Spiral Knights - How swords get rid of their long-range charge attacks they don't need, anyway.

How swords get rid of their long-range charge attacks they don't need, anyway.

31 replies [Last post]

Thu, 11/08/2012 - 14:59

Kazujaxyz

Note: The first two sections can be skipped if you already know my main complaint.
Well, not too long ago, I was wondering(read: ranting) on a thing that's probably also bugging a lot more people besides me: The versatility of swords... or rather, the fact that they are supposed to be short-range heavy-hitters, yet some manage to hit you from the other side of the room(or rather, the monsters. This isn't about Wolver party/Lockdown). Swords are the lovechild of the game: Hit like trucks, have the reach of low-level bombs and the overused ones(I'm trying to make out some sort of usage-tier, not claiming that you're stupid for using them) almost always have some sort of charge attack.

There are normal weapons that pretty much are following the weapon classes rules. There are hybrids that mix it up with other weapon types, but then also go full with it and also give them some sort of unique disadvantage/mechanic, probably even inspired by the hybrid's daddy(Sploder-guns: Polaris needing travelling time as opposed to charge time, and catalyzer heavily relying on the charge attack to cause reasonable damage. And of course the old shard bombs, that are essentially guns that shoot lagged and unaimed, but to all sides). And then there are the range-charge-attack swords. They work like normal swords, and have their main disadvantage remedied by their built-in charge attack You see the justice in there? Well, I don't, and IF you see the justice in there, you are free to skip the rest(although I highly recommend you to read it anyway) and just write a comment for why swords are completely justified to have no real weakness you can nail them on.
"Alright, swords are good in all disciplines, so what? Swords always were the alrounder in videogames."
Fact: Other games have much more weapons to choose from. And there's magic. AND a million moar shiz. You can build a scale around all the skills and weapons pros and cons. And the sword is in the middle: Does everything well, but nothing best. Here we have 3 weapon classes. Swords are supposed to be strong, guns should have range and bombs areo of effect. We have a power triangle here. Imagine playing rock-paper-scissors against your enemys. Your stone can withstand the scissor, but a paper can trap it(how is this working, anyway? This game always was weird...). Now imagine having a rock that's actually also a scissor(or a knife, might be more realistic). Crush scissors, cut paper. See what I did there? The rock was powerful enough in its own right, and making it able to cut things(albeit harder maybe, because cutting with a sharp rock still isn't the same as cutting with a metal scissor) breaks the balance. This is what happens when non-hybrid swords get charge attacks that make them bridge their otherwise only redeeming value. Not only can poor paper never win a round anymore, but scissor becomes impractical in comparison to stone dagger. Sharpening the rock just stole the other options' spotlight to the point of making them near-redundant.

Of course, I'm repeating myself, so time to take it to take it to the fridge(kudos to the one who knows where the reference is from): How could we actually fix this balance-problem? I know many people already tried to balance some weapons, but they never put that much emphasize on the factor that bugs me most. Didn't saw it, anyway.

First of all, a general limit in what kind of charge attack pure swords should use:
There need to be stricter rules for what kind of charge-attack a normal, straight-forward high-DPS-poor-range sword can have. I don't want to steal variety here, it's just that we can have variety that DOESN'T throw the whole balance over the board. In fact, forcing the designers to come up with something different than a generic flashy long-range attack actually would INCREASE the variety. The charges can be mid-range, or concentrate all damage-potential on a single spot(of course, the enemy can't receive it all in one go, that would make it overpowered because knights already are the most powerful and fragile glass cannon in the clockworks). Heck, as cheesy as it might sound, giving brandish-users some Kendo-training to unleash one powerful slash might work! But, the important thing: If you go with sword, don't cheat you out of it by shooting energy beams out of your sword even though the rest of the design doesn't have to do with it.

Second, seperation of what's hybrid and what's not: IF you want to have a ranged sword-attack, you should have to take a sword that's actually built around the concept. Take Spur: Even a blind person realizes that Spur pretty clearly was based around being some sort of gun-sword-hybrid. Besides the fact that it's generally really awful, the ability it brags with(stupid motor that creates a whirly wind of energy) is done better by other weapons that have no reason whatsoever to have ranged attacks to begin with. What a joke. Alone this seperation would not only make Spur slightly more useful, but also enable new actual sword-hybrids to show what they can do.

So far, so good. Of course, I can't just stop without making some sort of suggestions for already existing swords. Note that this is my first time I try myself at reimagining weapons to balance them, so you're free to critic and dislike in a friendly manner(I avoided all noob cliches so far, so why not throw me a bone here?):

The sealed line:
I would suggest to turn these swords... into AOE-swords. No, seriously, it makes perfect sense. They have ridiculous long-range on their normal attacks, and the first weapon in the line(whose charge-attack isn't seen on any other weapon whatsoever) has a pretty bomb-like behaviour, basically being a damage field that gets created after a(admittingly lengthy) slash with the sword. To make up for that, I would actually reduce the speed of the swords a bit more than they already are. A noticable speed reduce. Not enough to hinder you too much at what you do, but forcing you to think about attacking, basically mirroring the problem about bombs having a charge time and thus requiring strategy and timing to be used right.
Just like current sealed ones, the charge attacks would have a similar basic premise while working differently on the battlefield.
The Avenger-line would, instead of creating on big damage-field like its younger brother, create 3 or 4(maybe even both for Avenger and DAvenger, respectively) smaller circles roughly at the area where the sword slashed first. Works especially well if cornered or halfway in a crowd of enemys. Which is funny, because it fits the name "Avenger".
The Faust-line would also get an energy-circle. However, instead of having several smaller ones that basically offer you some firepower from all sides, the Faust creates a HUGE circle in front of you. I have no idea with what the size shall be compared, because I'm no big bomber... 3*-bombs, maybe? Well anyway... the circle does not only eat up your enemys, but it also forms around yourself(you are near the edge of the circle, not in the center of the evil ground-sign of doom), explaining the self-cursing(the attack is big enough that you yourself get trapped in your own attack). The whole "Trapping yourself in your own attack"-thing and the fact that enemys behind and beneath you can still attack you make it more offensive than the Avenger. Again, quite fitting.
Where does the current charge attack go? ... Look at the Antigua. Now look at the current sealed ones. You will notice that the current antigua-charge sucks, and the seald charge does not. The sealed charge is long range, and the antigua needs one desperately. Of course, it's kind of a stretch, considering the Antigua is more about spamming bullets on a single enemy for high damage, and this charge would kind of ruin the purpose. Then again, the spread/size of the charge bullets could be just fine for dodging enemys.

