Spiral Knights - On Class and Equipment Design

On Class and Equipment Design

20 replies [Last post]

Thu, 05/09/2013 - 14:41

Fehzor

The goal of any piece of equipment, is to gain money for OOO and provide an amount of happiness for players. That is, to be crafted. However, all armors, weapons, shields, even trinkets, are substitutes for one another in some way. I can craft a sudaruska, or I can craft a triglav. Or, I can craft a gun to do the job for me. Balance comes from the fact that after I craft a skolver set there is still incentive for me to craft a vog set. If a piece of equipment is crafted without destroying that player's wants for another piece of armor, then it is successful in it's design as well as in it's balance.

Skolver and Vog

Skolver and Vog are for many players, their first 5* armor pieces. For many other players, they are also the only 5* armor pieces to be crafted, aside from the occasional piece crafted purely for costume. The reason for this, is because of their differing resistances and roles. Vog resists fire and elemental, which is good for firestorm citadel, while skolver resists piercing, ice and normal, which is good for the royal jelly and lockdown. All other runs can be dealt with well enough to where they don't require extra armor- especially after UVs are rolled onto said skolver and vog.

However- Full Skolver + 2 ASI trinkets = Full Vog + 2 damage trinkets.

So why not just do that?

Because lockdown prefers skolver, while the clockworks prefers vog for the obvious reasons of Firestorm Citadel and toothpics, as well as the seperation between attack speed and damage. One of these applies to lockdown, the other not so much. There is no damage vs players bonus, so getting there is much more difficult without the use of trinkets, which are now taken up by heart trinkets.

When you buy vog gear, you buy the ability to compete in FSC.

When you buy skolver gear, you buy the ability to compete in lockdown.

Danger missions, and other 'advanced content' that comes out challenges this. When compound 42 came out, dragon scale sets were found to resist everything perfectly, and make killing poisonous flaming slimes a cakewalk. Shadow lairs often gives players incentive to craft more specialized armor, like divine set for uFSC/uICMF...

When you buy dragon scale mail, you buy the ability to crush C42 with your pinky finger.

But at the end of the day, if you buy armor of the fallen because you like it better for whatever reason, then you're not likely to be in the market for vog.

This is because they serve exactly the same purpose in the game to varying degrees- fighting in firestorm citadel. But what you are likely to get is something like skolver or deadly virulisk or even mercurial armor, because that way you'll be able to fight against piercing things.

And each piece of armor you craft reduces your want for other pieces of armor.

Lets say I make all three of the wolver line items.

I now have:

Piercing+normal+ice
Elemental+normal+fire
Shadow+normal+ice/poison

From that set, I can play most of the levels in the game. I can mix and match to fit a theme in a level- if fighting firey slimes I can mix vog and skolver. At this point, there is little to no incentive for me to craft armor.

But lets say that I do want to mix it up and try playing as a different class- I might make a gunner set. And I'll probably choose nameless.

This gets me:

Elemental+normal+ice.... but with handgun ASI instead of a sword buff.

I already have these covered by skolver+vog, but now I have it covered in such a way that it lets me use handguns more effectively... What I'm not likely to craft, is deadly virulisk helmet. Because that doesn't offer much in the way of changing how I play, challenging me, and in general is just unnecessary. I can just use my existing skolver set to kill those slimes. Its perfectly good for that, and it will help me take care of anything else I encounter, provided I have a sword for it.

Therefor, deadly virulisk and skolver are imbalanced. Getting one leaves little to no incentive to get the other.

People craft glacius AND combuster

For the same reason that people craft a gunner set and a swordy set. Because they offer unique playstyles. Combuster lets you light things on fire, and glacius lets you freeze things. Then, you can mix and match them and have a ball.

This is where we can get the most out of the game. Look at items that are similar to one another that players craft and ask why-

Having 2 alchemers, even without the switch shooting tactic, allows for unique types of crowd control.
Having voltaic tempest, stagger storm and any combination of haze bomb allows for awesome effects.
Having acheron and voltedge allows you to counter gremlins AND undead.

