I originally formed this idea in one of the tools suggestion threads but lemon told me I should make it a formal suggestion. We also discussed various methods of making it balanced, which led to a few different variants of its behavior, so I’ll first describe what they have in common and then their differences. The one lemon suggested was the first functionality, if that matters.
This tool would be a bugbait from hl2 with a missing texture applied. When held, entities will prioritize targeting you over other players, and will charge/attack faster.
There are 3 possibilities for functionality:
- The bugbait does nothing and cannot be used; this would make it an item used to sacrifice someone to allow others to continue falling, and if given this functionality it would be semi common (maybe a decent chance to receive it on spawn, or found on 1-2 maps on the average fall)
- The bugbait can be thrown to create a hint node that entities will be distracted by and have to reach before continuing to chase players. This would make it a single use rarer item; the hint node is also optional, perhaps instead it could spawn a semper with no texture, like a scarecrow.
- The bugbait can be used arbitrarily many times to spawn hint nodes, with maximum of one at a time, and with a cool down and max spawn range. This limitless usage would make it extremely rare to find due to its value.
I’ve also considered the possibility of having more than one of these items be added; for example 1 and 3, due to their different effects on the gameplay. If that happened, the 3rd would probably have its model changed to some missing texture gun.
