Water poisoning is an interesting idea, but I feel like the execution could’ve been better. For my first few runs (I went in blind), I ended up dying to it twice because I couldn’t tell what was damaging me and it blended in with the soak debuff. It wasn’t till my third run where I noticed the debuff icon and was able to figure it out. Also, it’s pretty frustrating to get it mid fight and feels unfair for the player whenever they get it while they’re low.
Here’s what should be done about it:
Instead of getting it instantly, you first get a debuff called “Water Poisoning Risk”. The debuff does nothing and lasts 30 seconds before actually giving you the Water Poisoning debuff. You clan clear this the same way as regular Water Poisoning and sets it on cool down. This gives the player time to react so they can choose to finish a fight or retreat to clear it.
Additionally, you should get text from your character from roblox chat or T2 insanity text (But white so you can tell it’s real). This should clue the player in on how to clear it and say something like “This rain is relentless, I need to find cover” or “The water burns, I have to wash it off”. This would only happen for the first few times so it doesn’t get annoying. (This might be too much effort to implement, at the very least change the icon to a skull so its easier to notice for first time players)
TLDR:
Explain Water Poisoning to the player a little more and give it a delay before it damages you so it doesn’t happen mid combat and unfairly end runs.
EDIT: Apparently bathing prevents you from getting water poisoning for a short while. After washing yourself, there should be a buff that shows you’re immune to water poisoning. This is to help explain the mechanic to the player more.
water poisoning just kicking in randomly during fights really does suck, and anything to warn you about it would be huge. I do think a better answer than the “make a 30 second timer” would be to just make a UI element that visually shows you how close you are to getting water poisoned. Based on my own expierences it seems like there are a bunch of ways it builds up, and the risk of any given thing is completely invisible to the player. Its just a super deadly mechanic that you have no way of gauging in order to work prementively against.
In my opinion, water poisoning is the most annoying effect in the game, it appears randomly, it will kill you if left untreated, and it has no explanation as to how to cure it. In other words, I wholeheartedly agree, nothing else to say.
it does tell you to wash it off in the description of the effect, but most people probably dont check those, didnt know anyone had an issue with this because as soon as i saw a status effect border on my screen i hadnt before i immediately went to check what i had and saw i could wash it off
i do support it being disabled in combat or at least having a notification on the bottom right like a lot of other mechanics in the game though, would make it easier to react to
another idea I had adding onto this was to maybe have some sort of portable refillable bucket that has 1-2 fills in it for emergencies where you’re too far away from your ship or are stuck in combat for a really long time? idk
