I fail to see how the Novakids can be considered a "Mary Sue" race when there are a number of weaknesses to exploit in the base race. The brand in their face holds them together, obvious weakpoint. Short attention spans, throw something shiny to distract them.
.. I always saw Mary Sue types, as just being a playstyle. You can have Mr. Invincibad The HeroWin, a plan ol' human, who never loses because he is the bad/good guy and has a backstory of winning at Earth and secretly rules the United Systems and was adopted by the Hylotl Disphots who taught him super samurai sword skills that lets him deflect plasma and even if he gets shot he dodges because superhuman speeds. Plus he's the biggest badass mercenary in all the spaceverses and controls a fleet of superships that noone can beat because they're badass and made by glitch that's really an apex that lost his brain because of his super knowledge learning. ....See how I'm going with this? Switch the race to Floran, Apex, Glitch, Hylotl, or Novakid. If someone was gonna make a Mary Sue Novakid, they probably would make a Mary Sue [Insert Race] without that option. Restrictions won't do piddly derp.
A race that can only be killed by shooting them in the face? *he lifts his plasma arms and blocks his face, it melts anything you shoot at him!* Less mary sue, more ridiculously easy to exploit
Or we can, you know, be reasonable about it. Shooting a novakid in the arm wouldn't melt your bullets like Tacc said, it would more than likely cause the arm to become unstable and cease to be solid matter, and therefore unusable. Over time it would probably reform, much like floran regenerate body parts.
in a perfect world, people would use that. But they'll argue that a being made of superheated energy, or just energy would be unaffected by a metal projectile. I'm not saying that's how they are, I'm just saying it's like how someone could say since a Glitch is made of metal it's instantly more durable than any other being.
Here's the way I see it. The people who are most likely to drop their current character are (probably) the kind of people who didn't take a lot of time to fill out their original character in the first place. If they didn't take a lot of time to flesh out a character of an existing race then they definitely won't take the time to flesh out the character that they're oh so eager to start playing. Poorly written characters means character details being made up on the spot, and if someone hastily makes up a trait for their character you can sure as hell bet it's not going to be a negative trait. That's just my reasoning and I could be wrong, but it's something to consider.
And while he's busy covering his face to keep someone from shooting his brand, he now cannot see you and you can kick him down. Additionally, the brand is basically their heart. Shooting them anywhere else basically causes them to "leak plasma" until they focus and reform the membrane or something. The difficult part would have to be them exploding violently when they die and the membrane goes poof all at once.
I intend to make a Novakid somewhere down the road. I already have a concept, history, look and quirks planned for them. I don't know if I will make one at release, but I will make one. People will always jump on new shiny things, its something that can't be avoided. Tarl hit it best though, people who powergame will powergame regardless of what character they have. Stop getting spooked at your shadows over a race that doesn't even have a set release date yet.
Here is my idea regarding Novakids. Considering they are made of some solar energy or something, I would think they are mostly hydrogen and helium, probably electromagnetically confined to a humanoid field shape (kinda making this up as I go along). To live, they undergo nuclear fusion with themselves to generate energy to perform their functions. Over time, as their hydrogen becomes helium becomes lithium becomes beryllium etc etc, they start to die or weaken because their fusion reactions provide less and less energy (takes more energy to fuse heavier elements). Soon, they reach a point where they have a net loss of energy, and they die. How they die can be discussed later, cuz supernovae and black holes would be a tad OP, plus plain ridiculous personally. Regarding combat, Were a Novakid to be shot in the arm while blocking a bullet, the bullet would melt, probably vaporize (literally). The transfer of heat into the bullet would sap a portion of the Novakid's energy, causing him to weaken.
Everything i've said about exploding when dying, membrange being ruptured etc comes form the official lore. http://community.playstarbound.com/index.php?threads/meet-the-novakid.16712/ We might have to fire some Head Canons to make em a little less OP
Novakids are like explosives. Server had to take them away to ensure it isn't abused. Could someone just develop a new type of ammunition that harms them that is distributed throughout the galaxy?
Personally I think that Novakids are going to attract (and be) awful Mary Sues, and I also think that we shouldn't waste effort trying to stop this, because Mary Sues are going to Mary Sue, no matter what.
Anything will harm them really, a shot to the brand would cause em to go boom. We need some kinda ammo that disrupts their reactions, unless we fire the Head Canon and say no, no death explosions!
Can I draw your attention to this picture please Notice his arm, where he's clearly been shot or something, is now a kind of gas. He didn't explode or absorb bullets or any dumb shit. It's that simple, really. Also anyone who uses the 'they're super heated' excuse is an idiot. If that were true, how would they hold weapons or wear clothes or stand on the floor or exist inside an atmosphere without igniting it.
We could do something non-canon, considering the ridiculous OPiety of a walking fusion bomb. Maybe something like a short-lived black hole with a low Schwarzchild radius that forms upon death, sucking up the plasma or something. ((edit)) About the above post, sure he didnt blow up cuz his metal thingy didnt get hit. I think it says something about that in the canon lore.
The new race will just make it more accessible. A human Mary Sue is easy to dismiss, but beings made of energy will be more difficult to argue. It will change shit, even if it is just one person.
