Yay! That's actualy quite nice that there would be a new slot....but how will you guys get the animations right to put the slot in the character tab or whatever it is called. And again will we have to buy the slot O_o
Edit: Also regarding the PvP problem, maybe, like the class mods replacing the shield, we also get a battle sprite associated with that class mod to replace the battle sprite.
Ya know just an idea.
"Sprites do not take damage or die."
"Sprite skills have a cooldown that must be endured between skill uses. As you might expect, really potent skills have longer cooldowns."
If they have no health system of their own, why make them separate bodies from the knights to begin with? Their skills may as well be new weapons for us to use. Part of what makes summons/pets balanced in other games is the risk of being targeted by enemies and managing them in exchange for what benefits they give. You may have seen some of the competent threads/posts on pets in the sausage tins section, most of which involve some sort of health system whether it has its own health as knights do in combat or a stamina system which is withdrawn from by using pet abilities. These things limit how overpowered pets can be significantly and require the user to play smarter if they choose to use a pet rather than spamming all the attacks they possibly can.
Cooldowns are good, but are there any other sort of penalties? Going back to an earlier post for an example, using a dragon/Drakon attack to damage an enemy for higher damage than other attacks but both the pet and knight receive a damage penalty after the attack occurs. You get a moment of high damage output but burn out immediately after. Or with the flying cat giving allies more defense gives a penalty to the pet, owner, or everyone in other defenses during or after the first effect. Tradeoffs. If there are no penalties to using pet abilities other than limits on how often they can be repeated there is no downside to using the dragon for excessive damage or the cat for copious defenses. Who needs to work/pay for better equipment when pets do it all for you, especially since you can eventually get all three starters? Not that anyone is going to get the little ghost.
I know you said the planned release date is half a year from now but you should take all the time needed to fully balance these things. Take a year if you need to. Or two. They sound overpowered and unnecessary how they work right now. Please? Pretty please? With a funny hat on top? Please take your time to make sure Spiralmon is balanced and not make a rushed mess that will likely make >80% of mature players abandon ship? It may seem otherwise sometimes but I want this game to be successful for all of us. No matter how often I complain about everything.
This is not an attack on your answers, Nick. I just want you to see it from a perspective that has had other thoughts about the whole idea. A perspective that has seen pets in other games and what makes them balanced or imbalanced. Learn from past mistakes to prevent future disaster.
A little note everyone probably noticed by now. The Krogmo trinkets which give weapon bonuses. The red ones are for swords, blue for guns, and green for bombs. Look at the three starters.
" - 'Equipping' a sprite will not require the use of any existing equipment slot. Your trinkets are safe."
Mehehehe, MY TRINKETS FOREVER! >:D
"Sprites will level up via gobbling up heat and materials. Each sprite has a 'preferred material' at any given time. Materials will always be the fastest way to level up a sprite."
Honestly, I think the Silverweave would be the most tasty material ^^ I can't imagine that tiny little mewkat sprite (whatever its name was) eating some Shadow Steel >.>
That's okay, I'm pretty sure the Maskewraith is going to hoard all the Shadow Steel for itself.
“A little note everyone probably noticed by now. The Krogmo trinkets which give weapon bonuses. The red ones are for swords, blue for guns, and green for bombs. Look at the three starters”
Those are also the three primary colours, I'd take it as coincidence if I were you. And anyways, what would gunners need defence for? They shouldn't be getting hit nearly as much as swordfaces.
Keep in mind too that the Battle Sprites purpose is not actually to make the game harder or easier, or anysuch. They're mainly coming to increase the variety of playstyles available.
Previously = Swords+Guns+Bombs+Hybrids = 4 styles
Soon = (Swords, Guns, Bombs, Hybrids)×(Offensive, Defensive, Strategic) = 12 styles
Strategic = Ghost fella. I don't know what to call his thing. Strikery? Assissinative? Area-stuffery? I guess we'll wait and see :P
“Not that anyone is going to get the little ghost.”
I'm getting the ghost. Leave him alone!
“If they have no health system of their own, why make them separate bodies from the knights to begin with?”
There are plenty of other mechanics that could make use of a pet that is separate from you. You don't know nearly enough about the pets to be worrying about this. Some of your old pet posts were interesting, but there are lots of ways to implement a feature like this well, and I'm sure the devs will find something that works :)
Regarding the role changes. What I'm seeing is that the basic three combat roles in SK (call it the SK trinity): melee, range, AoE, they would remain. Except that the BS allows you to enhance one particular role further.
