Gunning Update Testing Feedback: Guns - Round 2
Fr, 05/09/2014 - 18:36
Welcome testers!
Time for round 2 for the gunner update - see the details here: http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/100670
Please post specific feedback you have about the guns in this thread. This includes balance, damage, bugs, etc. Using this thread makes it easier for a developer to see what you've posted. Please keep your feedback constructive and with as much detail as possible. Off topic posts will be removed so it's easier to see the feedback.
If you do run across a bug while testing, please file a bug report using F2. Please make sure you give it a short description that makes it clear what the issue is.
Sa, 05/10/2014 - 06:30
#2
I really like the concept of
*edit* After testing move speed it seems there is no increased speed when charging, even though it really looks like there is. They simply removed the move speed decrease on gun charges.
Also autoguns are pretty good in LD now. Not overly powerful but useable unlike before.
Catalyser guns still don't do explosion damage in Lockdown, but now they're even more useless because of the new changes.
Sa, 05/10/2014 - 07:25
#3
Catalyzers aren't as good now
Catalyzers aren't as good now :<
I get that this is how they are meant to work but... it's not as fun!
At least make the charges explode upon death so that we don't have the issue of charges going to waste? I thought that was basically the main issue when using them in parties.
Iron slug knockback still isn't fixed >.<
And lockdown keeps putting me in a game by myself. It's kinda stupid.
Also, sometimes while the game is swapping what instance I'm in, the screen just stays black. there used to be a bug a while ago where it would happen to epople moving to haven on the live server - I'd love if this was fixed so I can play more than 3 games in a row |3
Sa, 05/10/2014 - 07:07
#4
Ye Olde wall bugs
Preliminary wall-charge testing: Antigua line
These guns work reliably:
Proto duelist
Chilling Duelist
Antigua
Silversix
Sentenza
Obsidian Carbine
These guns are very unreliable around walls:
Argent Peacemaker
Gilded Griffin
Raptor
Blackhawk
What makes them unreliable? The final strong shot of the charge attack only travels when fired close to right angles from the wall that you have your back up against. While it seems the projectile is indeed being spawned in front of the player now, the projectile is too big to tolerate any variance from 90 degrees. Notice that all the guns in the reliable list can have their charged shot travel along the length of the wall - presumably they must have a smaller projectile.
Recommended (quick) fix - make all Antigua guns share the smaller sized charge shot.
Sa, 05/10/2014 - 07:43
#5
↓
Supernova is still useless, especially now with the shadow pulsar.
It is hard to test the area denial for other pulsars without full teams, but I think the smaller expanded bullet and faster speed functions nicely.
Gunner damage is difficult to test accurately without the standard +12 hp strikers attempting to kill everyone (grab your coin boosters everyone!).
Movespeed on charges seem too overpowered.
Autogun lines seem to be actually viable now (pending the trinket hp).
Sa, 05/10/2014 - 07:59
#6
Preliminary wall-charge
Preliminary wall-charge testing: Blaster, Pulsar
Because theres so many of them it would take time to verify everything but casual observations so far suggest the charge is fairly reliable up to about 20-30 degrees from the walls. As these 2 guns have a big fat charge shot not much can be done about that, but getting about 120-140 extra degrees (up from 0) is still quite an improvement.
4* and below blasters have new hit sounds?
Sa, 05/10/2014 - 10:14
#7
Some things need to be adressed...
Testing gear at the moment is incredibly frustrating when Lockdown matches have the following issues:
A. Queuing into a match by yourself. It's kind of pointless having a LD match when you're not fighting anyone. Don't allow people to jump into a match unless there's 6 people queued at the least.
B. The "Testers". I say that with quotations because a lot of the ones I've encountered haven't been testing and been having LD matches as if they were on the live server, constantly using swords to kill those who actually want to try the new guns in an instant. Just remove Swords and Bombs from the depot during this round of testing.
C. Usage of Punch. It's hard to accurately test how effective your weapons are against players when everyone has varying defenses. Don't allow people to use punch during this round of testing.