The brandishes:
I don't have much time, so I may as well edit this later. For now: Why not just go with the whole supermove-slash-theme... thingie(basically, Kendo or any mundane sword move made awesome)? One of them IS a katana, after all, and the idea of some sort of finishing slash/combo seems neat, too.
For instance, we could give the voltedge some sort of stab-move that involves hitting the enemy and the using the electricity of the blade to induce some rapid-fire damage to him while the sword is still near/inside the monsters hitbox? Of course, only a few of the slashes could inflict the status, preferably the first/last one.
Or giving the ice sword the simple vertical slash and spicing it up with ice forming on the ground near the used move, followed by another slash going right diagonally through him.
Or... well, you get the idea. Of course, it shouldn't have completely pitiful range, but rather have acceptable, medium range. Say, a 1*-bombradius-wide range, with some slight variations here and there depending on which brandish you use. Basically, a bit like the charge attack of the snarble barb with mediocre range at best, but concentrating all the damage into one space.
Alternatively, just keep using the explosions of doom, but make them concentrate on one spot, with minor replacements each explosion. Basically, you kinda plant some sort of sword... energy... firecracker(?) in front of your feet. The knockback should be reduced so it's actually possible to get 2 or 3 hits on the same enemy. Doom to those that enter your mighty charge attack storm of doom!
The current charge attack would turn... into a bomb. Actually, even a throwable bomb line, which involves throwing a stream of bombs into one direction, technically mimicing the brandish-charge with some minor changes and tweaks. It's not a "traditional" throwable bomb per se, it's just placing a few bombs further away from you. Why give the bombs a ranged bomb-attack? Because they desperately lack utility, silly. Crystal bombs weren't bomb-like enough? Well, just use a directed bomb-stream to hit things from afar. It IS pretty bomb-like, and with some changes here and there, it could actually be the first bomb with non-circular damage-area. I can imagine it being useful for bombers. Maybe even make it some sort of cannon instead of a bomb that basically airstrikes the enemys with a similar damage zone to the current brandish charge. Or throw them. Or change the crystal bomb AGAIN and give them that functionality, to turn them into something useful and unique again, albeit different.

Spur:
Nerf it, buff it. First thing to do. Then give it sword beams alà Legend of Zelda... no, seriously! The motor seems to pull you away with such a force that you can't seem to stand still while using the sword(trying to make up an excuse for the awful attack-movement), so why not give some if not each normal combo attack a small, if pitiful projectile to boot. Make it stronger with each successive hit in the combo(the motor keeps running and increases in power over time), to encourage going for a full series of attacks. We can even extend the series of attacks a bit, if that means the disk-shooting gets more practical then. And give it a frikkin' 5*-equivalent. What do we have now? An actual strong sword that, while not preferable for control of movement or crowd control, can shoot energy frisbees which can beef the damage of the slashes up a bit more, if you know what you're doing and pick one enemy after another.
The charge attacks stays, obviously enough.

I think I've said anything I wanted to say. In case I have something left, I will edit this post and make a note in the other posts to avoid confusion.
I'm free for criticism(good and bad, as long as you stay constructive and polite), additions, and eliminations of further stuff.

Fri, 11/09/2012 - 06:15

Kazujaxyz

Bump because noone actually reviewed it.

Like it or not, I just want some feedback.

Also, updated the OP to include some stuff I forgot to put in in the first place.

Fri, 11/09/2012 - 09:48

Luguiru

I recommend you see this, that, and these .

Stop giving everything bombs.

Fri, 11/09/2012 - 10:04

Kazujaxyz

Well... Drupal problems, as usual.

I have no idea what causes the problem. Funnily enough, the problem only exists for the links to your thread. I think I may need to search for a solution of the problem, or just ask myself what the problem might be...

Anyways, your links to the specific comments don't work, as usual for me. Could you, you know, tell me to what you linked to? Your weapon-balancings? Or(yet again) some thread I accidentally copied for some reason(in which case I really can't explain what I'm doing wrong, using the search bar and your thread to make sure I donn't accidentally repeat someone else)? Simply stating the headline of your post there would help me alot, as I then can scan the thread for it.

Fri, 11/09/2012 - 10:22

Luguiru

Works fine for me.

Stupid foorims.

Just check the index under weapon balance for DAvenger, GFaust, Voltedge, Combuster, and Winmillion.

Fri, 11/09/2012 - 11:55

Kazujaxyz

Why does Drupal hate me so much?

I can try it on windows, on ubuntu(dual-booting right now for steam, looking forward to the linux-version of it so I can clean windows from my drive for good), with Mozilla, with IE... it's always the same. It won't allow me to directly jump to your posts.

Well yeah, gonna scan it now...

Uh huh. Okay. Going to compare our both approaches now.

So yeah, I kinda took your Spur-rebalance in account here. You know, the damage and stuff, which is admittingly fairly low. My focus was more on how the weapon works, rather than how the values are: Namely, making the bullets build up similar to the sword damage in a combo, with range and damage increasing each time. I see now I wrote that part pretty confusing, sorry 'bout that. This would not only add some to the damage potential(and with the building up shoots, people could get rewarded even more for going for the full combo instead of shield cancelling), but make the weapon feel like a sword that extends its sword attacks with energy beams instead of a an ol' shooty sword. Basically from sword with a projectile attached to it to being a sword that extends the power of its sword slashes to increase the linear range, or damage, for that matter. Having a gun in a sword, while giving that gunsword its own feeling that is a mix-up of both. Hope I described that well enough.

