Let's Talk About Poison!

[Azamagon]

So, I'm currently working on a big "tweaks and suggestions" to rebalance all the helms/armors/legs (as well as working on some new equipment ideas, based on most of the enemies which don't have any helm/armor/leg equivalent representing them), and a big part of that rebalancing I've put a lot of effort into making some of the overly "location-niched" gear not be so location-niched in their effects (usually by adding extra effects to them). But there's one group of equipment that has my head scratching a bit than the others, and that is all the ones related to poison.

Compared to other special effects (such as the ice fart from the Arctic Stunk hat, or the spikeballs from the Gustree armor), any player-generated poison can still hurt yourself, other players and all minions.

Now, I can see some equipment and powers working nicely with the self-damaging poison mechanics (like the "when you take damage" ones), but I feel that poison as a mechanic could need some changes before trying to deal with any equipment related to it. So, I have some questions for everyone (to devs and players alike):

• Do you like poison as is, or not?
• If you'd change poison mechanics in some way, what would you do to it?
• Do you think player-generated poison should harm yourself and/or allies?

These are my own ideas I'd propose, at least for player-generated poison:

• Player-generated poison being very, very low in damage versus yourself and other players. Like, single digit type of damage, possibly as low as just 1 damage per tick?
• Player-generated poison damage doesn't break you or your allies' shields.
  • If player-generated poison only dealt as little as 1 damage per tick to yourself and other players, that would actually make some sense as to why it also does not break players' shields either; it's simply not strong enough to break them.
• Player-generated poison damage cannot kill yourself or other players.
• All player-owned minions are immune to player-generated poison (since you can't control how minions move).
• Each tick of player-generated poison deals a small percent of your weapon damage (like 5%) with the following extra attributes:
  • This extra weapon-scaling damage is only dealt to enemies.
  • This extra weapon-scaling damage also pierces through otherwise poison-immune enemies (even though it should still count as poison damage).
  • This extra weapon-scaling damage also generates hitstreak on each tick.
• I tihnk that player-generated poison could have a graphical change; on top of the current green pool, maybe have areas of pink/purple energy swirling in the pool, to indicate that it is player-generated, and thus not nearly as harmful to players as other poisons are.

Please, tell me your thoughts!

[Kacpert25]

1 hour ago, Azamagon said:

• Do you like poison as is, or not?
• If you'd change poison mechanics in some way, what would you do to it?
• Do you think player-generated poison should harm yourself and/or allies?

- Not really.

- Unfortunately, I have no idea.

- No, it shouldn't.

[Szczuku]

It doesn't even makes sense that it's called Poison and not Acid

When most people hear 'posion' they think of something you have to eat/inject in order for it to do damage

When most people hear about 'substance that does damage on contact' they think about acid

[AviatorBean]

I think for stuff like the gloop it would only really work if poison worked like actual poison and was a status debuff, but how it works now it's more like an acid, i think reworking it to actually give a poison effect on top of the acid effect could work. maybe the poison effect last longer and does damage over time but standing in acid just deals damage after a certain amount of time standing in it

[Azamagon]

On 2/10/2025 at 8:03 PM, Kacpert25 said:

- Not really.

- Unfortunately, I have no idea.

- No, it shouldn't.

Thanks for the anwers!

On the last point: Not even 1 damage per tick + it won't break your shields? Personally, I think that sounds stronger than complete immunity (consider all the "on damage taken" equipment and powers.

11 hours ago, Szczuku said:

It doesn't even makes sense that it's called Poison and not Acid

When most people hear 'posion' they think of something you have to eat/inject in order for it to do damage

When most people hear about 'substance that does damage on contact' they think about acid

1 hour ago, AviatorBean said:

I think for stuff like the gloop it would only really work if poison worked like actual poison and was a status debuff, but how it works now it's more like an acid, i think reworking it to actually give a poison effect on top of the acid effect could work. maybe the poison effect last longer and does damage over time but standing in acid just deals damage after a certain amount of time standing in it

Yeah from a "real world" perspective, I totally see what you guys see too. However, I can at least see why they have done it the way they have; It's for counterplay. In most games, poison is usually this annoying "oh great, i got poisoned, now I need to drink an antidote or otherwise takee various amounts of damage over time and all I can do is wait" kind of thing. But in Rotwood, you have agency and counterplay to it simply by using movement - as movement is a huge and integral part of the game's mechanics. So to me, I kinda like how it is implemented (when applied from the enemy's side of things, mind you).

Still, yeah, logically it still fits better if it was renamed into acid - but I think poison fits the general theme of the game a bit better than acid would.