Spiral Knights - Defensive suggestions

Defensive suggestions

15 replies [Last post]

Sun, 02/08/2015 - 04:11

Almond-Riddle

I've always been a fan of defensive sets in game. Which is not possible in SK (unfortunately). Understandable, since SK is marketed as skill based gameplay. Walking around as a hunk of unkillable mass doesn't seem very skillful now does it?

But I do plan to try implementing defensive/tankish ideas anyway. I've put a lot of thought into these and I think they're pretty fair.

Also needs mentioning, but this is a bunch of different ideas rolled into one, so excuse the disorder.

Changing the defense of armors
I really hate how OOO approaches armor values since they just copy and paste things with such a simple format.

Well, point of the matter is, I want purely defensive armors (dread skelly, grey owlite) to reduce significantly more damage than class sets and of course, Chaos.

I don't want defensive sets to only rely on status resists, because that would make heating armors pointless. As an example,

Say a Dakfang Scorcher (pure elemental damage) attacks 3 knights. One is wearing Chaos, the other is wearing Vog Cub, and the last is wearing Grey Feather. I would want to take the Grey Feather knight to take half the damage of what the Vog Cub knight takes, and a third of what the Chaos wielder takes.

The plate mails ought to be even MORE defensive, especially because they give a penalty to offense.

Whether OOO does this by buffing defensive sets or by nerfing offensive sets is entirely up to them.

Plate Shields get guardian abilities

You know how Guardian shields give out that big field that protects allied knights? I'd like to give plate shields a similar ability but with some different effects.

Here's another example to illustrate how it works. A knight uses the shield and another knight is inside the field. The knight inside the field (not the shield user) gets attacked. However, the damage that the knight receives is transfered to the plate shield instead.

Now I realize some problems about this idea. The plate shields aren't really all THAT defensive right? Why bother shield for another guy if that guy can just shield for himself? Aren't we taking more damage this way? Won't the shield break if an enemy hits multiple allies under the barrier?

Well here's a feature that ought to fix those problems. For every allied knight under the shield's barrier, the shield's defensive power increases.. This would also give people a good reason to stay under the shield's barriers instead of going all Leeroy Jenkins!!! at every chance they get.

So what happens if multiple knights use the plate shield and place each other in their respective barriers?

Simple, the damage gets split between the shields. So having a full party of plate shielders could probably allow players to take hits like all day nonstop.

In a similar reasoning as above, non-plate shields should get a boost in defensive powers because they lack the plate shield's abilities.

Forge Bonus
At the moment, heating shields give no bonus whatsoever. How about getting a shield to reach level 5 would increase it's shield region speed?

Obviously, this would stack with seraphic aura.

aggro shield
This is an idea for a new type of shield. Basically, it'll have a barrier around it when used like a Guardian shield. But instead of taking damage, it would turn allied knights inside the shield's barrier invisible, so then enemies would go after the shielding knight.

The shield will have relatively poor stats though, working more for utility than actual shielding. It'll probably only have 3* and 4* forms.

nerf the effects of universal damage bonus and separate it from family bonus
Exactly what the above says. Universal damage would probably do about 50% of what it currently does while family bonuses would retain their current values.

I can already hear the damage fetishists in LD cry, but hell if I care. This would make PvP a lot less damage oriented. Though it would make Penta-Hearts even more OP though. Ah well, that's a problem for somebody else to fix.

As for PvE. People having both max family and universal damage bonuses would do 50% more damage compared to people with max damage bonus in the current game. This would give a lot more value to specialist sets too.

Sun, 02/08/2015 - 04:54

Thunder-The-Bright

algorithms are the solutions to any problem.

my thoughts are here.

Sun, 02/08/2015 - 05:36

Almond-Riddle

I've actually read your

I've actually read your suggestion before. I actually gave you a +1 there with my alt. I totally forgot about it though.

Now that I think about it, percentages would definitely work better. But I'm not sure percentages would work with my plate shield idea though, since the increase of defensive power would make the percentage increase in exponents.