The GFaust of yours actually seems kinda similar to mine, with the difference that I focus on range and area of effect by using the sealed sword's previous charge while you just make the swing-range bigger and give the whole thing guaranteed curse for everyone. I'd actually tend towards giving the whole line with all alchemy paths extended crowd control abilitys because it makes sense to me. Then again, you always tend to favour your own stuff.

The DAvenger... well, you turn the charge into some sort of bradish-charge while I give... well, I base the charge around the first in the line, again with the goal at giving the weapon line epic crowd control. Also, I keep the range and instead lower the speed, while you lower the range. I include the Faust in this speed-nerf, however.

All in all, you make the Faust riskier but more rewarding, and lower the DA-range and give it a brandish-charge. I want to keep them quite similar, but let them specialize at something heavy swords, especially DA with its charge, can achieve very well: Crowd control. Not to mention I try to somehow make them resemble their dad with the seals on the ground. Actually, I think you did a better job at balancing it, but I did my best giving them a role to belong to: The crowd control/bomb sword. Overall, I think you focused on making the weapons equally viable, and I tried my best making them feel unique and different. That, to an extend, would also benefit the Troika, because if Faust and Avenger feel and play different enough, the Troika doesn't have such a competition anymore.

The brandishes are fair enough. My idea was concentrating the damage on a single spot, but making the splosions behave differently for every brandish seems more reasonable.

Basically, I think while you try to make every weapon balanced in terms of range and power(so basically nerfing), I kinda try to restrict the versatility of swords and turn some swords into hybrids that require their own playstyle.
Of course, I may be wrong, and you're free to correct me. However, I think that swords should be severely restricted at their versatility and only have a few chosen swords merge the sword mechanic with some other weapon-flavour(and then go full with it). Making them equally potent weapons is about as important, but defining some actual roles for the weapons can already help alot to make them be equally viable.
Well then, your turn. Does my try to... "balance" the weapons go well or fail badly? My main focus was restricting them a bit in their roles, and not nerfing them, after all.

Fri, 11/09/2012 - 12:35

Luguiru

Sometimes the foorims give other people trouble getting to specific links in my thread. Maybe an admin wants to close it but the amount of text makes it lag. Oh no, someone who cares about making the game fair while making the development team work a lot more on fixing stuff instead of making derpbillion more recolored promos, get it away from us!

For Spur I think I get what you mean, a mechanic based on keeping up constant attacks to gain damage bonuses. That reminds me of something which, you probably guessed, reminds me of Wakfu. The Iop class has a passive ability called Authority. Every time you attack something, no matter what kind of attack you use, it has a chance to give you a damage bonus in a state called 'Power'. Power stacks up to one hundred levels of the effect, each level giving +1% damage (it sounds overpowered if you try to apply it to Spiral Knights but it works over there), but you have to gain the effect at least one level every turn or it completely falls off. When it gets to one hundred it will not continue to grow, so stacking up more of it only keeps it on. With Spur we could apply a momentum kind of effect where you start with low damage, akin to what it has now, and gain a small damage bonus every time you attack (stops at some point to prevent infinite damage bonus stacking). It could continue beyond a single basic combo. Hitting with the projectile would give a smaller bonus than hitting with the blade itself, but the more you hit in quick succession the more bonuses you get; the bonus would deteriorate while you are not dealing damage (swinging at air does not proc the effect) to keep you in the fray. This effect would only work for the Spur and not affect other equipped weapons or stack with equipment bonuses like Skolver/Shadowsun/MadB/Bombastic/etc. and work as its own system.

For GFaust and DAvenger, those suckers are swords. I know a lot of people are used to those glowing things working as laser toys, but they are and always have been swords. And as swords, they should not simply create a bomb effect. That would be silly. My rebalances still give them area of effect, but not by simply giving them a bomb because that would be hysterical. Not sure how you got DAvenger becoming a Brandish out of that, maybe the falling swords are a little too vague. I also took the knockback from both of them to keep swords as close range melee weapons rather than promoting projectile lobbing to make swords close range, which is far more sensible than "they can be whatever they want" as Three Rings says. Nothing is going to convince me a weapon which has always been used for melee is suddenly meant to be whatever it wants, including range. How about guns that explode in a radius around you? Would they like that? No need for bombs anymore, all anyone needs are swords according to them. If I meet whoever told them swords should be more useful for projectiles than close range melee dominance I am going to slap the silliness out of them.

For Brandishes I still have Acheron and Glacius to do, both of which I already have enough ideas to have written it up already but was punching trees that keep throwing spiders which are the most annoying things ever and get in the way all the t- Never mind that. I should be able to do that soon, though I still want to get that last item from them to complete an equipment set which is amazing but those stupid spid-

Anyway, about that Spur momentum stacking thing. What do you think? Gets +X% damage when you damage with the blade and +(X/2)% damage when the projectile damages something? Loses Y% of that accumulated bonus over Z seconds? It stacks up to +W% damage for the Spur? Throwing some letters at you.

Fri, 11/09/2012 - 12:46

Softhead

Matinence.....

Restart your router.

Fri, 11/09/2012 - 15:17

Kazujaxyz

What a brilliant extension to the Spur-idea.