But also look at where weapons fail-

Having triglav and sudaruska offers 2 of the same weapon. Players then choose one based on their wants and go with it.
Having nitronome and irontech destroyer offers very little difference. People often ask which is best, then craft nitronome- which still wins out because of its faster movement while charging.
Having a blitz needle makes crafting a plague needle a dull option.

If a weapon is different enough and a decent enough option to support knights, it will see some use. If a weapon isn't different enough, it will be outclassed by a similar weapon. If a weapon isn't decent enough, it will be outclassed by all other options.

The same holds true for armor- chaos makes being a hybrid entirely viable, as does black kat hat. These items are sought after for actual use. Mercurial armor offers a tiny benefit, and as such does not see much use. It isn't different enough from skolver, and is therefore perceived as worse. Plate armor cannot support knights, and is thus outclassed by everything.

The problem with playing rock paper scissors

Is that it artificially creates a reason to craft and attain items. If there was only one damage type, people wouldn't craft acheron. Nor would they craft both argent peacemaker and sentenza. Having multiple damage types, status effects, etc. creates the "different" needed for an item to succeed. The difference between skolver and snarbolax armor illustrates this well- snarbolax armor is unnecessary except for its shadow defense.

Right now, most of the armors do the same thing. Or, close enough to the same thing that only a handful of them are different enough to consider crafting. Lockdown tries to rectify this by adding in striker and recon classes, which serve to add some sort of flavor to the otherwise bland assortment of armors and helmets. PvE tries to define classes very loosely, so that all of the players remain about the same regardless of which armor they take. Swordies can use guns and bombs, gunners can use swords and bombs etc. But each class is limited slightly in how well it can use other equipment.

The other major issues are unique variants. Which are, while a nice and nifty feature, a deciding factor in armor balance. Snarbolax gear has the equivalent of a high UV worth of both poison and freeze, as well as less shadow defense than dread skelly. With UVs, snarbolax can easily beat out dread skelly in some regard, but dread skelly will never beat out snarbolax's attack boost. Likewise, vog can receive a shock UV, but grey feather cannot receive a sword attack speed UV. This removes much incentive to defend purely against something and be "vanilla", which is boring in its own right.

At the end of the day, you end up with a large drawer full of nearly identical rocks, papers and scissors. You then reach in and pick up the sharpest pair of scissors, the hardest rock, and the best looking piece of paper. Because you aren't about to use a broken pair of scissors.

And how could we better diversify the game?

Having such dull options for armor is a noble effort to create a classless game, but also steps on itself a great deal, as I have outlined above. What would be better, is if there were new and balanced styles of play associated with each new armor set. Deadly virulisk could go invisible for a time, and that wouldn't break the game so much. Perhaps require the player to stand still to be invisible, or something of that sort. Statuses could be seen as playstyles as well- heavenly iron could light fiends on fire, while something like surgebreaker could shock everything that you strike. Dread skelly could give the player a poisonous miasma that follows them around and poisons nearby enemies. The options are limited only by the amount of time it takes to come up with and code them.

The same goes for weapons like triglav and sudaruska. These are the same weapon, except for one small change.. why not emphasize the ice of triglav and make it freeze 100% of the time, at the cost of half or more of it's damage? Weapons like rigadoon and flamberg could follow suit. Monster bonuses towards specific enemies could also provide a more intimate buff towards that monster as well as less of a buff towards everything else. Cold iron vanquisher could freeze undead. Wild hunting blade could 100% stagger beasts on normal hits. Other normal weapons that mirror specialized damage could be made to deal more overall to everything not specialized in, as with neutralizer and biohazard.

It isn't about making the stats align correctly, its about diversifying gear and making such playstyles reasonable.

----------------
Rewritten from: http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/79871

Thu, 05/09/2013 - 15:41

Bopp

nice

It's long, but I've read the whole thing, and it's quite thoughtful and insightful. You also propose some decent ideas at the end.