If you are a hybrid, you already diversified into the trinity. e.g. a gravity swordie is a combination of melee and AoE. If you are one of the pure builds, you can use the BS to diversify into the trinity. e.g. a pure swordie can use a Drakon to diversify into range attack.
So from what I'm reading, what BS provides are a mat vacuum cleaner and an optional way to diversify into the trinity. The only thing I can see that is new is a defensive BS (Seraphynx). Right now, some mobs can already cast defensive effects on their allies (e.g. trojans and wolvers can do Attack Up, Swarm Seeds can do Defense Up). So Seraphynx would even up the battle ground a bit (potentially OP but interesting if it allows health recovery also).
Then it makes sense why BS won't die and I'm guessing they would not gain enmity.
So the question is, can I equip full Ancient set, two Penta-heart pendants and a Seraphynx, and become a blood tank for my party? Or does it violate the design principle of SK?
I agree with what Luguiru said about learning from past mistakes.
Yes, SK needs new contents to retain existing players and attract new ones.
But let's not forget that contents need to be polished enough to achieve the two effects above.
This BS patch is going to need quite a bit of balancing (or risk doing more economical damage to the server). If the patch is stuck in the middle, you could risk losing both existing players and fail to attract new ones. The current projected release date may need revision at some point.
It is already possible to be a tank. All it takes is a making use of all the tanking-equipment available.
You can't double your defence from standard defence, but it's possible to halve incoming damage, for example.
@Sir-Pandabear. Can we do better as a generic tank? A proper tank could consist of the following traits:
Unlike the classic MMO trinity (tank, damage, support), SK is designed around 3 types of offensive styles: melee, range and AoE. In another words, the idea of combat coordination is built around how you deliver damage, not how you coordinate with your teammates.
It seems to me that one of these BS may re-introduce the classic trinity back into SK. That's why I asked, if finally we would be able to play as a tank (and in the process, we won't hit another patch in the future that says "currently Seraphynx users aren't very swordie like, so here are the changes we will implement...").
In Lockdown, I fulfilled all of those requirements. I can very much assure you everyone wanted me dead.
In Clockworks, the biggest problem is drawing aggro. I think it can achieved done by smashing a lot of things at once with Troika or using a Magnus. Some weapons seem to draw more attention versus damage than others.
Unfortunately LD has Guardian class. We only know for certain at this point BS is for PvE (which is what I was writing about earlier).
PvE, while most people would think it's about traveling from Point A to Point B, it could have all kind of twists added. e.g. in Unknown Passage, you have to unlock gates and evacuate. Nick spoke of different battle mode earlier. So it is possible that we add Capture the Points objective to PvE, then the LD type of guardian would be useful. If we have an escort VIP objective, then we need a tanker that could draw enmity and absorb damage, which is different from the LD type of tanker mentioned.
TL ; DR. Do not confuse LD with PvE. They are two different beasts. What works with LD may not work in PvE and vice versa.
I've tested the setup in clockworks too. Unless you think surviving ten hits from devilites without healing is not enough to be a tank (though at that point I had half a pip left), then you can tank in PvE.
This reminds me of the Torchlight series (playitplayitplayit). Note: that statement has nothing but pleasant implications.
Eerily, TL2 has the final boss dungeon an entrance to the "Clockwork Core". If the [Spiral Knights] Core (and the way leading to it) became anything similar, I would be more than satisfied. More dungeon crawler elements and mechanics are more than welcome.
Although I grow a bit concerned over the amount of "pull" a battle sprite has in battle. I'm unsure if you answered this already, Nick, but do they attack on their own/have primary attacks or are they "command" based where they do nothing until you press the corresponding button?
@Sir-Pandabear. Please read my revised post above your last post.
I think it sums up to "yes you may have a point in LD" and "no it doesn't apply to the context of BS (as we know it so far)".
It is a potential change in game mode that I'm concerned about. The last shard bomb patch is an (unexpected) change in methodology. This BS patch could be another game mode change (we shift from different ways to distribute damage, to different ways to coordinate people) and I just want to make sure that we do not have a SB Patch 2013 because the Devs feel something do not fit in their own thinking after the fact, when it can be thought out prior to release.
So to recap. Are we going to introduce a generic tank via BS? And when people start to do some serious tanking, would the Dev come along and say "this is not very Swordie like and we are going to change that as follows...".
Sorry if this has already been asked, but I'm lacking time to read all of the posts... :(
Will the difficulty level of the game be adjusted to give the sprites any use?
I mean, I like the idea of pretty much stealing the PSO Mag feature, but currently the game's difficulty is quite moderate so at that level I don't really see a use for the sprites' skills.