Hell yes, your idea with the Spur seems like an awesome idea. Starting out weak, warming up over longer fights. Absolutely perfect.
I don't play Wakfu: Monthly subscriptions scare me. My only weakness! Especially if the game tries to market itself as free while severely limitting non-subscribers... *shudder* Not to take the game down. Heard it's fun, and the whole political system seems like a pretty creative and unique concept.
Well yeah, I'd actually compare this mechanic to... the pokemon attack Fury Cutter(there do seem to be many jokes concerning the franchise here, especially concerning pets. I hope the game's are not that despised in this community). It's pretty basic: Hit the enemy several times in succession with the attack, and the attack grows from pathetically weak to a shower of highly potent attacks that may even be able to wipe out entire teams. Slow and weak warmup, high payoff.
Well, about which percentage... I think if we keep it at the current damage(which may actually work if it actually pays off using it for longer confrontations), which may likely be somewhere at 50%(keeping the disks out of the formula), let's say... 8% damage increase per hit, 2% for disk-hit. The cap would be somewhere at 200% damage increase, meaning it basically turns the basic 50% power of the weapon and turns it into 150%. This requires 20 consecutive attacks, however, bumbling around between attacks will leave you with much more. Mind you that these are actually about 7 combos which you are likely to pull off in a battle room. However, the percentage should also fall rather rapidly: 4% per second while over 100%, 2% per second while under 100%. On full charge, this is a damage buff of about 2.5 minutes, with after 50 seconds your damage goes below average again. A single full combo leaves you with 15 seconds time to find your next target. I hope this is balanced enough, because I'm not too good at numbers. Needless to say, this new Spur wouldn't be only a gunblade, but actually an extremely offensive berserker-sword, ecouraging a rabid and HIGHLY aggressive playstyle. What i love, because different weapons are different weapons and should thus diverse in playstyles as much as possible, especially since we only have 3 classes to go from.

The sealed charges of mine are actually supposed to work as some sort of extension of the sword slash on the ground, hitting through enemys and stuff. Of course, it shouldn't actually compete with the AOE of bombs... only make the weapon particulary potent against enemy clusters. Heavy swords already are good at this kind of stuff, after all, so the ground signs could be a nice extension to that. The Avengers would work great if you're cornered/halfway in the enemy cluster(doesn't Avenger actually imply punishing the enemy for something?), and the Gran Faust would work on bigger clusters and on a... "safe" distance(you still need to be almost in front of them, but at least you don't need to allow them to almost trap you in their masses). Think of it less like a bomb, and more of an enemy-penetrating, extended sword-slash that actually consists of seals on the ground.

Already realized that the Ice-brandish and the black katana are missing, but didn't bother about asking because I already knew you likely have some plans for it.

@Atrum: Our router gets restarted quite frequently, and the problem always remains. That ain't gonna do it.

Fri, 11/09/2012 - 14:02

Luguiru

Sounds gudd

So to recap:

+8% damage per melee hit
+2% damage per projectile hit
+200% damage accumulative bonus is the cap
-4% damage per second (does not decrease base damage, only takes from the bonus) while the bonus is +100% or higher
-2% damage per second (see above) while the bonus is +99% or lower
The damage stacking/decaying effect is only relevant to the Spur and does not affect your other weapons
The damage decaying effect does not eat into your base damage, it only decays the bonus you accumulate from dealing damage with the Spur
The damage decaying effect continues to deteriorate the bonus, if you still have it, even if you switch weapons but does not affect other weapons

I already have Winmillion but I would dump all my crowns into UVs if it had this. Maybe even buy energy packs again to throw into the market for some extra coinage. Really digging how this would work. A real sword. Not some sissy pixie wand, a sword that rewards you for standing in front of the enemy close enough to hug their internal organs out of them like toothpaste then proceed to do so.

Fri, 11/09/2012 - 14:11

#10

Mentlegen

Sounds good

but it will never be added ;_;

Fri, 11/09/2012 - 14:14

#11

Grittle

OH NO, ITS THE BATTLE OF TEXT

OH NO, ITS THE BATTLE OF TEXT WALLS

Who will win???

Fri, 11/09/2012 - 14:28

#12

Kazujaxyz

From virtually unplayable to most agressive rage weapon ever

These attributes are alright, as long as you aren't going to change the other stats of the weapon line or want them to have more max damage potential depending on Stars. 'Cause then this needs rebalancing ;D

Do want. A berserker-sword. Aw mah gawd. Just the imagination of having a sword that actively encourages super-furious and aggressive playstyle. It would actually make me want to use a sword again(fell in love with guns quite a bit). It would also appeal to the breed of the Leroy Jenkins in all of us, being rewarded for going for as much hits in the least time as possible.
Well, and this is also kinda what my point is: Make the weapons differ in function and role. It makes stuff all the more fun and versatile. And, most importantly: Less grindy.

Alrighty then. Are you going to post that reimagination of the Spur in your thread, or what's happening to our new furious Spur(Fury Spur... Spury?) now? If so, would you mind mentioning this thread or at least my name?

Fri, 11/09/2012 - 14:44

#13

Luguiru

I already added this thread under rebalancing, I can add the Spur stuff as its own link if you want.

No need to reiterate unless you want me to copy-paste it in there with my little comments on limitations like the bonus not applying to your other weapons.

Fri, 11/09/2012 - 15:30

#14

Kazujaxyz

Already saw it

I just thought it may be from advantage to summarize it into a single post in your thread, because originally this thread was about something different, after all.
Oh well, doesn't matter, tho. I guess it will be fine as it is.

Anything else to say? Maybe about the Spur, maybe about the other weapons?

Fri, 11/09/2012 - 15:47

#15

Luguiru

Derkay

If anyone asks, kill them.

I mean, I can do it if anyone really needs it, but I think we should be good.

For Sealed and Brandish lines, I already did all I could. We have pretty similar stuff though I aim for the projectiles mostly, though my Voltedge changes have a lot more potential range than it currently has.

I should go back to working on this. On the final parts and people expect something so amazing they wet themselves. The strange part is where they wet themselves; normally you would assume the pants, but it shall be their feet. No one will understand how that is possible. In the mean time have some of this.

Fri, 11/09/2012 - 22:02

#16

Steadyeyes

@Grittle: LOL bro

Sat, 11/10/2012 - 11:47

#17

Kazujaxyz

Dangit, forgot something about the new Spur.

