Rebalancing suggestions for minis.
dim, 04/14/2013 - 17:44
Hi, I'm not a common forum-goer, but due to the recent addition of mini enemies, I thought I'd express my dissatisfaction with their general function and balancing. For the record, I'm a knight owning nothing lower than 4 star, with 3 sets of just about everything for maximum adaptation to all the harsh surprises the clockworks can throw at you, but with the addition of minis, I see continuous issues that make their balancing extremely poor and they are overall somewhat buggy.
Breakdown:
Minis attack in large packs, relying on long-range melee combos and sheer numbers to dish heavy damage and become a threat, but some aspects make them insurmountable to many equipment sets or even just based on the level archetype they spawn in (which aren't very diverse at some points)
Pros:
-Add variety
-Are very simple to fight
-Aren't tough and can be easily predicted in smaller numbers
Cons:
-Arcade generation often produces their home, compounds, in excessive numbers. Some portals will carry a compound for 2/3 of every depth or so for an entire tier's length.
-Their long attack vollies can often rack up extremely long combos, allowing a single bad placed mini to continuously shred a knight, even through very well adapted armor.
-Compounds appear to occasionally produce memory leaks.
-Most mini types, except dust bunnies, never drop any form of loot, including health. As these compounds are produced often and the majority of their enemies and threat come from minis, this can easily stack up to a suicidal raid requiring 1 or 2 energy revives per floor.
-Minis are not fought equally between weapon types, sometimes producing a bit of unnecessary difficulty that seems discriminatory vs certain playstyles.
-Areas that hold minis can include excessive diversity levels previously unseen in the clockworks, with as many as 5/6 monster families encountered per floor.
-The quarters in which you encounter minis are extremely small and may leave you literally buried in an undodgable avalanche of ever-attacking enemy, with shield bumping being extremely ineffective due to the continuous DPS they dish and how tightly packed they are.
-Forcefields are often emplaced to stop minis from stalking you everywhere, but often (especially with scarabs) they can bypass these forcefields and maul you in the end zones and other "safe" places.
-Every compound seems to end in the exact same chunk, which is extremely close quarters and produces 12-15 minis infinitely, with several considerable ambushes placed simultaniously, leaving the entire area a massive deathtrap.
These are probably biased points I admit, but I have personal suggestions I think might tone this down a bit so it's well balanced and becomes a more enjoyable experience.
-In mini-generation points, perhaps lower the spawn rate some so its not so non-stop slaughter.
-Modify minis to stop combos after 1 hit so they don't eviscerate players single-handedly.
-Give them a chance to drop hearts, or maybe even pickups, so it's not just an endless suicidal gauntlet and more of a rational fight.
-Look into how various weapon types handle the fight and adapt the surroundings accordingly to reduce playstyle discrimination.
-Add more variety (I'm sure you guys are already on this one) to the compound's terrain. They seem fairly lazy in design and very un-randomized compared to more "normal" clockworks levels.
-Figure out why they bypass forcefields and solve the issue (once again, I'm the OOO team is slaving away on this already) I honestly don't know how this got past beta testing in the first place, especially with the extremely un-diverse terrain that emphasizes force fields on every floor.
-Reduce ambush intensities in compound archetypes. The current level is just plain ridiculous, often ending with you being chased by a hundred enemies that've spawned in less than a minutes time. Either scale down the mini ambushes to not be batches of 15+, or reduce everything else that spawns with them, often making them an iron wall of near-sudden death.
Once again, biased rant, personal suggestions. Your game, your move, OOO.
dim, 04/14/2013 - 21:20
#2
About the excessive comboing thing
It can happen with a zombie's lunge. If the distance between you and a zombie shortens while it is charging, it will hit your shield multiple times. If you are up against a wall, it is even worse. One time a zombie lunged, hit my shield 4 times, broke it, hurt me and set me on fire. eedless to say I died.
In the compound with dust bunnies, I encountered 5 families. Beasts (bunnies and wolvers), constructs(mecha knights), undead(howlitzers), fiends(greavers), and some gremlins. If you look at compounds for the wiki, it shows you how monsters from all 6 families can spawn in the glob drop one.
lun, 04/15/2013 - 13:29
#3
Copied from the patch notes
"The Compounds a new set of random levels have been added to the Clockworks, known as the Compounds. The Compounds feature the remains of some sort of unknown facility, where more intelligent monsters await, harvesting resources or perhaps attempting to power up the derelict machinery. However, just outside the confines of the facilities, hordes of mini monsters await in the brush, waiting to strike."
I do agree that no drops from these mini's=sad face but people in the community have been wanting a challenge. When I noticed that a mini didn't drop anything it was bye bye compounds. As for weapons to bring I always did the pokemon formula: enemy is weak to attack type=use attack type the monster is weak too regardless if it is a gun/sword/bomb.
