Restless potential buffs

[Neon Cat 160 / 4,504]

Introduction:
The restless, as you probably know, is a role that has 5 lives. It gradually gets weaker as it dies, losing 20 HP every time it is killed. It has a radar by default and respawns at a random map spawn after dying. I believe that the role is very weak, and unless it delays until very late in the round it has only a slight chance of actually pulling off a win.

Problems with the restless:

I will give 4 major problems here, there may be a few more but I feel these are the most important.

1. The first problem is that the restless only gets weaker. It is the strongest on its first life, having 100 HP, and only gets weaker from there. Also, after getting killed, the restless can be either called out or have its body identified. Both of these would make the whole server go after the restless, further weakening it.
2. The second problem is the fact that the restless loses all it's guns after dying. This causes the restless to sometimes not be able to find a gun in time, and only be able to use their crowbar against enemies. Some maps don't have many guns near their spawns, or if the server is populated the guns near spawn may have already been taken. Fighting someone with a crowbar while having reduced health puts you at a major disadvantage, making it easy to kill you.
3. The third problem is not a problem with the restless role itself, but with the maps. Several maps have a very small amount of spawns, which is usually fine. But in the case of restless, after a restless is identified most players will run to these spawns and camp at them. It is nearly impossible to find a gun, pull it out, and kill a player in the time before they kill you if they are looking straight at the spawn, causing an easy counter to the restless.
4. The fourth and final problem I have with the restless is how a flare gun can simply destroy a restless body. After being set on fire, the restless is no longer able to respawn and loses all of its lives over 1 flare gun shot. The flare gun can be bought by all traitor roles with a shop and jackals, so anyone smart can just buy a flare gun and shoot them after killing the restless. This is a major disadvantage for the restless, as there is nothing it can do about it since they are already dead.
    

Ways to buff it:
A good way to fix the first problem would be making the restless deal more damage as it dies. This would balance the restless by making it so while it loses HP, it gains more damage which lets it kill players faster. Until recently, we had it so the restless actually gets a damage reduction as it dies, but I believe that this would fit better. For the second problem, there would be 2 ways to fix it. One way would be it could just not drop guns on death, and get them back on respawning. I think this is a harder to code and not as good method as my second one though. The second way would be making the restless get a random primary and secondary weapon upon respawning, which I think would be better because they don't get to keep any special weapons they obtained, and it could be easier to code (since randomat already has a random weapons event). The third problem can really only be fixed by creating new versions/remakes of the maps with more added spawns. This would allow the restless have time to get to a good spot/find a good weapon before engaging in combat, and allow the restless to be able to get the first shot. The fix for the fourth problem is fairly obvious, just have the restless respawn regardless of whether or not their body is still there.

Conclusion:
I think the restless is a very good idea on paper, and it comes so close to it in execution. It is just these problems I listed that all just take away some of the fun of the role, and make it harder to actually win. I believe the restless could be a balanced but also fun role if these changes were implemented. Thank you for taking your time to read this!

TL;DR
1: Make restless get a damage boost that gets higher on every death.
2: Give restless random weapons upon respawning.
3: Edit maps with low amounts of spawns to have more.
4: Let restless respawn whether or not they have a body.

Edits:

• Problem #4 fix added, restless should no longer need a body to respawn.
• Problem #4 fix working, restless still respawns with no body.
• Problem #1 fix added, there should be a damage buff that increases on every respawn.

Edited January 5, 2022 by Neon Cat
Update

[Doctor Pig 114 / 3,791]

Completely agree restless is not in a good place right now. I hate playing against restless, and I hate playing as restless. I’d literally rather get default traitor than restless, because of how unfun and annoying it is to be restless after you’ve been called out. It’s you against the whole server, and if you’re on a map like innomotel you can just get spawncamped into oblivion. Honestly, if a decent neutral ever gets added to workshop, I wouldn’t mind seeing restless removed. As far as the changes you suggested Neon, if a convar exists to edit damage based on amount of lives remaining, I think it could be an interesting buff to increase damage and reduce health as restless respawns. 

[Neon Cat 160 / 4,504]

6 minutes ago, Doctor Pig said:

if a convar exists to edit damage based on amount of lives remaining

I don't think you can make it increase, but there already is a convar for damage reduction. So I would imagine it wouldn't be too hard to edit the convar so the damage increases instead of decreases.

[The1337Gh0st 238 / 8,599]

Damage reduction has been removed already, and the ability to prevent Restless from respawning by destroying the body has been removed as well. I'll see if I can edit the damage penalty to give damage instead.

[Mangost 49 / 1,185]

i agree that restless is really bad rn, its annoying to play against because if they happen to make it to the final few without getting called out you have to face multiple potential ambushes (especially if you take damage in between them) making it too cheap of a win sometimes, but also thats the only time the restless ability is useful, being able to use those extra lives to steal a win from another team, otherwise (as neon said) you just get witch hunted by the whole server until you are out of lives.