How would the charge attack and disks would insert themself into the system?

Of course, we could keep the charge attack a a simple stronger slash then the normal attacks. But does that really complement how the sword would work? After all, you're going for fast series of hits, not for single slashes of doom. I think I may have some options for this.

The first and simplest method would be making the charge attack charge up much more of the bonus. However, I can see the problem of it either being unbalanced or stealing the spotlight from the normal attacks, which is bad because you are supposed to fight like a rabid rodent, all fast and agressive and that. Making the damage bonus come in single bursts would actually be contraproductive to the feel of the sword.
That being said, I think giving the charge attack similar rules to the normal attack is generally not an option to consider, because the one thing will always steal the others spotlight otherwise. Which is bad: If we have a sword with special mechanic, why not use both kinds of attacks to utilize it differently?

So the other idea would be to make the charge attack TAKE from the current bonus to unleash attacks of truly [silly] strength on your enemy. It would be pathetically weak if you couldn't afford the cost. This could create the practice of harvesting the bonus first on weaker enemys and then using it on bigger ones. Cue the Royal Jelly crying, because you turn his minions aka walking health packs into considerable chunks of damage to him. It would work similar to the super moves in fighting games, where you hit your enemy into the face repeatly until you have filled some sort of gauge that allows you to hit your enemy into the face big-time. It's debatable wether this is balanced or fitting to the sword's theme, however.

The other option I thought of again was inspired by brawlers, and the afromentioned rage-gauge in some games: Instead of hitting your enemy into the face(big-time), you are able to buff yourself, or rather, your sword with the charge attack. I have no idea WHAT exactly it would buff: Double the damage bonus, a major speed increase or both, even? However, the twist in this is that you lose the damage bonus several times as fast with little to no means to regenarate it. Your charge time would reduce in all cases, because reapplying the charge would end the buff prematurely. Who does need that big hurricane slash if every warmed up slash has the potential to be one, anyway?
You already see: It would be some sort of super-mode, trading the amount of time in which you can cause carnage for moar carnage, essentially reinforcing the weapons rabiat playstyle. Which is great and fits the weapon's theme, but again, may be unbalanced if done wrong.

And then there are the options you are likely to think of now.

The disks themself increase in strength like the rest of the weapon, but does it really have to stop here?
What I thought of and likely is that projectiles start out all small and puny, with short range and barely any potential usability, and then end up as smaller versions of the current charge with incredible range. From bee-sized bullets that fade as fast as they appear to badass tornados with every sword slash. This would also work as power display, too: How big is my bullet and how far can it reach?
Alternatively, we could instead of a range increase give them a bigger hitbox to hit enemys more easily with it. Of course, this makes little sense unless...
We give it a piercing ability starting at some percentage so more enemys can fear your rage of doom, no matter what kind of thing is bodyblocking them.
I think we should go with the range-increase, however, because the sword shouldn't be too well suited for crowds and instead for a long, continuing battle.

What are your thoughts on this? Just keep both simple and make the charge behave the same as the normal attacks/just give the disks a bonus in damage? Or give both of it something flashier that adds to the system more?

Sat, 11/10/2012 - 12:40

#18

Luguiru

The charge should do something to compliment the bonus stacking effect, but not necessarily be another spammable attack; that rules out making the charge give bigger bonuses than the basic attacks.

We could have the charge act as a discharge for your accumulated damage bonus, but then it would need a specific effect. It could take all your stacked bonuses and unleash it into a final outburst of damage, it could push enemies away with more force the bigger your bonus is (which would also consume it), it could even involve a new wind related status that pushes your enemies around. We have a lot of options. Over in Wakfu the same Iop class has another skill, Increase, which does two things: give you a damage bonus for that turn (you can use Increase multiple times in the same turn but it uses a resource which has a limited supply per battle) and consumes all accumulated Power and transforms it into a bonus rate to inflict a status called Stun, which forces the afflicted target to skip their turn (you would inflict it during your turn, their turn would be next; nurp, Stun). Wakfu has turn based combat, by the way. If we take Increase and try to mold it into the Spur charge attack, what would it do?

As you could probably guess, I would be into making the charge consume your stacked up bonus and give you something in return. Something that helps in the moment but eats your whole damage bonus at once. Whatever it does, it would have to have a scaling effect with varying levels depending on how much damage bonus it eats, to make feeding the bonus to begin with worth something other than grabbing a single hit and unleashing a powerful charge attack. For example, you accumulate +200% damage so you get the full effect of whatever the charge would do, but if you only have +100% you would only get half the full effect; whatever it does. Over in Wakfu, Increase consumes all your Power and translates every two levels of it into +1% chance to inflict that Stun status; except you have to use an attack which already has a chance to inflict it, or you would be able to use any attack you want to inflict the most powerful status. Wakfu also gives you the percentages instead of vague descriptions like "good chance of weak". How often is a "good" chance? How long does "weak" last? Is "good" more than 50%? I think "minor" is about five seconds and "weak" is three, but "strong" for probability to inflict on GFaust is like thirty seconds. Is there a consistent scale or are they whatever they want to be?

