
My OVERHAUL for the Phantom
In my previous post here, I explained how Phantom is tragically overhated and has lots of redeeming qualities that make it super fun to play, and while lots of people agreed, lots also disagreed. Which I expected! So I came up with a rework to make it far more opposing, while still keeping it as balanced as I can.
- THE ANIMATION
Quite possibly the biggest complaint is that the animation of going between Vanishing and Appearing is too long and too easy to spot; to an extent, I agree. The animation is split into 2 parts; the particle collection, and the cloud.
Starting with the animation for Vanishing, the particle collection will be MUCH faster, lasting roughly 0.5 seconds as opposed to the 1.5 that it currently lasts. Once the cloud dispersed, it’ll fade into slight transparency and colorlessness before the animation ends over the span of about 0.75 seconds; meaning, the cloud will have about a 50% opacity by the time the animation ends, and it’ll fade from the Phantom’s true color into a greyscaled version of it, making it harder to tell who Vanished, especially if it clips through a wall.
As for the Appearing animation, we’ll do essentially the same thing in reverse. Now the particle collection and cloud recollection will happen simultaneously, making the animation go from roughly 2 seconds to about 1.25 seconds. The cloud recollection will go from being greyscaled to returning back to the Phantom’s color over the span of the animation.
I should also noted that unlike the Shapeshifter who can Shift as soon as a meeting ends, the Vanish cooldown for a Phantom triggers when a meeting ends, preventing accidental Vanishings from a simple misclick. The next section also justifies this, as it would otherwise be OP.
- INVISIBILITY CHANGES
The other main criticism is that there’s no real incentive to turn invisible due to a lack of extra power given from it, so now we’ll fix it up a little.
For one thing, the Phantom will gain a small speed boost, allowing Vanishing to be used essentially for sprinting. They also gain the ability to see through walls and clip through locked doors, though these last 2 can be turned off as opposed to the speed boost, which is is enforced. Do note, the speed boost can bypass the typical limit of 3.0x. They can now also interact with sabotages.
That’s not say it’s without any downsides though. While Vanished, they are not truly invisible, and are instead a very faint silhouette. Imagine a blank Crewmate model, with it being fully blacked out and being extremely transparent, but not unnoticeable. Refer to how the Swooper from Town Of Us: Mira looks when it’s Swooping. Despite having a physical form, they cannot be interacted with in any way; meaning, Crewmate role abilities cannot be used against them.
They can kill while Vanished, however. Doing so caused a small smoke puff to briefly emerge from the body, which stops being visible as soon as the body flops. Once they kill while Vanished, they have a short window of time before they are automatically forced to Appear, so killing while Vanished should be done sparingly. They also cannot Vent while Vanished, and this is communicated with a red ❎ and cloud being layered over it.
- SETTINGS
Self-explanatory. This lets the host tweak the Phantom’s settings.
• Vanish cooldown : 15s - 60s
• Vanish duration : 5s - 30s
• Speed boost : +0.25x - +1.0x
• X-ray vision while invisible : ✅/❎
• Door clipping while invisible : ✅/❎
• Force appearance after killing : 1s - 10s
Notes about settings:
-For glaringly obvious reasons, the duration had to be nerfed from a max of 90 seconds down to 30 seconds.
-The x-ray vision and door clipping were toggled settings because I wasn’t sure if they were too OP to include, so now that’s the choice of the host. The speed boost is enforced as justification for the lack of Venting while Vanished.
-The no Venting rule exists since the speed boost and invisibility basically replaces it.
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REVISIONS (my bad y’all)
- Venting while Vanished is now a setting that can be turned on/off
-Transparency is specifically at 1% opacity, so it’s not fully invisible but still extremely hard to see
-Security systems- namely, Doorlogs and Admin- can no longer detect the Phantom’s presence.
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Let me know how I did! I’m actually kinda proud of how this turned out.