Right now the dominant play style in this game is "kill as fast as possible", and there is a less-popular play style of "support the team". I wonder whether your ideas could (after adjustment and elaboration) spawn genuinely different play styles. It would help if there were more puzzles and team-requiring levels. For example, your proposed invisibility could be used for infiltrating an enemy stronghold and deactivating the defenses, while the rest of the team assaults from the front or creates a diversion.

Fri, 05/10/2013 - 00:04

Fehzor

Oh good, I was worried no one would read my thread.

I really like the idea of having special abilities on armors... but moreover is the general philosophy behind all of this.

Also- Azure guardian should summon 2 NPC knights to fight with you, with mighty cobalt armor summoning 1 NPC to fight with you. Having multiple knights wearing/using it should create a small army. Using Almirian Crusader armor should summon 1 NPC knight sporting Almirian crusader of his own, as well as using something like say, an almire spear (which would behave as a re-skinned sword). Using one piece of azure guardian would summon one knight, while using one piece of mighty/almirian would summon a much weaker version of the final product. Or perhaps would just do nothing special. Or maybe just the armor would summon the knight. Maybe the helmet would do something else.

Fri, 05/10/2013 - 13:51

Hero-Of-Cheese

+1 to it all.

Sat, 05/11/2013 - 03:06

Zorbez

0.o

/applaud
Well... That is the problem with some of the armours in-game. Some of them are too versatile.

Sat, 05/11/2013 - 12:55

Fehzor

@Zorbez
Well.. the problem isn't so much that they're too versatile, but that they're all versatile in the same 3 ways, and even that is artificial. There are 4 widely accepted player made classes in Spiral Knights.

Swordy
Demo
Gunner
and the less obvious yet much more expensive Hybrid class.

Swordies, demos and gunners have small pools of armor that they draw from; because in reality, all of them are hybrids. Its relatively unpleasant to play as a pure sword user. Rather, its much better to have at least one side weapon of another type. But swordies still focus on swords rather than their side weapons. My thought here is that most armor has no place in Spiral Knights because it doesn't conform to a viable playstyle, and serves no real function when most content can be completed without a ton of resistance/defense against whatever it is that you're up against. Its really a criticism of the armor design more than anything else. That things like MSI are too weak, and that things like damage bonus vs. beasts serve no purpose, and could be better made to further the game for players.

------Side Note------

I realize that I sound like I have a broom stuck up my ah- leg? when I say things like

"There are 4 widely accepted player made classes in Spiral Knights."

But that's because if I say what I wanted to say-

"There are 4 real classes in Spiral Knights"

People would inevitably go

"NO THERE IS A DEFENSE ARMOR AND-"

Which would derail whatever I'm trying to say and blatantly misses the point. I recognize that the point of the internet is both to partake in things like this, and to sadistically rip people apart for fun, and am not trying to criticize the so called "trolls". But please, don't consider me to be a square when I write things like that. I have a very distinct choice-

Sound like a square.
-or-
Have my thread derailed by some smart ah- leg?

And I'm saying this because I will be punished for not saying it, and perhaps if I post this, then people won't punish me.

Sat, 05/11/2013 - 14:44

Bopp

I'll say it again

things like damage bonus vs. beasts serve no purpose

You already know this, but I'll say it again anyway: A lot of the equipment design choices seem crazy in the present day, but were less crazy when they were made. Specifically, beasts used to be much harder, and getting blanket damage bonuses used to be much harder, so beast-specific bonuses (WHB, Dragon Scale) were somewhat valuable.

In other words, some of these imbalances arise from Three Rings' inability to keep up with changes in the game, rather than Three Rings' being crazy, incompetent, or malevolent. Anyway, it would be great to see some of these imbalances addressed in a creative way, such as what you suggest.

Sat, 05/11/2013 - 18:35

Fehzor

@Bopp

Most of the equipment design choices were made at the same time as class armors were, and moreover, were implemented at release. All items should have been vaguely balanced at release, but as stated above were not. I understand that some items, like wild hunting blade, are subject to this ruling. However, this is also based on the current theory with which how OOO tends to balance weapons. For instance, most recently we saw the creation of two bombs known as shocking salt bomb and dark matter bomb. These fall prey to my theory-crafting above. That Dark Matter Bomb is weaker than, and not different enough from, shocking salt bomb. The only reason to have both is for specific scenarios- crafting one nullifies ones want for the other.