Anyway, ranting about Three Rings trying to push us away from helping them aside, we have a few options for the charge if it consumes your stacked bonus on use: the initial swing and disc deals more damage the bigger your bonus was, the swing and/or projectile pushes back enemies X distance per Y amount of the bonus you have accumulated, or get creative with a wind status that has its rates increase based on how much bonus was stacked:

If we go for the first one, just giving it more damage, it becomes more of a eat and regurgitate weapon. You eat up and get fat on the bonus, then vomit all over your enemies. Considering we want people to be using the basic attack primarily for offense and not simply to grind up the bonus, this one is knocked out.
If we go for pushing, which would be pretty funny, it may overlap with the swords in here which would fit pretty well with Spur as cousin branches. At 2* all of these Spurs would still be Spur, at 3* it gets four branches: the Spur we have here that stacks up bonuses for offense, the single target knockback one that blasts less enemies at a time a further distance, the area of effect knockback one that has pretty good knockback but gives up some of it compared to the previous line for more area of effect, and the projectile reflecting one which I still find hilarious. What kind of weapon can swing at a projectile and bounce it right back wherever it came from? Amazing ones. Anyway, if we include those three lines from the other thread, knockback is more than covered.
If we go for a unique effect we would need to know what kind of effect it would do. A new status? Stun? Our version, not what they have in Wakfu. Maybe even have it so the charge debuffs enemies, you sacrifice your own stacked up damage bonus to lower enemy damage output temporarily. That would get pretty crazy. It could debuff enemies through their defense instead of attack, maybe even branch out at 4* if we include those three other Spurs with their knockback and reflection which branch from Spur at 3* and go their own way, then the main line branches out at 4* where one lowers enemy attack if you use the charge and the other lowers enemy defense.
Still rolling with those two 4* branches, how big would the debuff be? How would your stacked bonus come into play? If we stick with pleasant numbers, every +5% of your bonus consumed by the charge debuffs the target by 1% attack or defense depending on which line you use. If you have the full +200% that boils down to -40% attack or defense, still depending on what line you use. Both of these bump into poison a few too many times, even if the debuff is only temporary.

How about that wind status thing? All I can think of right now for it is making it repel allies of the afflicted, so if you inflict it on a zombie in a crowd of derpbillion other zombies and it hits multiple they all go bouncing around. Funny stuff.

This thread plus that other thread equals Spur being the best sword ever.

Sat, 11/10/2012 - 13:04

#19

Psychodestroyer

AGH-Hck!

Ah...

The...The wall...It...It...got...me...

Ugh.......

*Fwump*

Sat, 11/10/2012 - 15:03

#20

Kazujaxyz

Well...

Kinda lacking the time to spam another great textwall in this thread, so I'm keeping it short:

The damage thing most likely isn't a great idea, for the reasons you specified.

For a weapon that relies on having a single long series of attacks, knockback is pretty contraproductive imho. Not to mention that already quite an amount of swords, mainly normal-damage ones, serve the role as knockbacker. Still, I could imagine having some applications here and there, but if I'm really honest, the charge would be better spend on something else.

This leaves us at the status thing.
I'll exclude stun and poison for now, simply because I think we could do better than that. We have a unique mechanic, why give it such a commonplace status?
I think this whole wind debuff is a very funny idea, but I don't really see how it would benefit the user or its team in any way. It would kinda make it harder for other people to take on crowds, because you give them super-repel abilitys. The polaris/nitronome of the swords. This is bad. Also, I think it may be a bit silly to introduce a new status for just one sword. This could be redeemed by giving enemys/other weapons that ability too, but enemys couldn't handle it well(knights aren't so much in crowds) and it may be difficult to implent it into other weapons right.
When you talked about a new status and knockback, I had the idea of instead somehow creating an air aura around enemys tthat completely removes friction to make them bounce across the room, damaging themself and others upon bouncing on stuff, a bit like how quicksilvers charge each other up by bouncing on them. Hit your enemy with a projectile, make them be the projectile. In soviet russia, bullets shoot enemys. Pretty fitting for a weapon that utilizes hits on careless enemys to get stronger hits on other enemys, huh?

Other than that, besides giving the enemy debuffs, I actually wonder how you like the idea about the super-mode stuff? It eats your bonus at a ridiculous rate(essentially, it's pretty similar to your all-bonus eating charge), but instead of an attack with unique debuff, it's a BUFF ON YOURSELF. A self-buffing weapon, that's actually pretty special for this game. It would only work for this weapon, as usual, but would give you a significant bonus to damage/speed. Say, you change your bonus-drain from 2% to 20%, leaving you with maximal 10 seconds of supercharged state in which you gain an extreme increase in attack speed/damage/movement speed. Basically, hyperactive. This weapon already is all about fast gameplay, so why not give it a buff that makes it seem like everything else is moving in bullet time compared to you(slight exxageration, but you get the idea).

Sat, 11/10/2012 - 16:20

#21

Luguiru

So instead of the charge attack doing something on its own, it eats your bonus so you get temporary buffs?

You would already have damage. Had. Movement speed would have problems with their "balance" team, but attack speed would turn the charge attack into a final push kind of move. You only have a few seconds left before dying horribly, so attack as quickly as you can before your painful demise.

I brought up that pushing thing because it reminds me of a skill in Dofus, the prequel to Wakfu, for that same Iop class. In the prequel game. Basically, you use it on a target, and anytime that target takes damage it splashes all around them. Iop is a very close range based class. That sounds like a very distance based support skill. Someone was very silly when designing that.

Shenanigans aside, we already have enough of those on a regular basis, stick to getting attack speed out of the charge. The charge attack would turn from an attack to an action, seeing as this game could use a wider variety of features, and further promoting use of the basic attack. While under the effect of the charge, which increases your attack speed and drains away your damage bonus (your 20% per second rate is good), in exchange for how much attack speed? Would there be scales, like if you have +200% when you use the charge you get +4 but if you use the charge at only +100% you only get +2? Or would it always be the same and only the duration would depend on the bonus size? How about we combine those two so the attack speed buff is higher if you use the charge with a higher bonus, like getting +4 attack speed (only applies to the Spur, does not apply to your other weapons) for +200~150%, then +3 if you start or it goes down to +149~100%, then +2 if you start at or it goes down to +99~50%, then +49% and lower only gives +1 attack spoeed? If you start high it would deteriorate both the damage bonus, which would still be in effect but draining very quickly, and you would have a dwindling attack speed bonus which burns out as your bonus does.

While in this burnout state, would you still be gaining damage bonuses for attacking? Or would it only gain at a lower rate, like instead of getting +8% from basic swings you only get +4% and instead of getting +2% from the projectile you only get +1%? You would still be able to keep rampaging around, but you would have to hit a lot of things to stay in that state.