---
That out of the way, all of the guns, with the exception of Catalyzer line is great to use in Lockdown now.
Movement works great, but it feels a bit too good since I could keep back one of those try hard strikers I fought against with relative ease, specifically with Blaster and Antigua line. I really do think that the MSI we've gained should be reduced somewhat.
Alchemers are good as usual.
Antigua is even better than before; I could pepper down a recon with incredible ease.
Autogun is finally usable as the normal attacks can deny areas for a long time.
Blaster is godly, they do so much damage, it's crazy. I'd even believe that the gun would need a nerf...except that everything does too much damage in T3.
Pulsar is finally in line with other weapons. The faster attack speed actually seems to balance out the fact they do less damage. I would like the status chance to be reduced further, but eh, they're all right.
Magnus is great. Rewards good aim with good damage and status and fires fast enough to allow that. The immense cooldown after firing shots is gone, so it'll be more popular than before. Charge attack is unmatched in awesomeness.
Catalyzer...my poor gun is broken cause the darn charge explosions don't work. Please fix it...
I would give more info, but it's hard to experiment to the full extent when players don't allow that. Please consider fixing the issues I mentioned. Also I believe that there's additional MSI gained when using charging attacks; it's not necessary if that's really not my imagination. Another thing that would be nice would be just mailing all testers x2 of each heart pendant for usage in LD just so we can have a more realistic fighting experience like in the live server where they're rampant...it also gets rid of the annoying issue of having to see the respawn timer all the time. That being said, I'll make edits when I try again later, possibly when actual testers are playing instead of LD tryhards.
Sa, 05/10/2014 - 09:25
#8
I'm not sure how I feel yet
I'm not sure how I feel yet about the increase in animation/combo times that you gave the guns. I'm feeling that it is a positive; the movement speed while firing buff makes the "sluggishness" that it feels with the animation completely acceptable, and you can mitigate the slow gun-lowering animation by shield canceling. This is very balanced in pvp - in the main server I can almost switch-shoot spam an alchemer and a blaster with asi med total without much concern for shielding. This is great, but perhaps unbalanced in the main lockdown game.
Damage nerf to pulsar was great.
Sa, 05/10/2014 - 12:12
#9
if guns can move faster while charging could you dop that to bombs too?
Otherwise recon bombers are going to be messed over by the influx of gunners when this update goes live.
Also, buff sudaruska pls
So, 05/25/2014 - 06:04
#10
From the perspective of a casual scrublord player
Catalyzer Line: Just as I feared, they made this gun worthless. The basic shot deals literally 1 damage per hit, and the explosions do no damage. If you paid for an ASI Catalyzer, you basically screwed yourself over. The only practical use for this is tracking Recons, or having fun little ‘COLLECT BLUE SPHERES’ matches. This gun is easily countered by… Everything. This gun is most effective for… Well. Throwing the game.
Blaster Line: Incredibly effective, and the charge is much less punishing to use. The vanilla gun, now in a variety of flavors. The higher mobility makes for harder to hit gunners, and that spells disaster for bombers and swordsmen alike. This gun is mostly skill reliant. Countering and making effective use of this is different from player to player. Arguably benefits the most from Auto Target.
Antigua Line: The charge is still an incredibly situational troll-tool, but the mobility makes this gun much safer to use. Effective for poking bombers and interrupting strikers from afar, yet the damage is nothing to sneeze at. This gun is easily countered by getting in the user’s face and smacking them with heavy damage or crippling statuses. This gun is most effective at interrupting Striker boost and chunking down bombers attempting to charge a bomb.
Autogun Line: Surprisingly effective. To my experience, I found myself gripping on 1% health after eating a Grim Repeater charge to the face wearing a Shadow resistant set (with Shadow MAX uv’s) and two Tri-heart trinkets while playing Recon. If I was wearing no Trinkets and in Chaos, that would mean I would be dead. This gun is countered by moving in erratic and unpredictable patterns. Dodging a charge leaves its user defenseless for a second or two, so make the most of it. This gun is most effective at chunking down players who rely on charge attacks. The basic attack is also very good for poking your enemy from a very safe distance. Definitely worth it. If your opponent is a bomber, they are guaranteed to die to these suckers.