Are there going to be changes to the difficulty make good sprite skill usage more a challenge than some fooling around fun stuff?
Thanks for your time.
Well I'm anxious for the updates, but I hope it includes more than just Battle Sprites.
The Shadow Gate things were endgame things that by the time they were released I was kind of bored with the endgame stuff at that point. I did play a bunch (about a month) once the missions came along, and was anxious for additional updates. Bought the DLC mission pack which was pretty hard/annoying (GREMLINSSSSSS) but still a change of pace and was well executed
I liked what they did for effects and such with a lot of the missions and am hoping for more of that quality work, as that kind of content variety may make me play the game even more. Latest twitterpost with a BlackKat teaser image makes me think they are doing more than just a Pet System and weapon additions/changes (as said in this thread as part of known upcoming updates).
I've played since launch and heard there was even more stuff during the beta. Hopefully someone can confirm that there will be new content as well as additional content variety. (Hell, even The Core ;p). Other than general mission/arcade variety, what I also would like to see is some sort of competitive PvE coliseum thing.
Since some people are saying that battle sprites should be in lockdown and others absolutely despise the idea, why not a different lockdown class for pets? Along with the striker, guardian and recon, there could be a new class called Tamer (or something like that). It would allow you to bring ONE pet into the match (probably the one in the first pet slot or whatever). The shield would boost the abilities of the sprites for 5 seconds, then take 20 seconds to recharge. Tamers would have no weapon buffs or debuffs, but they would have status weaknesses (like Mad Bomber or Chaos Cowl) in exchange for a Movement Speed increase Medium.
I'm just logging into say this: MUST GET CAT ONE. It is so adorable... looks like a mix between a MewKat and (the Pokemon) Mew.
/e head explodes from adorable.
How do you obtain other sprites rather than the 3 starters? Rare find in Clockworks, Mission, Event, CE??
Please answer
Considering the sprites will have the same health as the knight(User) I'm having doubts about using Sprites in Lock down....
@Night-Rove
I thought Nick said they couldn't die OR take damage.........................which probably means they don't have health
@Pwigy
I think you can get others from missions or the clockworks...................
@Malsvir-Branea
^^ Cats/Kats for the win!
In the announcement it said that Battle Sprites played a significant part in the Laboratory.
It makes me think that we can get more Battle Sprites through the lab by crafting via gene splicing or buying it from the lab (I’m leaning more towards the crafting idea). Recipes for the animals would probably come from missions or traveling down the arcade though I might be wrong.
I have a question about the harness which affect the damage output for the sprite’s attack do we craft the other types of harness or do we buy them?
http://wiki.spiralknights.com/Battle_sprite_preview
This may be a stupid question but I also noticed in the pictures that that all the starter sprites fly will all sprites fly or will there be sprites that don’t fly as well?
The last picture makes me think that battle sprites will be at the player’s side the whole time as if the pet is an extension of the player rather than free-roaming and attacking randomly or am I wrong?
@Papaya that's not what I meant. I'm sure nick said the sprites life is connected to the knight. So if the knight dies the sprite dies.
@Adapter yeah I think it's better the sprite doesn't go around attacking random people. I think nick also said that sprites are like weapons so sprites will just stay at your side.
I thought Nick said a sprite can't die. So I think it'll still remain alive but can't do anything until the knight is revived. Possible guess.
This may be a stupid question but I also noticed in the pictures that that all the starter sprites fly will all sprites fly or will there be sprites that don’t fly as well?
The last picture makes me think that battle sprites will be at the player’s side the whole time as if the pet is an extension of the player rather than free-roaming and attacking randomly or am I wrong?
They only attack when the player commands them, and they don't have a seperate health bar, so they are practically just an extension of the player, like another weapon. They fly because it prevents them from getting in the way, or getting stuck on stupid things like block mazes and not being able to deliver their attacks where it's needed.
Nick did say that they are like "reconnaissance devices" so they'd need to be able to fly so they could scan planets without being blocked by dumb terrain.
@Hexzyle
"Nick did say that they are like "reconnaissance devices" so they'd need to be able to fly so they could scan planets without being blocked by dumb terrain."
That would make sense..................according to Nick, Sprites used to be mechanical, but they were affected by the energy signature of the core, thus, giving them life. I'm not surprised if they were originally reconnaissance devices, used to scan Cradle.........
Well, considering that the announcement/preview explicitly referred to them as reconnaissance devices...
E-Class Battle sprites were originally small, mechanical, AI-driven field companions that aided the Spiral Knights in planetary reconnaissance.