Sun, 02/08/2015 - 09:01

Chaos-Mist

Warning: Superiority Complex.

@Almond-Riddle

"Say a Dakfang Scorcher (pure elemental damage) attacks 3 knights. One is wearing Chaos, the other is wearing Vog Cub, and the last is wearing Grey Feather. I would want to take the Grey Feather knight to take half the damage of what the Vog Cub knight takes, and a third of what the Chaos wielder takes."
- I like the idea but your values are rather extreme. Chaos should have a good penalty like this and Vog should have a slight penalty (in comparison with armours without their boosts). I also agree with making the plate armour have the best defence since it's removal of offensive abilities kills it heavily.

"Plate Shields get guardian abilities"
- I don't think any current shields should get guardian abilities. I think it'd be better if they just bought out a Guardian shield line. However I'm altogether against it because that would make people expect them to bring out Recon and Striker shield lines and I really don't want that.

"But instead of taking damage, it would turn allied knights inside the shield's barrier invisible, so then enemies would go after the shielding knight."
- Or it could just increase aggro WITHOUT making the party invisible. As in, they CAN still attack the rest of the party but they are more likely to attack you. Otherwise two of these shields in 1 party = complete one-sided destruction vs any given enemy.

"Exactly what the above says. Universal damage would probably do about 50% of what it currently does while family bonuses would retain their current values."
- We've been talking about this on the Cutter charge post (due to reference of the WHB). Damage bonuses should have a larger impact on a weapon than damage type so as to make the damage bonus weapons useful.

Sun, 02/08/2015 - 10:52

Almond-Riddle

@Chaos

Those numbers are extreme I know, calculating damage is hard because they lack hard numbers. But here's an idea of how I want it to look from lowest defense to highest

Chaos -> BK -> Mad Bomber -> Seerus -> class sets (Skolver, Bombastic, Shadowsun, etc) -> Gunner Armors -> Specialty sets = Divine Veil -> Kat Hiss, Claw and Eye -> Azure -> Snarby, Merc Demo, Arcane Salamander -> Divine Mantle (has to be differentiated because the mantle has no damage bonus) -> defensive sets (Dread Skelly, Grey Feather, Royal Jelly) -> Almirian Crusader, Ice Queen and Heavenly Iron -> Plate sets

Introducing a new guardian shield will causr that to overshadow the current Plate shields. Besidees, what's the harm? People who already have Plate shields will get a happy surprise if this happens. And I don't mean for them to actually get guardian abilities. For one thing, it won't heal party members. As to the fanbase demands, OOO has proved themselves really good at ignoring demands. If this shield buff comes out and players cry for recon and striker shields (they already do btw) OOO will just ignore them, as usual. This one too mayhaps.

OOO's AI programming will mess that up, I can guarantee it (Carnavons damn them!). Nothing short of invisibility will actually allow this shield to pull aggro. Also, unlike the plate shields, allied knights under this shield can still get hit by AoE attacks.

Yup.

Sun, 02/08/2015 - 16:30

Chaos-Mist

"Also, unlike the plate

"Also, unlike the plate shields, allied knights under this shield can still get hit by AoE attacks."
- Not if the enemy doesn't see any allies so doesn't attack at all. All you have to do is have two gunners and two invisible-shield-people and you've just walked through an entire depth with a guaranteed no-hits. OOO already has aggro in the game, they could just adjust the aggro patterns to adjust when this shield is being used (as in, increase the user's aggro, not decrease their ally's).

"Azure -> Snarby, Merc Demo, Arcane Salamander -> Divine Mantle (has to be differentiated because the mantle has no damage bonus) -> defensive sets (Dread Skelly, Grey Feather, Royal Jelly) -> Almirian Crusader, Ice Queen and Heavenly Iron -> Plate sets"
- Why is Azure so high up the list? It deserves to have equal to, or even more than, the defence of the other defensive sets overall. :\

Sun, 02/08/2015 - 20:00

Almond-Riddle

@Chaos

I think you missed the part where I said that the aggro shield has pretty weak defensive stats. To give a general idea, it's weaker than BTB and has nothing but normal defence. Trying to use the strategy you mentioned above will just have every enemy charging at the shield user, also needing to be mentioned that the shield user probably won't be able to dodge because of the MSD you get when shielding.