And I love how OOO baits us to fight against these mini's saying they are intelligent
I guess this is why OOO nerfed the devilite. Have they nerfed the greavers too?
lun, 04/15/2013 - 13:41
#4
@blade
nope. minis are not intelligent. the guys inside the facilities stealing science are. inside there are smart guys. outside minis.
the minis have a very low loot rate. too low. increase a little. even 1 cr every 3 mini would be enough.*
had my revenge in bunnies, and they are fine. still have to try the others full potential.
*remember that spawn enemies never drop loot, so newly spawned minis will not drop loot anyway.
lun, 04/15/2013 - 13:56
#5
your answer:
Nitrome.
best crowd control i been using against the minis.
The compound levels are very skill-oriented. playing a level without the knowledge of what monsters are gonna appear, your tactic changes drastically through out the level.
I love the direction OOO is going with this.
@OOO STAFF, FORUM GM, Ignore this guy! hes been outside for too long under the daystar. His suggestions just means more hard work for you awesome guys! I repeat, do not nerf the minis!
You players may thank me later
lun, 04/15/2013 - 14:04
#6
@ canine
you tried vortex? it's good too? I'm crafting it so I want to make me sure of it. having WHB helps this time.
lun, 04/15/2013 - 14:14
#7
I don't have any good bombs, but wouldn't AoA be good too?
lun, 04/15/2013 - 17:51
#8
@Vlad
"You players may thank me later"
Thank you!
I vote for making a buff for mini's.
lun, 04/15/2013 - 21:04
#9
Not necessarily saying nerf
Holy crep, actually got replies on something I posted on a forum, that literally almost never happens. Some people may have misconstrued my words some. I think the minis as they are currently aren't terrible per say, but rather they behave a little... rampant, not in AI patterns, but how their function can occasionally be screwy. I don't think they should really drop loot in monetary form, since 95% of them are spawned infinitely from certain keypoints on the map and respawning enemies dropping money = disaster, similar to how I believe zombies used to drop infinite loot if you killed them after they got totem respawned. I just think similar to enemies that are generated infinitely from those little tiles with the swirling arrows, they should have a chance to drop health to somewhat compensate for the whole potentially endless hoarde of enemies deal. I also kinda do want minis to be buffed some, maybe through actually installing some variety, since currently they just have elemental infusions and 3 trash types that spawn. I think buffing the minis to be less... mini and more of petite would mean that spawning them in batches of 20 from multiple points simultaneously isn't your only method of making them deadly. (Hey guys, I know the first 200 scarabs were a disaster, so lets throw in 50 more!) As a gunner, I actually have very little problems killing them, since I spec into CQC hand-cannon type of weapons (Mega Magnus, Alchemers, and so forth) but I hear from a lot of my Guildmates that longer-range gunners have a lot of issues handling the crowd, and I think this is bad particularly since it's very unlike the rest of SK's combat style. Spiral Knights has always excelled at having a very non-linear approach to combat, having many different play-styles and even sub-varieties that can all exist side-by-side and are very different, yet all feasible methods of killing enemies. Some tactics may be better than others for some situations, but it's never been so... insurmountable from one approach that it has to be scrapped altogether and traded out for another. I think the fact that the minis all spawn in this very blended together, overly-compact map style that's previously been very rare in the clockworks becomes extremely counter-intuitive for the multiple play-styles effect in SK's combat system. In essence: I think variety is the spice of life. Relying on very linear approach enemies in very linear-generated levels that use very linear attack styles is kind of ridiculous. Combined with the fact that the only real source of challenge here is gratuitous quantity, it just feels... immature to call that a real adventurer's challenge. I think minis are a good approach to NEW in SK, since previously enemies were always about bigger and badder, but currently it feels like an underdeveloped cesspool of "meh". I personally wouldn't mind seeing something like minis that use ranged attacks, more than 1 melee style, or even something like a larger "hive" enemy that spits out minis as an indirect form of attack... just something other than a hundred tiny dingleberries that sprout out of the ground and charge you in straight lines. /Rant.
lun, 04/15/2013 - 21:06
#10
^
Space. That. Out.
lun, 04/15/2013 - 22:13
#11
Today I soloed a T2 compounds level, and I was one-shotting Glop Drops with a 3* alchemer. Not even double clipping. Maybe their HP should be buffed in solo a little?
Also, might I ask what guns are "longer range" than an alchemer?
lun, 04/15/2013 - 22:17
#12
Holy crap, actually got replies on something I posted on a forum, that literally almost never happens.
Some people may have misconstrued my words some. I think the minis as they are currently aren't terrible per say, but rather they behave a little... rampant, not in AI patterns, but how their function can occasionally be screwy. I don't think they should really drop loot in monetary form, since 95% of them are spawned infinitely from certain key-points on the map and respawning enemies dropping money = disaster, similar to how I believe zombies used to drop infinite loot if you killed them after they got totem respawned I just think similar to enemies that are generated infinitely from those little tiles with the swirling arrows, they should have a chance to drop health to somewhat compensate for the whole potentially endless hoard of enemies deal.
