Make battlepods not boring and awful
Sun, 11/22/2015 - 13:44
Rundown of what I like to do in Spiral Knight:
Fight enemies
Deal damage
Receive wealth
Rundown of what I don't like to do in Spiral Knights:
Backtrack through levels
Run down long pathways
Wait for traps
Wait for animations to finish
Wait for enemies to pop up
Wait for team members
Rundown of what the big iron fight, and every other battle pod "fight" entails:
Waiting for 10 minutes watching the battle pod hit everything in the room that isn't you
Attacking the battle pod for 2 seconds and then having it be like nope I'm shy and ducking in
Solution to this:
Remove battlepod shields.
Give battlepods more health, possibly some health regeneration.
Mon, 11/23/2015 - 07:38
#2
I generally agree.
I also think that battle pods could use some touching up. While they pack a huge variety of different attacks, they do indeed (IMO) spend too much of their time invulnerable. This makes them a sort of mini-boss for many areas. But instead of sitting around waiting for their rusty mouths to open, I propose we add more of a Spiral Knights flare to the fight.
Battle pods could be hooked up to a puzzle, requiring the player(s) to "hack" the pod to destroy it. Different pods could have different puzzles, just as they have different attacks. Pressing buttons in a certain order, hitting timed switches to make the mouth open, making the pod eat rocket puppy missiles, etc. could all be an entertaining (and importantly, not boring) aspect of a Battle Pod fight.
Razwog's battle pod could be an excellent glimpse into the true world of Cradle, instead of the slightly confusing wait session it currently is. Are you supposed to hit this thing? Yes, yes you are... but later. Intuitive? I think not. While waiting is itself a challenge and a factor for many puzzles, having it in a game is not the best choice. Don't get me started on the snarbolax. Anyway, this would also help new players be more interested in the game, I think.
Puzzles of more complexity could be added to the Ghosts in the Machine and Grinchlin Assault pod fights, but I imagine making a puzzle that's both difficult, but not tooooo difficult (for the kids), and making sure it only needs one player to solve it so soloing always remains an option would be the real design challenge. If it were in my hands, the puzzles would certainly be timed, and alternate based on various signals around the fight area. Activating buttons/switches in the wrong order would penalize the player by causing any nearby monster spawners to immediately produce mecha knights. Jeeze, are you trying to sabotage the pod, or the mission!? Get it together, techie!
This still provides players with a more difficult fight, which I think is OOO's intention with these things. Puzzles should be relatively easy to add (I wouldn't know, it might be hard, and would almost certainly be tedious) regarding map generation, because every battle pod appears in a distinct map segment, which means that these segments can be adjusted to have puzzles. You don't find pods randomly popping up in the clockworks like other monsters, ya know?
Mon, 11/23/2015 - 07:39
#3
Lol the puzzle idea is way better than just giving them more health and removing the shields.. also more complicated, as all the puzzles would need to be designed and implemented. If they have the time of day to go back and add such puzzles I'd be super stoked though.
It's also possible that they could add tons of health but no shield as in addition to the puzzles as a variant, since the game IS procedurally generated and all that.
@Blazecat
No, but a large portion of my runs are on ghosts in the machine (and other danger missions in general, which are great for practice) and the ending fight feels like a waste of 15 minutes, waiting for the boss to open up.
Mon, 11/23/2015 - 09:16
#4
...
I like the puzzle idea, whether it is having to press some buttons to temporarily shut down the shield or clear the enemies in the room between waves I hope battlepods get some new spice.
However, some battlepods need to be on a timer.
OCH final battle Pods
Battlepods in Deconstruction zones (typically seen in rescue missions)
__________________________________
Another possible solution is to have battlepods gain resistance shields to damage types and weapon families.
This would be an Adaptable Battlepod.
It's shield would provide super heavy resistance to 2 weapon families (guns, swords, bombs) and between phases it can change the monster family it mimics the weaknesses and resistances of.
Example:
Phase 1: Has Beast family weakness/resistance and it's shield resists 90% damage from Sword and Bomb sources. To get it to phase 2 you have to either turn off the switches to shut down the shield or use a Pierce damage gun to drop it's HP enough to move on.
Phase 2: Switches from it's current family weakness resistance and shields. All switches needed to shut off shield immediately reset and more monsters spawn.
Battlepods r boring
Have you been grinding Elite Orbs from Sewer Stash?
BaTtLePoDs R bOrInG