Pulsar Line:Nothing much has changed, but what did change is for the better. The Area of Effect explosion has been nerfed significantly, and the damage as well. Pulsars are now more useful for their (unreliant) knockback, and the occasional status proc. This makes Wildfire a reliable choice against Chaos clones as they slowly burn to a crisp. It’s incredibly spammable, but also easily countered by Antiguas and Blasters. This gun is most effective with ASI boosts and fired off as a kiting tool rather than a heavy DPS tool. Plan your shots accordingly to make the most of this. Otherwise, you can just get the rest of your guild to spam these with you to really turn some heads. But you wouldn’t do that, right? Spam isn’t healthy, so use it sparingly.
Magnus Line: What was once an incredibly niche and horribly underused gun is going to see much more play. Its hitbox is a tad wonky, but the range is respectable for the damage these suckers can dish out. The charge has tons of kill potential, especially the Winter Grave. It’s an AoE nuke that can either Freeze or Stun Multiple targets upon detonation. It lacks the piercing effect that it does for PvE, but it’s easily forgivable given how good this line has become. Proc a Freeze with Winter Grave, and your target is already dead. Better start rolling Freeze UV’s on your Snarby and Skolver, you’re going to need Moderate Freeze immunity to be spared the agony of being executed by the chilling bite of a Winter’s Grave. You can counter the Magnus line by being mobile, by outranging the player with other guns, and by learning to dodge out of the way of the charge. This gun is most effective when you have CTR and have the camera angle advantage, firing off to your foes from the South.
Alchemer Line: If you mess up your Alchemer switches, you will definitely feel the punishment even more. Otherwise, this line is virtually unchanged. Easily countered by more precise guns, like Blasters, and also countered by sets immune to Moderate status. Most effective when utilizing the advanced technique, switch-shooting. Especially effective when chaining together statuses with Hail and Storm Driver. Requires the user to learn how to lead shots, by judging their latency and the latency of other players.
Sa, 05/10/2014 - 21:29
#11
The change to attack chaining and timing actually made things feel less good imo.
It messed up my shield cancelling a lot, and things felt less smooth.
Most fast guns felt waaaay too spammy. Blaster, Antigua and Pulsar line in specific.
I'd rather see their overall speed turned down a notch, but their damage increased. Make being good at aiming more rewarding.
The increased mobility you gave gunners was imo just what they needed, but spamming is exactly what Lockdown doesn't need any more of.
Pulsar is still as overpowered as ever in Lockdown, except they now have faster firing/bullet speed.
This leads to it being easier to fire a 'wall' of bullets in a direction to deny acces. Bombs should fill that gap in the arsenal..
You made the most abused weapon better at what it does. Make it a 2 shot weapon with a slight chance of minor status please.
That way it can still function in the same way, except less overpowered.
Magnus line weapons still could use a damage boost on their normal shots, as it is quite hard to actually land the shot.
Sa, 05/10/2014 - 22:45
#12
"Good at aiming" isn't really
"Good at aiming" isn't really something to be rewarded when the game has autoaim
Sa, 05/10/2014 - 23:08
#13
Auto-target doesn't work for guns when you're moving.
Sa, 05/10/2014 - 23:37
#14
And that's why gunners stop and go every second in lockdown. ^
Gotta get dat AT lock doe.
So, 05/11/2014 - 03:09
#15
Polaris line is way too overpowered. Exactly the opposite of what we needed.
Sigh.
Fills me with sadness.
So, 05/11/2014 - 05:23
#16
Re: Pulsars and catalyzers
Yes I think bullet speed has made the spam problem worse. The damage nerf is largely irrelevant in LD because the main problems with it are too many bullets, knockback and good chance for getting shocked/frozen etc. The damage nerf merely hinders it's use in PvE if anything.
As for catalyzers, they are currently non-usable. The mechanics need overhauling. Look at the shock rifle in Unreal Tournament as an example of a similar weapon.