No pressure to make big posts. I only do it because I have a lot on my mind. Like this headcrab. What? Get out of here, Lamarr.

Sat, 11/10/2012 - 17:27

#22

Kazujaxyz

Going to answer Lug so this redesign can be complete

Going to ask your paragraphs with my paragraphs:

Exactly.

That was actually the plan. A pushing move. Like in, getting rid of all that potential damage you would get in the long run and just squeeze all your combat power into these few seconds. Wether it's suicidal is debatable, though: In fact, that final burst of combat power may be able to save your rear from the terrible demise of getting handed, as you would go for broke and spend your last seconds before defeat in super sayjan mode. It's a tradeoff: Either having a longer lasting attack buff or risk everything by consuming all your power in a tenth of the time, granting you inhuman speed and power with your attacks.
That being said, the supercharged knight should also get a movement speed increase. Why? Because it fits greatly with the whole charge, and it can't be wrong to make a knight faster than the rest for maximal 20 seconds, and considering these 20 seconds are likely to be spent inside a danger room, people won't really be able to abuse it to travel the dungeon faster than everyone else. Movement speed increasing gear is likely not going to make it into the game, and that for good reason. However, I think a buff lasting less than a minute and only really usable inside danger rooms/monster-filled rooms in general(as long as you got these 200% just the moment you activated the charge, which won't happen unless it's a very specific scenario) can't be too bad.

Know Wakfu, know Dofus. You don't need to specify what kind of games they are, I already know. Describing the classes is good enough.
So a rapidly speed-increasing debuff reminds you off a skill that turns every attack into splash damage? Odd. I'd rather compare it to eating garlic mid-battle. And yes, someone WAS silly about that. It does sound really long-range oriented. Guess it makes sense in-game, though.

Again, part of the plan: Turning the charge attack into an alternative action. The designers never said weapons only have to attack with both, if that makes any sense. If they did say so, they are stupid for wasting both actions for attacks. Back to seriousness: Trying to create charge attacks that actually aren't attacks already would help increasing variety of swords. Swords need variety. They are way too versatile right now, and lack actual features that distinguishes them from each other. This is partially the reason noone uses 50% of the swords. Broadening the spectrum of abilitys of an item other than actually attacking would make weapons infinitely more versatile.
So yeah, your numbers probably are the ones I would have thought off, too, with maybe move speed increase thrown in there(+2 while over 100, +1 while under it. Shouldn't be too overpowered, I hope: There's not so much movespeed increasing gear where you can test the values). That would turn the Rabid Rodent("SpuRR", what a nice name for this redesign, isn't it?) into a fragile speedster with ridiculous attack stats, that slowly derange to the point of being useless again. Risk and reward.

I would half it, just like you said. Keeping the increase the same after the buff would be rather contraproductive, because the faster attack speed would kinda counteract to the rapid burnout. Halfing the gain however seems balanced, preventing infinite burnout-states while still rewarding SpuRR-playstyle(0.5 seconds per hit, sounds fair enough).

I only write long posts because I'm often not satisfacted with shorter ones.

Bonus-Paragraph: What is up with all the people here making text-wall jokes? It's not like they expect forums to have text in them or something...

Sat, 11/10/2012 - 19:52

#23

Luguiru

Sounds like another good time to recap:

base damage not changed
gains +8% damage by damaging with the basic swing
gains +2% damage by damaging with the projectile created by the basic swing (4*, 5*?)
cap of +200% damage
stacked bonus does not affect other weapons (stacking up damage with a Spur then switching to a Brandish/Calibur/anything else does not transfer the bonus; this likely also affects other equipped Spurs because the game identifies them as different weapons already)
the bonus deteriorates by 2% (not 2% of the full bonus, which would be +200% maximum, just 2%; if you have +200% and one second passes and you do not gain more of the bonus it will go to +198%, then the next second +196%, and so on) when the stacked bonus is below +100%; while over +100% it deteriorates by 4% per second
charge attack does not attack, but instead eats into your accumulated bonus at -20% of the bonus in exchange for an attack and movement speed bonus; using the charge attack initiates a final push state where the size of your bonus affects what the charge gives you:
- at +200~150%, you get +4 attack speed and +2 movement speed
- at +149~100%, you get +3 attack speed and +2 movement speed
- at +99%~50%, you get +2 attack speed and +1 movment speed
- at +49% and below, you get +1 attack speed
- at +0% (the bonus has completely deteriorated) you get nothing
- while the final push state is in effect, using the basic attack will still gain damage bonuses which will feed the flames (metaphorically) and potentially allow you to stay in the state for a little longer; +4% instead of +8% for the swing, +1% instead of +2% for the projectile

Anything missed? Anything else we need? Should there be a 5*? That would probably complicate things, deciding whether all this would change by being upgraded to the next star rating or not. If we keep it capped at 4* it would be a little more limiting to use, but all the stackable bonuses are so appealing even without paying for the shiny fifth star on its rating. This sword is so powerful it took that fifth star and did everything illegal to it, then cut it up and fed it to its little star children and told them it was meatloaf, but not overpowered because using it takes a lot more intelligence then herp derp DAvenger/Brandish sword laser projectile vomit walrus nostril cannons. You have to stay in the fray, keep cutting faces off everything, and drink all their blood if you want to keep that maniacal power.

That comparison with the weird explosion thing was for the wind status, where you glue something to an enemy face a short distance a way then it messes with everything around them. Wario is a satire of Mario, having garlic instead of mushrooms to power up. Ever played Wario World? Hilarious stuff.

Sat, 11/10/2012 - 20:25

#24

Klipik

oh god, the ridiculous potential for imbalance...

How will that be balanced in PvP? ASI VH toothpick strikers with full vog, or full mercurial, wouldn't stand a chance against that kind of ASI and MSI. especially if you UV the spur...

Also, what about the Winmillion normal-attack-bullets? Do they stay, or did i miss a sentence somewhere in those 8758 words?