I also kinda do want minis to be buffed some, maybe through actually installing some variety, since currently they just have elemental infusions and 3 trash types that spawn. I think buffing the minis to be less... mini and more of petite would mean that spawning them in batches of 20 from multiple points simultaneously isn't your only method of making them deadly. (Hey guys, I know the first 200 scarabs were a disaster, so lets throw in 50 more!)
As a gunner, I actually have very few problems killing them, since I spec into CQC hand-cannon type of weapons (Mega Magnus, Alchemers, and so forth) but I hear from a lot of my Guildmates that longer-range gunners have a lot of issues handling the crowd, and I think this is bad particularly since it's very unlike the rest of SK's combat style. Spiral Knights has always excelled at having a very non-linear approach to combat, having many different play-styles and even sub-varieties that can all exist side-by-side and are very different, yet all feasible methods of killing enemies. Some tactics may be better than others for some situations, but it's never been so... insurmountable from one approach that it has to be scrapped altogether and traded out for another.
I think the fact that the minis all spawn in this very blended together, overly-compact map style that's previously been very rare in the clockworks becomes extremely counter-intuitive for the multiple play-styles effect in SK's combat system. In essence: I think variety is the spice of life. Relying on very linear approach enemies in very linear-generated levels that use very linear attack styles is kind of ridiculous. Combined with the fact that the only real source of challenge here is gratuitous quantity, it just feels... immature to call that a real adventurer's challenge.
I think minis are a good approach to NEW in SK, since previously enemies were always about bigger and badder, but currently it feels like an underdeveloped cesspool of "meh". I personally wouldn't mind seeing something like minis that use ranged attacks, more than 1 melee style, or even something like a larger "hive" enemy that spits out minis as an indirect form of attack... just something other than a hundred tiny dingleberries that sprout out of the ground and charge you in straight lines. /Rant.
♫ That's just how we live in my genre. ♫
lun, 04/15/2013 - 22:50
#13
Thank you.
Don't think forum posts have an edit button, and I was worried that was turning into a wall of text as I went.
I would also classify some firearms such as catalyzer, pulsar, and maybe even protogun series weapons (like the blaster) as "long range". Alchemers technically have a projectile range that is just marginally less than most "standard" firearms, if you've ever noticed how you just barely cant reach some switches in Roarmulus during that one section with the oncoming sideways missiles, respawning pots, and switches on alternating sides.
Technicalities aside, the alchemers have a fairly large projectile splash compared to some other firearms (IE magnus) and produce up to 2 left-hand ricochets each, so they're much more ideal for close quarters than say, a super blaster or catalyzer shot. T2 is different from T3 minis I guess, I have a nova driver and it takes me 2 or 3 shots (possibly a difference in health between spawned and non-spawned?) to down T3 scarabs each, but considering I've hit as many as 6 or upwards scarabs with a single round, the miniature corpses stack up quite quickly.
Lower the spawnrate? I say increase it :) Minis are supposed to be "swarm" enemies, but in that final room you only get around 10 at a time, and in ambushes probably nudging 20. Due to the nature of AoE in this game (Brandishes, bombs, Pulsars) Minis aren't really a big challenge. If you're complaining about not being able to beat them with every armor set and every weapon combination, that's good - no set should be able to do everything. Would you try to use a non-automatic gun against a pack of 50 rabid dogs? No. You'd either use a machine gun, an explosive, or maybe a melee weapon like a big axe. But you definitely wouldn't use a pistol.
On the level design, I agree that the ambushes are broken, but in a different way. Enemies often spawn in big clustered groups behind bushes, only to get stuck behind them and eventually come at you piecemeal. They should adjust the level design to have better placed ambushes, so you get that real “swarmed!” effect.
Excessive generation is probably for testing purposes, since minis only spawn in these areas and they wanted everyone to be able to get a quick chance to experience them. When minis get introduced to missions and the rest of the Clockworks levels, they’ll probably scale back on the compounds a little. As for the memory leaks, that’s just an optimization problem.
The only mini with long combos is the Scarab. Possibly the Drop, but that’s only if you stand still. And Scarabs are definitely buggy, not to mention they seem to like running into bushes. I suggested somewhere that maybe they should be able to break/tunnel through bushes?
What rooms have 5 families? Which families? The most I’ve seen is 3 (gremlin mender, gun puppy, bunnies)
Other than that, I agree. Stop Scarab flight attacks when they hit a knight (or when they get hit), and fix them being able to get around barriers. And drops of some kind are a must. Also, keep in mind that battle sprites are supposed to help us combat these (probably), so they won’t be too hard for too long.