My thoughts on how the catalyzers should work:
1: normal attack is the same as it is currently in testing. sticky bombs. (they need their damage increasing by 100% though. Very weak currently)
2: The sticky bombs can only be triggered by the cata's Charge attack.
3: the cata charge attack is now a laser. Instant bullet speed and high range, not a slow orb that makes the payoff too hard to be worthwhile.
4: the charge attack does no damage, BUT, it does have 100% chance to shock for a split second. The shock does typical shock damage but only triggers once. This Shock triggers the catalysis of the sticky bombs (science! haha!) and the explosion.
This change would make catalyzers usable in LD (shock would temporarily disable Iframes) and would make triggering the explosions much quicker and more satisfying.
So, 05/11/2014 - 10:52
#17
Chance of poison on Biohazard
Chance of poison on Biohazard tags is low, just like on the classic standard shots. You can find this out by tagging with the Bio and detonating with the Neutralizer.
Chance of poison on the charged shot however, is good. So if you want to use Bio as a poison gun, then you need to stick to charges..
..Essentially, Biohazard has become a shadow+poison version of classic Callahan - with fast charge and walk but a slow bullet.
There are 7 other shadow guns for the Bio to compete with now. It shoots like a Blaster but is hard to hit stuff, does status Alchemer strength damage but rarely causes status, does charge damage+status like the vintage Magnus, takes far longer to set up heavy damage on the level of a charged Autogun and is not even the only shadow+poison gun anymore.
I understand that swapping the normal shot and charge was often suggested but I don't think it was ever a good idea, I guess we will see if the feedback will reflect this. All I ever wanted out of Biohazard was it to be the poison+shadow Alchemer that never was, with 3-shot blaster style being the alternative to bouncy 2-shot and a quirky longer-but-stronger charge competitive with any Driver. Buffing the bullet speed and poison chance is my vote, either that or just straight out swap it out for the mythical 'Poison Driver'.
So, 05/11/2014 - 11:15
#18
On: Catalyzers in regards to PVP
While the changes made to Catalyzer definitely make it better for PVE, it's just disgraceful to see how useless this gun is, and how the Gunner update is pushing it further to obscurity.
On the live server, before the gunner update, the behavior for Catalyzers basic shots are perfectly fine in regards to PVP. It's an effective kiting tool, deals respectable damage on hit. Basic attacks do not apply orbital stacks. The charge attack is bugged in that orbital stacks deal no damage regardless of whether invincibility frames are inactive or active.
For the gunner update, Catalyzer basic shots are disgustingly worthless. Given the majority of Striker players, who is going to make a loadout with a Catalyzer for the sole purpose of keeping track of Recons? On paper, it may seem to make sense to swap the live server Catalyzer's behavior. But in execution, this behavior swap is poor.
In order to make Catalyzers a viable choice for PVP play, revert the Gunner Update behavior, and find some way to fix the orbital explosions bug. Alienating your players for picking one weapon over another is just poor design. Yes, there are other imbalances in the arsenal, but since the focus of this testing phase is handguns for PVP, Catalyzer desperately needs to have its behavior changed back.
So, 05/11/2014 - 12:57
#19
re: catalyzers
In the previous iteration of the Cata changes the orbs could be detonated by anything, including shock. Now obviously we didn't get to try this out in LD last testing session, but it might be possible to make them detonate via shocking only, eliminating the Iframes problem.
The strange thing is though that even without Iframes the orbs still do 0 damage.
To me it just seems backwards that the charge does so much damage now (more than any other bullet in the game) and the orbs do so little. It's not worth using the orbs even.
re: Callahan and Winter Grave. How come the new piercing mechanic doesn't work in LD? Was this intentional?
So, 05/11/2014 - 13:18
#20
Possible Catalzyer work?
After reading through these comments, I'm going to make a suggestion to how the catalyzers should work:
Make the charges detonated upon any charge attack.
What I loved about the phase 1 catalyzer change was the fact that I could lay down charges and then shield bash a crowd, causing a massive explosion. Instead of being a universal support gun, it appears to have returned to its niche state, where players with swords will simply out-damage the catalyzer's target before they can detonate the charges.