Sun, 05/12/2013 - 02:37

Geosmin

I'm some random jerk, and I approve of this thread.

I'm also much more a fan of differentiation by mechanics than of the contrived damage types, so +1 to adding some more unique properties to gear! "Balance" means a lot of things to different peops, so before I go any further, to me it just means each option is "optimal" for some reasonable set of circumstances for some likely playstyle you can find, across the whole skill spectrum. (Rather than "newb" and "expert" gear, in the idea case everything's easy to pick up and start using like the Catalyser, but also has lots of potential for rewarding learning how to use it better. Contrast with Magnus and Antigua, which are probably the most newb-friendly but quickly get eclipsed by "real" weapons like needler and Alchemers, respectively.) Regardless of the differences in what our goals are, we seem to agree that differentiation so that options don't compete against each other so closely is a very powerful means to the desired end, to say nothing of variety being its own end as well.

The announced bash and dash features would sound great to me if they were varied and associated with equipment rather than being global additions to the game: dashing could be for some shields, bashing for others. (They'd still sound like power creep that I'm not terribly fond of, but if it were used to add more meaningful choices to gear selection I'd think it more than worthwhile.) Between those, Battle Sprites, (which I predict to forever be known as the BS update- you saw it here first!) and whatever the heck "armored health" seen in the UI preview screenshot is... :(

There's another, orthogonal perspective on "balance" in terms of which I tend to think as well: I rather like the idea of making the rock-paper-scissors relationships more situational, so that most gear vs. monster matchups can slant either way depending on the terms on which they meet rather than just which monster and gear are meeting. IOW, instead of gear being good or bad for particular levels or even weapons, it's got particular playstyle preferences which may vary by level and/or weapon.

I've been thinking, since abNormal-only armor and shield such as Dragon, Silvermail and Divine emphasise defense against projectiles (in general, at least) while Normal-only emphasises melee attacks... I'd like to see a Normal-only shield's special abiltiy be returning incoming projectiles to sender if you bring it up at just the right moment, probably with a big cooldown for this ability, and an abNormal shield do something similar for melee attacks. (probably forking from the same line, like Stone Tortoise from Drake Scale...) This way, instead of the difference being ranged vs. melee focus, (already much better IMO than focus on monster family or status effect or weapon class :P) the difference is instead in the gear's particular way in which offensive vs. defensive focus relates to engagement range. I'd also love to see more gear synergies be similarly situational- as an alternative to Wolver/Gunner/Bomber sets, I'd like to see more boosts and penalties to all weapons, as with Chaos and Plate. Speaking of those two...

For equipment attributes already implemented in the game, I like how Chaos/Plate hybrid trades quick attack capability and status effect resistance for charged burst capability and noticeably heavy Normal defense. It's not as "offensive" or "defensive" as the sets it's a hybrid of, and it's only got a bomb emphasis as a side-effect of emphasising charge attacks. What I would like even more is something that boosts all weapons like Chaos, but giving a different boost to each of the three classes instead of DMG and CTR to all three. Similarly, something more defense-oriented could differentiate its weapon penalties. For that matter, adding a unique "neutral" tradeoff for each weapon class like +ASI and -CTR for one, +CTR and -DMG for another, etc. would make me interested in those "okay, but not the best" armors. I'd like to have something that makes all the weapons in my arsenal feel different, for the same reason I have a wide variety of weapons in the first place.

Sun, 05/12/2013 - 11:15

Fehzor

Offensive tradeoffs certainly aren't a bad idea in my opinion- but there should still be the standard 3 class options of a shadow, piercing and elemental defense option (Yes, there should be shadow/piercing bomber armor), where each just gives you a med bonus.

What I would imagine for "extended class options" as I think of them would be something like:
+2 bomb CTR
+2 sword damage
-2 gun attack speed increase

But also things like-
+3 gun attack speed increase
-1 gun damage

Or perhaps-
+2 gun charge time reduction
+1 gun speed
-1 handgun damage

Why yes, I do find seerus to be over powered.

