Purpose of Mollusc and Skitter genes?

[Quarx]

I genuinely don't understand the purpose of these genes, am I misunderstanding their function? If I understand correctly, even in the absolute best case scenario where you have 100% quality genes and only receive the smallest damage possible at a time to trigger their effect (5 damage), after about ten hits you've gained about 1/6th of the buff (Vigor or Hyperactivity), which is also the point the buffs start to finally have some impact (~8% damage resistance + ~6% melee damage for Vigor, ~5-6% speed + ~6% melee attack speed for Hyperactivity), but at that point you've received 50 damage, which means you lost all your vitality and you're dead. And remember, this is the absolute best case scenario, in reality you'd probably die much sooner. Am I using these genes wrong, and if so, how do you use them to get anything useful out of them?

Edit: Here is an example of some numbers to show how weak these genes are compared to other genes:
100% Skitter genes after 1 hit: +0.58% temporary movement speed
100% Skitter genes after having an entire SMG mag emptied inside you at once:
+12.02% temporary movement speed
0% Mantis genes: permanent +10% movement speed
100% Mantis genes: permanent +25% movement speed

[Rhapsody]

Mollusc may be of some limited use if you like to take a shot of steroids before heading out into dangerous situations. The buff's duration should be extended by the proc, right?

But in case of skitter, you kinda want more speed to avoid taking damage. It'd probably make more sense if it procced on inflicting damage instead.

[Chimz]

Not everyone's a fighter. I have friends who run at the first sight of enemies.
Skitter Gene proves useful to such indivisuals.

Plus, since you can mix 2 genes and have 2 genes injected at the same time, you won't really be "sacrificing" other gene abilities for it.

[Quarx]

Originally posted by Chimz:

Not everyone's a fighter. I have friends who run at the first sight of enemies.
Skitter Gene proves useful to such indivisuals.

Plus, since you can mix 2 genes and have 2 genes injected at the same time, you won't really be "sacrificing" other gene abilities for it.

But there is also the Mantis gene, which can give a running speed increase of up to 25%, and the Crawler gene increases the swimming speed by up to 50%. On the other side, the Skitter gene only provides a speed increase on being hit, and each hit provides a speed increase of ~0.58%, which is more than 43 times worse than the Mantis gene. You would need to be hit 43 times to actually surpass the Mantis gene, and the Skitter gene buff deteriorates over time, so on top of that you would actually need to be hit even more times to actually surpass the other genes.
Edit: I want to clarify that I gave the Skitter genes a chance in game and tried to measure the speed increase after being hit, and I can confidently say that the speed increase can be barely even measured because it's so tiny.

[Quarx]

Originally posted by Rhapsody:

Mollusc may be of some limited use if you like to take a shot of steroids before heading out into dangerous situations. The buff's duration should be extended by the proc, right?

But in case of skitter, you kinda want more speed to avoid taking damage. It'd probably make more sense if it procced on inflicting damage instead.

I haven't even considered combining the genes with stimulants. While a duration increase of up to 10 seconds is still pretty bad, it seems to at least have some use in that case.

[FourGreenFields]

Originally posted by Quarx:

50 damage, which means you lost all your vitality and you're dead

50 damage is half your health bar. Even less than that with vitality buffs, or for security or medic.
To die, you need to suffer at least 200 vitality loss. Though for combat-purposes, 100 vitality loss is "dead" if you don't happen to have some sort of healing active or friendlies nearby.

That said, ye. Those genes are not exactly powerfull.

[Quarx]

Originally posted by FourGreenFields:

Originally posted by Quarx:

50 damage, which means you lost all your vitality and you're dead

50 damage is half your health bar. Even less than that with vitality buffs, or for security or medic.
To die, you need to suffer at least 200 vitality loss. Though for combat-purposes, 100 vitality loss is "dead" if you don't happen to have some sort of healing active or friendlies nearby.

That said, ye. Those genes are not exactly powerfull.

Oh yeah, my bad. I assumed that the strength range of damage goes from 0-100, but now I see it goes from 0-200.

[Rhapsody]

Originally posted by Quarx:

But there is also the Mantis gene, which can give a running speed increase of up to 25%, and the Crawler gene increases the swimming speed by up to 50%.

Hyperactivity also increases attack speed, so there is that, but the effect is too small to be of noticeable benefit with or without drugs.

But yeah, the biggest issues are not the actual effect of these genes, but that there are much better alternatives to both genes regardless of quality level and that refining these genes to non-insignificant qualities is likely to introduce taint and negative effects.

If both genes were fixed at 10% (100% quality) buff gain, they wouldn't be as bad.

[Quarx]

Originally posted by Rhapsody:

Originally posted by Quarx:

But there is also the Mantis gene, which can give a running speed increase of up to 25%, and the Crawler gene increases the swimming speed by up to 50%.

Hyperactivity also increases attack speed, so there is that, but the effect is too small to be of noticeable benefit with or without drugs.

But yeah, the biggest issues are not the actual effect of these genes, but that there are much better alternatives to both genes regardless of quality level and that refining these genes to non-insignificant qualities is likely to introduce taint and negative effects.

If both genes were fixed at 10% (100% quality) buff gain, they wouldn't be as bad.

Even then you would need to be hit ~20 times for the buffs to be on par with the other genes at 0% quality. I just can't shake the feeling that Mollusc and Skitter genes were meant to give 2-10% of the maximum buff (so an increase of 12-60 of the respective buff), because even then it would be kinda weak, but the effects would actually be noticable.

[climbingeastofwinter]

Or, you can use Hyperzine to hit ~400 strength out of 600 strength, and use tonic water to reduce the rate of strength falloff and 100% skitter genes to maintain buff effectiveness while in or around combat.

Additionally, you are probably going to be using healing items in combat to offset the damage you take. It isn't uncommon to take one or more hits per second when in a serious fight, and at +10 hyperactivity per instance of >= 5 damage received, that could very quickly bump you from 0 hyperactivity to 30% move speed, swim speed, and melee attack speed.

Mollusc genes probably make a little more sense though, because if you've taking a bunch of hits, each subsequent hit will deal less damage up until you have 50% damage resistance at 600 vigor.

[Insano-Man]

It's entirely possible that they're just "mook genes", in that they're not really meant to be good, but they're there because they either:
- Take up space better genes would otherwise occupy, making those genes scarcer.
- Or present alternative options in the event that better genes are tainted, have worse taint effects, or haven't been found.

Not everything in a game has to be balanced with everything else.

[Teal V2]

Originally posted by Insano-Man:

Not everything in a game has to be balanced with everything else.

Just not a league of legends dev we got here.

[Rotiart]

They are getting buffed

[Quarx]

Originally posted by Rotiart:

They are getting buffed

Can I know where it was said that these genes will be buffed?

[Rotiart]

Originally posted by Quarx:

Originally posted by Rotiart:

They are getting buffed

Can I know where it was said that these genes will be buffed?

a97c294f32: Fixed mollusk and skitter genes being practically useless. I think the were configured to give vigor and hyperactivity under the assumption that the maximum strength of those buffs is 100, but it's actually 600, which meant the effects were way too weak to make any practical difference. Regalis11/Barotrauma#12478