I would like to see this gun reverted to its phase 1 change. Even if this shots cannot break blocks anymore, we can manage. Heck, if there could be a check that detected if the shot that hit the target dealt more than X damage point then let's have anything that deals more than 2 damage activate the charge orbital.
I personally view catalyzers being used as a sort of debuff to groups of enemies, be it lockdown or the clockworks. If they group together, then the explosion will be more dangerous.
So, 05/11/2014 - 14:10
#21
Relating to lockdown and pvp,
Relating to lockdown and pvp, has the idea of making the Magnus line charges pass through enemies a reality? As it currently stands, the magnus line is only slightly improved versus things that cannot be pierced and just explode on initial hit. These things are Vana, mini jelly cubes in The Royal Jelly Palace, and versus players in lockdown.
Invinciframes are there for a reason.
Also, the v1 Catalyzer buff where the orbs exploded when any damage was done to them was almost perfect. The bomblets could be set up, and once one set of explosions went off, this could trigger surrounding enemies into exploding as well. To make the bomblets explode twice when triggered with the charge shot was also a great idea, though I didn't know about it until someone told me. I did wonder why a lumber I loaded with shots did not instantly disintegrate, though. V2 Catalyzer breaking blocks isn't essential in my opinion, and the lack of damage makes it completely useless in pvp. The charge does massive damage but is not very rewarding or useful in lockdown.
A happy medium between the V1 Catalyzer change and the V2 catalyzer change would be the shots doing the full damage they used to do, as well as loading a bomblet onto the enemy. An alternate idea would be to have the explosions from the loaded bomblets also trigger surrounding enemies to explode, but not other damage sources. V2 is currently very comparable to the live server catalyzer, easier to use and useful in clockworks but lacking any use at all in LD.
Mo, 05/12/2014 - 06:10
#22
Guns need to be mostly Minor status with few Moderate status exceptions, especially with their regular attacks. Increasing gun mobility/spammability only makes status more overpowered in PVP environment. It's quite expensive as it is to get Minor status immunity on armors, and nigh impossible to get a solid range of moderate status immunities.
Either nerf status strength/chances on guns across the board, or buff armors to have more natural status resistances.
Mo, 05/12/2014 - 09:17
#23
+1 Dutch-Mcloven
All in favour of Dutch-Mcloven's suggestion regarding the Catalyzer's charge. Maybe increase the charge time some to balance it out if necessary.
Now, on the main course...
Blaster-line is pretty strong. All the special variants are amazing at dealing damage and are preferrable where most armour rock higher Normal than special defence. Excellent in both offence and defence, it's an all-round reliable handgun that packs a punch while knocking Knights back a notch.
Antigua-line is still a nasty anti-bomber gun and very deadly in the hands of accurate gunslingers. Interrupting Knights with fast bullets and fire-speed it makes it difficult to get an attack off. They're pretty much unchanged with the exception that the Gilded Griffin is now the ultimate anti-bomber gun as there is no Piercing-defensive bomber gear.
Catalyzer-line is a waste of time. Slow bullets and explosively charged nodes don't harm the target they're attached to. Could be remedied with Dutch-Mcloven's suggestion where actually getting a hit in is feasible as well as allowing the sticky bullets to do some real damage.
Pulsar-line just got even more annoying. My problem with them was never the damage, it was the insane blast-radius and knockback and the three-bullet clip allowing active area denial. With their increased bullet speed, attempting to counter them with a swift Blaster/Antigua-bullet into retreating is incredibly difficult because they just catch up to you. The ultimate anti-bomber gun just became the ultimate anti-everything gun and I'm not a fan of it.
I still stand by my idea of decreasing the clip-size to 2.
Autogun-line is interesting. Granted, I haven't had much time to experiment with them myself I have witnessed a select few players make quick work of their opponents with them. I wish I had more time to make a complete assessment.
Alchemer-line is still excellent. The only thing that make them more difficult to use is when you run out of shield gauge unless you're playing Guardian, as gun-switching is much harder without shield-cancelling now that we have to go through the full animation. I also noticed a lot more internal ricochetting causing massive damage, though that may just be entirely coincidential.