Ah, so I cannot feed my sprite nothing but seerus mask fragments. Sad day, but oh well. I wonder then how we will direct their skills.
Maybe it will be straightforward; feed the sprite some of this to get some of that! Or perhaps the skills will all be linear. If you feed the sprite stuff, it will level. All of this sprite have all of these skills.
That one does not get the picky-eater Battle Sprite that will only take Plasma Cells.
Given I want a Drakon, it makes sense for it to consume all the Blast Powder I drag out of FSC.
I wonder if we can give shadow lair materials to battle sprites. If we can, I believe they should give special properties. What properties? I don't know, but it'd be cool that if I got some neat little power for my Seraphynx after feeding it PURELY celestial ore. :3
These sprites seem like pokemon, with the way u said that they "Evolve"
I'm pretty sure they were going for the whole "Pokemon type thing with the SK art" theme there. Since it's technically unique intellectual property, Nintendo can't do anything about it... that and I don't think they would try because c'mon... Seraphynx is cuter than Mew could ever be. XP
Cuter than Mew!
One question... Do Spiralmon evolve?
Can we sell our sprites on the auction house?
If so, will they have an unbinding cost?
Can we have more than one active at the same time?
Will there be different sprites for pvp?
How will we get more sprites?
"Can we sell our sprites on the auction house?"
Sprites are a core essential to Spiral Knights, and will be available to everyone, foc, for the start. So, no.
"If so, will they have an unbinding cost?"
Sprites are untradable and forever bound to spiral knights, however, should be able to exchanged for another sprite.
"Can we have more than one active at the same time?"
You have only 1 slot for sprite, therefore 1 sprite only.
"Will there be different sprites for pvp?"
There are only the essential 3 sprites that OOO showed. Sprites for PvP are still up for debate.
"How will we get more sprites?"
You are probably limited to one sprite, however shall you want another, you can exchange your old one for a new one. The level of sprites will however not be transferred.
I am not an accurate source to rely on, but the core basis of sprites should be somewhat similar to what I understand and know. Sprites are not your personal "buy for show/win" pets, they are made available to everyone but has it's own level system.
Please correct me if I am wrong, Nick.
I believe Nick has already said that we can have more than one sprite - we can just only use one at a time.
I would very much enjoy it if more sprites can be bought via Featured Auctions. Especially if you picked up a starter sprite, and then wanted to try out another without losing your current progress.
@Nick
I have a couple questions about these battle sprites....
1 Will they be bought through tokens from boss levels?
2 Will they evolve through alchemy?
3 How do we choose the moves of each sprite? Do we buy them in things like recipes and add them through alchemy, or are they added in the lab for free?
4 Will your sprite have health, and if so how will they be revived?
5 Will they have different evolutionary paths that we choose, or will they just go up randomly? And will all of them be able to evolve?
Philmiester: READ. THE. WHOLE. TOPIC. Almost all of those questions are covered here.
People who don't bother to read really bugs me.
@Tiroth, well Nick didn't really say we can have all or at least more than 1 sprite, but he said there are some other methods of acquiring the other sprites. meh, maybe spiralmon trading?
BS Combinations
After reading through the posts, I'm assuming the sprite passive abilities will stack up accordingly up to 4 players. I'm looking forward to testers making guides to best combination for duos and full party.
E-Class
In the announcement they did mention these starter sprites were E-class so I'm guessing there is going to be D, C, B, and A? Maybe even S for the hardcores. If we get the first sprite from the mission looks like the lab is where we breed the other pets.
The Lab
"The lab is not soley dedicated to battle sprites"
Does anyone have a clue to what other purpose the Lab will provide besides Battle Sprites? I was thinking a place to also do cosmetic changes to weapons. Maybe even release a costume shield slot? Turn my BTB into a fish, etc.
Maybe E-class is just a reference to their abilities being activated by "E" on keyboard.
Or from E-xplorers.
"AI-driven field companions that aided the Spiral Knights in planetary reconnaissance"
A few more answers to the questions that keep coming up (again, all of this stuff in in development and may change):
- Sprites do not take damage or die. You are still the one responsible for staying alive, not your sprite.
- Sprite skills have a cooldown that must be endured between skill uses. As you might expect, really potent skills have longer cooldowns.
- We're not ready to get into details with regard to how sprites gain and modify their skills.
- Sprites will level up via gobbling up heat and materials. Each sprite has a 'preferred material' at any given time. Materials will always be the fastest way to level up a sprite.
- 'Equipping' a sprite will not require the use of any existing equipment slot. Your trinkets are safe.