These kinds of sets should in my opinion, be the equivolant of 5* armor. There should also be more offensive benefits earlier, and more splits in armor lines.

For instance-

Wolver:
+1 sword damage
+pure normal defense

Dusker:
+1 sword damage
+normal + piercing

Dusker MKII
+1 sword ASI
+normal + elemental

Dusker MKIII
+1 sword CTR
+normal + shadow

Ashtail from actual dusker:
+2 sword damage
+normal + piercing

Ashtail from Dusker MKII
+2 sword ASI
+normal + elemental

Ashtail from Dusker MKIII
+2 sword CTR
+normal + shadow

Then these would split into vog, snarbolax and skolver like we have them to-day, but with snarbolax being charge time reduction for swords.... snarbolax armor would be makable via a recipe, rather than from the shadow lair in this model. The current snarbolax armor would be made into rabid snarbolax armor, and would be green instead of red. It would have bigger stats as well. at 5*, they would gain resistance to statuses. The other options crafted from these would be things like perhaps-

voltail (from ashtail from dusker MKII)
+3 sword ASI
+1 sword damage
-2 global charge time reduction
+ normal + elemental + shock resistance

Also-

Rabid Snarbolax
+2 sword charge time
+2 sword damage
+1 sword attack speed increase
-2 handgun and bomb damage
-1 handgun attack speed
-1 bomb/handgun charge time
+ normal + shadow + poison
-weakness to stun

As that would make it very efficient to use swords, but would trade off bombs and handguns almost completely. Sure, you could use trinkets for these, but you could already do that.

Full rabid snarbolax with 2 handgun ASI trinkets with no offensive shield=

+6 sword charge
+4 sword damage
+2 sword ASI
+2 handgun attack speed increase
-4 handgun damage
-4 bomb damage
+normal/shadow/poison resistances
-stun is scary now

Compare to-

Full vog with 2 handgun ASI trinkets and no offensive shield=

+4 sword attack speed
+4 handgun attack speed
+2 sword charge time
+2 handgun charge time
+2 bomb charge time
+normal/elemental/fire

The real killer behind such a set would be the -4 damage, which would make handguns seem almost entirely pointless, and would make it better to just maximize sword asi or add more to damage. That would make handguns even less usable- and would force reliance on swords. And people already do that if they want, but have guns to help them as well, because of very high uvs. This would make those UVs less of a thing, and would make people buy into the armor even more. With the full vog setup, we see how plausible it is to still use SOME bombs, and handguns. The trade offs are huge, but worth it? Maybe, given that you just beat the rabid snarbolax.

Sun, 05/12/2013 - 18:50

#10

Snipm

@Fehzor

The real kicker is how "hybrid" weapons make the downsides less noticeable (Divine Avenger/Brandish Charge, Catalyzer).
Bombs would probably be the dump stat of most players, considering how limited their uses are (always AoE damage in some form, nothing else).

Sun, 05/12/2013 - 20:41

#11

Fehzor

Less noticeable, but even so.

"Pure class" armors would be designed to challenge players to restrict themselves. If you can't get anywhere near enough stats to make other weapons viable, then you can't use them period.

There could be other types of things, like you're saying.

+2 sword damage
+1 handgun attack speed increase
-2 bomb charge time reduction

Would be a nice example of a creative "hybrid armor"... hybrid armors would have to give up more than they gain for you. Another aspect of them could be losing stats on a weapon and gaining stats on that same armor.

+3 sword damage
+1 handgun attack speed
-3 sword attack speed

Would be incredibly amusing. Use that and chaos, and you'd have an interesting strategy. Notice that its theoretically worse than other armors, in that it gives a net total of +1? But its good, because it can be used creatively to give you something like-

+5 sword damage
+4 sword charge time
+1 handgun attack speed increase
-3 sword attack speed

When paired with chaos. Throw in UVs and trinkets, and you've got quite a nice hybrid loadout. Unless you want to swing your sword, that is.