Magnus-line is a lot of fun. Being rewarded with a Freeze with the Winter Grave is especially fun when you get to pop a charged shot at a frozen enemy - executioneer-style. The increased movement speed while charging really helps and is actually somewhat viable now, which is much appreciated.
---
Spitfire still does not inflict Fire with standard fire. I'd like to see it brought in line with the other low-tier handguns that do inflict status with standard fire.
Mo, 05/12/2014 - 12:11
#24
I can hardly give any
I can hardly give any detailed feedback, as most of what I did was already done on the first testing round topic. Also I can very much agree with everyone's arguments in this topic.
I'll keep it at the guns which I feel need more tweaking.
Here we go!
Antigua
Works fine in PvP, if only gunners/bombers attend the match. The constant attack-cancel you can cause with it is great, however.
Catalyzer
It has a strong charge, but it's not enough. The whole idea of bullets being explode-able by the charge alone is very annoying, because it's slow. My idea is to make the charge become like a homing bullet, in the style of a tier 2 rocket puppy. The more bullets attached to the player/monster, the more the charge starts homing towards them.
Pulsar
Well, it is such a hard gun to give an opinion about. It's like they work different compared to PvE and PvP.
In PvE, this gun is good. In PvP it's too good. But I can't hate it. I am all with the idea from Shidara to decrease the clip-size to 2.
Mo, 05/12/2014 - 13:23
#25
I think everyone agrees to:
Polaris (line) is OP, and a good fix would be to decrease the clip size to 2.
Your move OOO.
Mo, 05/12/2014 - 18:54
#26
-
A possible solution to the Neutralizer problem would be a six-bullet clip with increased orb explosion damage.
Using it with many monsters onscreen is just too frustrating, specially with the need to reload every three shots. A six-shot gun makes it easier to strike lots of orbs in one monster (and not one or two orbs in lots of monsters).
Also, as Shidara said, Guilded Griffin is the Magnum Opus against bombers. May as well make a piercing defence bomber armor?
Fr, 05/16/2014 - 06:53
#27
guns
I really like the new blasters. They are easy to handle and have nice range. The new Antigua is kinda pointless i guess because everyone has been using flourishes or blitzes on fiend type enemies so whats the point of it :/. I haven't messed around with Callahan type weapons before but the winter grave makes me want to get 1!
Fr, 05/23/2014 - 02:19
#28
A lot of reasonable things
A lot of reasonable things have been said.
But not enough about knights animation when use charged attack with magnus. Current animation brings a lot of fun in gameplay. Magnus line will be sad without drop'on'buns feature.
ps. Ewbte uses Iron Slug since forever
Mi, 05/28/2014 - 14:16
#29
I disagree with Ewbte's
I disagree with Ewbte's opinion. I will use the charge much more, and even if we had the butt-down I would have used the charge more, just less in LD and other situations where I might be thrown into traps, wrecked by bullet hell, or smooshed by a trojan.
The magnus charge recoil now is much safer and player friendly now, that I will consider using the charge in lockdown much more than before.
I've created a few loadouts to test out the various weapon types VS other players. Here are my thoughts:
BLASTERS
Blasters are a little too powerful with baseline stats. They seem to finish players off a little too quickly, and that's only coming from someone with a damage bonus of medium. Perhaps reduce the damage of these a bit, unless the plan was to make a ranged flourish with different damage types.
MAGNUS
All the magnuses are pretty good! The winter grave is especially effective. Their range is a bit long, but I will allow it.
PULSAR
Despite what other people expected, using pulsar and only pulsar doesn't work all that effectively. The damage nerf on them was good, not much else to change now. (Unless we plan to decrease status chance slightly)
ALCHEMIZERS
Alchs play the same as they did before. I think they'll play out just fine.
Lastly, the fact that we move faster charging our weapons seems a bit odd. When retreating, I simply charged my weapon and high-tailed it for the spawn room. Seems a little off there to me.