quick succession, with a skillful Revenant being able to maximize the impact of its abilities while remaining safe and Revenants that are not so skillful either playing too safe and not having as great payoff or potentially going too far and meeting their end ignominiously to a random crewmate's crowbar.
+
+## Stolen Essence is Power
+
+A Revenant's goal is to amass essence. This stolen essence is used to purchase abilities, with stronger and more impactful abilities costing more essence. A Revenant will start relatively weak and snowball in power as more abilities are unlocked.
+In keeping with the Revenant's theming, abilities should ramp up over time and become more obviously supernatural with their increasing power. 
+Early abilities may be more foundational and environmental, such as chilling the air, a crewmate suddenly gaining the strange ability to commune with the Revenant across long distances, windows becoming more brittle, lights suddenly failing,  a crewmate slipping and falling, or a door acting strangely and opening or bolting shut seemingly without cause, with minor costs to use and leaving the Revenant visible for a moment. These CAN be dangerous to crew but should involve sizable setup, and be more environmental hazards. 
+Abilities with higher cost become more malign, such as a lathe freakishly malfunctioning and maiming the crewmate using it, a door closing and crushing those trying to walk through it, a lightbulb breaking explosively, crew feeling pushed or pulled around or crew strangely feeling dazed and sickened. These abilities should cause the Revenant to be vulnerable and visible for a moderate amount of time, making the Revenant's presence more evident to crew.
+Capstone abilities will fully tap into the supernatural, with walls leaking blood / screams of the damned / ghastly flora spreading / machines coming to life and harassing crew / things obviously being fucked, coming with a severe tax on the Revenant for using them and being limited to only a handful of uses at most, if more than one at all. 
+
+## The Crew
+
+As a minor antag, crew should view the Revenant as a threat, but usually not something dangerous enough to actively hunt. An identified Revenant is threatening on an existential level to the crew but not something that will cause immediate peril; it shouldn't be expected for a tider to suddenly start consecrating medbay or Chaplain to start mass-producing holy water fire extinguishers to combat the threat a Revenant poses at first mention of a sighting. 
+Crew should feel pressure to adapt to a Revenant's existence and be punished by a Revenant's rapid snowballing if they don't. While a weak Revenant is something that crew should feel able to ignore, a fully realized Revenant should command some attention and concern from crew. Crew should not necessarily feel oppressed to the point of needing evac by a regular revenant, though a particularly robust one may bring the station to its knees.
+Although it probably doesn't have to be said, as an antagonist Revenants and crew shouldn't be working together under most circumstances.
+
+## The Buddy System
+
+Revenants take time to harvest souls from their victims, and are vulnerable to being disrupted. Crew should feel safer being alongside each other and more insulated against a revenant's more direct attacks if they have someone watching their back. However, this should not be a complete immunity.
+A Revenant should feel discouraged against camping very obviously crowded areas such as medbay and feel inconvenienced by the efforts of attentive crewmates, but not completely helpless if a security officer tries to watch over multiple corpses after a battle or a CMO puts bodies in bodybags and leaves them unattended while they move to create medicine. 
+
+## The Chaplain
+
+The Chaplain should represent the Revenant's nemesis, and a Revenant should be wary of and respect a Chaplain's presence in an area. The Chaplain should have tools that are extremely dangerous to a Revenant, but not represent a hard counter that completely foils a Revenant by simply existing. Similarly, a Revenant should not run rampant and unchecked if a Chaplain is not on the station; crew should be able to utilize chaplain tools against a Revenant with diminished effect.
+These tools may involve the Bible's raw power, area denial through use of salt or blessing an area, or potentially ways to reveal or track a Revenant. These may involve the use of residue left behind by a Revenant upon using abilities or other occult objects.
+
+## Other Antags 
+
+Most antagonists have common / "preferred" targets when it comes to their killing, such as xenoborgs advancing on salvagers or lying in wait on the ATS for cargo techs, zeds disabling and striking chem, nukies killing the AI as one of their first loud actions. The Revenant is unlike these.
+Because of its ability to traverse the station with ease by flying through walls, the Revenant is an equal-opportunity harvester and encouraged to take advantage of whatever situation it can, whether that be vent critters, a syndicate assassination, or a lone operative ripping through the station. A Revenant should feel encouraged to seek out other antags to benefit from their carnage.
+
+A Revenant should not be encouraged to assist crew to be an active detriment to other antags. While a revenant does not necessarily need an antagonist to succeed to harvest souls, an antagonist that can see through walls and stalk a player while talking to crew can easily ruin another antag's round in an extremely frustrating way with little counterplay available. While calling them allies may be a bit much, a Revenant should be encouraged to consider the presence of other evildoers to be helpful and treat them appropriately (while they aren't crit, at least).
+Similarly, while other antagonists may on some level be wary of a revenant, a revenant should have the tools to help support them and benefit from their mutual efforts. A Revenant helping a syndicate agent break into a department to assassinate a player, weakening and disorienting a security officer before revolutionaries strike, or providing a distraction to help a Rat King escape security are all situations a Revenant may be able to create in order to further their own goals. 
+All this being said, though, a fellow antag might look awfully delicious after being shot a few times, and equal-opportunity means full equality, after all. 
+
+## Stationwide Catastrophe 
+
+Most catastrophic events are undeniably pretty nice for a Revenant; being able to wander around the blast of a nuke and pick through the corpses left behind is a wonderful feeling, but things like tesloose and singuloose are undeniably bad due to their destruction of bodies. 
+In general, if just for admin brain pressure reasons, Rev's ability to loose should be strictly limited, though Revenant should be considered fine with assisting a loneop or Nukie team. 
+
+## The Goal is Not RR, The Goal is Not Harassment
+
+Revenant's focus is on stealing souls, which has traditionally not done permanent harm. Humanoids only have one soul each, and you can check their soul without revealing yourself if they're healthy.
+Unlike the Wraith's design, the Revenant is not about killing as many people as possible, or causing mass round removal, or rotting corpses. Once a revenant gets a player's soul, they should not be encouraged to harass or otherwise eliminate that player. If a xenoborg crushes them or a traitor gibs them that's a separate issue, but a revenant should not be doing these things themselves or have abilities that cause these kinds of harm to their victims.
+Once you get a player's soul, realistically a Revenant should be encouraged to move on to other victims.
+
+
+## Objectives
+
+A Revenant is more similar to a Rat King than a Ninja or Dragon, and does not necessarily need objectives to accomplish its mission. However, potential objectives may be a total amount of essence stolen or unleashing a capstone ability upon the crew.
+
+## Revenant Abilities and Progression
+
+A Revenant does not level up / unlock career paths like the Wraith; access to abilities is strictly limited by essence via purchase in a store available at all times, with the potential exception of Capstone abilities that may require a minimum amount of harvested souls.
+Abilities have a 'soft' tiering system, where all are available at the start but will require varying amounts of stolen essence. Higher power / "tier" abilities require more essence. This gives the Revenant a power curve over the course of a round, as more people die and are harvested and the Revenant gains a larger array of / more powerful abilities.