But theres only so much you can do with stats, and the devs aren't even doing that. Instead, we see a bunch of repetitive armor types (shadow + ice + poison anyone? How about elemental + fire?) that outclass one another. Vog is better than arcane salamander, because it actually does something offensively, whereas arcane salamander is harder to get and has arbitrary bonuses that make very little sense and are outclassed by skolver/vog- vog on fire levels, and skolver against beasts/slimes, provided you want that. Its also outclassed by justifier jacket and especially volcanic demo.

What we need are interesting armors with actual unique abilities (like invisibility and lighting things on fire and drawing aggro and letting you use the new dash/shield bash feature) as well as useful and new strategy armors like the "hybrid armors" mentioned above.

Sun, 05/12/2013 - 22:19

#12

Misten

How about allowing only

How about allowing only monster specific damage UV to stack above the current max damage (+6). Or restricting non specific damage to only v.high (+4) and need family specific bonus to go higher than +4 dmg to +10 perhaps. It will make some armors relevant again.

Mon, 05/13/2013 - 09:23

#13

Fehzor

I feel like that would fall in line with what happened with C42 a bit, but other than that it would be a nice balancing factor. It would make them "better" and would provide an incentive to get them, but it wouldn't really add anything to the game. A unique bonus from such armor, rather than a damage bonus, would be better.

Fri, 05/17/2013 - 09:11

#14

Diamondshreddie

Lol read it all.

I have to say Fehzor, you have made a very valid point, while making a couple very good suggestions. You are one of a kind, fly on; curious butterfly (with horns).

Wed, 05/22/2013 - 04:17

#15

Tit-For-Tat

I think so many only use

I think so many only use certain equips because some qualities just aren't strong enough. Why use a tanky armor when resistance matters so little in the first place? Much less having a negligible amount more. Why use x status effect when it does almost nothing? Why put on a bonus versus a certain creature type when it doesn't even take fewer blows to kill them? Particularly with melee, the point behind having more damage should be to kill in fewer hits. Thus you expose yourself less. If it can't even do that, it's just dead weight. It's not even a question of one being too good. It's a question of the rest being unnoticeable in actual play.

We don't need weirdo gimmicks to fix certain sets. We need their qualities to matter. People would use them if they actually helped in any fashion.

edit: How the flip do I get a posting picture?

Sat, 08/24/2013 - 10:51

#16

Fehzor

You know, I think this is the best thread that I've ever written by far. Shame so few people read it. I think I'll necrobump it and see if anyone newer/older that missed it wants to have a go.

Sat, 08/24/2013 - 11:29

#17

Bopp

yep

Yep, it was a very strong original post, although the responses were merely adequate.

Sat, 08/24/2013 - 13:39

#18

Autofire

You are experiencing a PICNIC ERROR!

Do you mind that I made a suggestions thread dedicated to this idea? It should be a place purely for ideas, and not discussing the idea of having abilities on armors/helms? I would put my stuff here, but then that feels like derailing a bit because it's not my thread...

Also, I love it. Your point stands true and I always disliked how armors and helms held a completely passive role unless you get MSI or an attack booster.

Sat, 08/24/2013 - 15:09

#19

Fehzor

I wonder if there would be a better way of going about it though. Like, if they made it so that the armors still represented a class-- but without having to go overboard on the abilities... just, more defined statistical upgrades to make them different. Like if vitasuit had a "low" chance of restoring extra HP from heart drops. That shouldn't be hard to code at all. Or if magic cloak items through gray owlite had global CTR low.

Sat, 08/24/2013 - 19:10

#20

Autofire

You are experiencing a PICNIC ERROR!

Well, while you're right on that, I merely want to point out that global CTR low out modes demo unless demo gets a buff. (Somehow this sounds familiar...) Your Vitasuit heart buff makes sense. I made Vita so you could share the ER as an answer to the complaint about needing the revive buddies with Sparks of Life 100% of the time.

I agree that it shouldn't be completely overboard with abilities, but when you diversify the options you can diversify the monsters. (In theory, anyway. I feel there's probably a hole in this idea.)

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On Class and Equipment Design