Sat, 11/10/2012 - 22:06

#25

Luguiru

The effect from the charge attack would only last ten seconds at the absolute longest and deteriorates your damage bonus while in effect. The big fat attack and movement speed bonuses are very short lived and would only help for maybe a couple swings anyway. Besides, are you saying there should be nothing able to counter clones? Even though this thing still has pure normal damage and not a specialized damage type to get around defenses?

I thought the first complaint about being overpowered would be for the basic attack stacking up all that damage, though in the end it would still be pretty weak unless you can keep >+100% (half the cap) compared to the 4* of Leviathan.

You must have missed where the basic swing projectiles are counted in. Where the swing gives you +8%, the projectile hitting something only gives you 2%; while under effects of the charge you only get +4% from swings and +1% from the projectiles. Did you count all our words? It probably adds up to a few thousand.

Now have some Cash.

Sun, 11/11/2012 - 11:22

#26

Kazujaxyz

5-Star Spur: To be, or not to be?

Bad Shakespeare-reference aside: Despite bening so damn powerful if used right, I still think it might be a bit of a punch into the user's face if he still can't craft a 5*-version of it.

However, it can't be buff the sword itself without risking any balance-issues, neither the damage nor the chargeup-rate.

So, what I could suggest is instead of all this, we could turn the disk slightly more powerful and charging. It would not only make the disk a powerful long-range weapon when the bonus is high enough, but it would actually be a great mean of pursuing enemys that have ben flinged a bit far away. This would work great if we'd give the sword a slight chance on stun or just increase its stopping power(the term is made up from another thread by another person: It simply means the chance of letting enemys fall over, like zombies). You could root and damage them on distance so you can run up to them with your sword and batter them a bit more.

Your thoughts on this? I just think that despite all its power, it still needs some sort of upgrade just so that people don't already get the meximum potential of the weapon at the beginning of tier 3.

Other than that, I think we already discussed everything about our new SpuRR-line: The sword slashes have a built-in mechanic now, disks are considered, the charge atta... action is done now, too. Only the stuff about the stars needs some more discussion.

@Klipik: That being said, it's much harder to accumulate a high amount of hits in PVP in a short amount of time. If you have a raging winmillion-user in the other team, it's alone your fault, because building up the boni takes time. Do you play Team Fortress 2? The eyelander is a good example: It's a sword(sword in a first-person shooter. Problem?) that starts out rather... "weak"(it has more attack range than any other melee weapon), but with every enemy you slay with it you get his head that boosts your max health and speed. A sword that lets the users power grow the more it slays... kinda familiar to this here, no? If you have a fully powered knight in the enemy team that is blindingly fast for an explosive specialist(have I mentioned that the class wielding the sword has the most weapons that can cause controlled explosions right in your face?) he may be overpowered...but it's alone your teams'/your fault for being defeated by him, allowing him to grow in power.
So on top of just having a short duration, it feeds alone on your whole teams mistakes. Wanna avoid a supercharged winmillion to fight against? Protect each other. Hey, look at this: All of the sudden the new sword-mechanic increases lockdown-teamwork.

EDIT: Aaaaaand we still forgot something: Does the whole disk-thing only include the Winmillion, or will the Spur and Arc Razor get the projectiles at some percentage, too?

Sun, 11/11/2012 - 12:15

#27

Luguiru

I think the 4* is pretty well set up as it is. The 5* can have a little more damage than its previous rank, but the difference with most 4* to 5* weapons is pretty small. Maybe ten more damage per basic swing in S6. You would be stacking damage from the basic attacks over that anyway. What would most likely happen is the 4* only has half the rates we set up here, like the basic swing only giving +4% instead of +8% normally, and the 5* has the full effects.

For the disks it only applies to 4*+, for 3*- only the basic swings are relevant. If we include those knockback and projectile interference Spurs in the other thread the common 2* can stay as it currently is, then at 3* it gets this system but with reduced effects:

+5% damage per basic swing which damages
cap of +150% damage
stacked bonus does not affect other weapons (stacking up damage with a Spur then switching to a Brandish/Calibur/anything else does not transfer the bonus; this likely also affects other equipped Spurs because the game identifies them as different weapons already)
the bonus deteriorates by 1% per second
charge attack initiates the final push state, but consumes 10% per second instead of 20% and has a different set of bonuses:
- at +100%~75%, you get +3 attack speed and +2 movement speed
- at +74%~50%, you get +2 attack speed and +1 movement speed
- at +49%~25%, you get +1 attack speed
- at 0% the bonus has completely deteriorated
while the charge is in effect basic swings will only gain +2% per hit instead of +5%

Then if we need it there can be another middle ground between this and what we have set up presumably for the 4* to make room for a 5*.

Waiting on some Wakfu compensation after Sandy last week while doing some TF2.

Tue, 11/13/2012 - 19:32

#28

Klipik

questions

How fast is too fast? Does +4 ASI go beyond max asi if you have a max asi loadout? Does being that fast trigger invincibility frames? Do we need to rework the balance if its possible to keep super ragey beserker mode on forever?

Tue, 11/13/2012 - 22:22

#29

Luguiru

No, it works like any bonus by applying to your equipped bonuses. If you already have +6 attack speed with the Spur in hand it would not add more.

Does +6 attack speed on a Cutter trigger invincibility frames?

Considering the original model loses 20% per second and you only gain 4% back per melee hit and 1% per projectile hit, you would have to be hitting four enemies with both the swing and projectile per second to keep up with it. Anything less than that will not keep you in that state for significantly longer.

Wed, 01/16/2013 - 22:09

#30

Nineball-Seraph

I, eh, wait, wha..

This sounds pretty fuggin amazing, even if I can barely comprehend it right now..

Thu, 01/17/2013 - 16:06

#31

Klipik

OH YEAH!

+1! Let this thread live again! It haz guud idears!

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How swords get rid of their long-range charge attacks they don't need, anyway.