It sounds mean when I say this, but you're severwly overestimating OOO's capability to program AI. Have you ever fought a zombie? Even when you're soloing and you've beaten them half to death and you're standing only a block away from them, they still sometimes ignore you completely in favour of walking into walls.

I think you're forgetting that Azure is given to you for almost free from missions. That's already objectively a penalty to it's stats due to the sheer availability of it.

Mon, 02/09/2015 - 08:18

Jmmoormann

This, combined with percentage defense values, would make tanking a lot more viable, both for PvE and PvP.

I'm not completely sure about the order of the sets yet, Snarby (and maybe Mercurial Demo) for example are class sets and should therefore have lower defense, Arcane Salamander is currently completely useless so it needs a defense buff (or defense type change) and I agree with Chaos-Mist that Azure Guardian should be a lot higher because of the lack of either damage bonuses or status resistances.

Finally the Guardian Shield idea should be slightly changed. The point some others are trying to make is that if multiple players use the shield at the same time while covering each other, the shield users themselves are invisible too, allowing the other(s) to kill the monsters who can't attack anything at all, because everybody is invisible. Players who use this shield should be unable to be covered by other players with the same shield to prevent cheating.

Mon, 02/09/2015 - 09:07

Chaos-Mist

Warning: Superiority Complex.

@Almond-Riddle

"I think you're forgetting that Azure is given to you for almost free from missions. That's already objectively a penalty to it's stats due to the sheer availability of it."
- That's because it's the game's main line. Hence the Caliber is the game emblem. Giving the main armour in a game a penalty is kinda odd.

"It sounds mean when I say this, but you're severwly overestimating OOO's capability to program AI. Have you ever fought a zombie? Even when you're soloing and you've beaten them half to death and you're standing only a block away from them, they still sometimes ignore you completely in favour of walking into walls."
- None-the-less aggro works in the game well enough. Otherwise the aggro-Vanaduke strategy wouldn't work. Also, zombies are supposed to be stupid.
:\

"I think you missed the part where I said that the aggro shield has pretty weak defensive stats."
- I think you missed the part where I said if 2 people used it both would be invisible. It doesn't matter how bad the stats are if the enemies won't attack you.

Mon, 02/09/2015 - 18:48

Almond-Riddle

@Jmmoorman & Chaos

The main armor of any game always sucks, it's the price of availability. I guess, look at it this way. If a game gives you something for free, and it's really good, would you bother making anything else? If Azure had equal stats to Royal Jelly, except for the fact that you get Azure for FREE, why would you even bother to get Royal Jelly?

Arcane, Snarby and Merc Demo have higher stats because they're Shadow Lair armors.

I missed the part about having two people with Aggro shields. And I also considered that from the start when I was making this thread. I meant to add a part about how having 2 people use the shield on each other they would cancel out, so those 2 people will stay completely visible. I really could've sword I'd already put that in.

The Aggro Vanaduke strategy barely works. I've seen Vanaduke completely ignoring the aggro of the attackers all the time to go after the waterboy. Not the shiv, not the attacker, the Waterboy. The one who's farthest to him and hasn't attacked Vanaduke himself.

OOO's AI programming is so bad, they're known to use obstacles to block and herd monsters instead of programming specific movement patterns into those monsters themselves.

Tue, 02/10/2015 - 00:02

#10

Chaos-Mist

Warning: Superiority Complex.

@Almond-Riddle

"I missed the part about having two people with Aggro shields. And I also considered that from the start when I was making this thread. I meant to add a part about how having 2 people use the shield on each other they would cancel out, so those 2 people will stay completely visible. I really could've sword I'd already put that in."
- Managing aggro seems alot easier than having shields that cancel each other.

"you get Azure for FREE, why would you even bother to get Royal Jelly?"
- RJ Armour has Sleep resist and, I think, is more specialist in Pierce (where Azure is normal).

"Arcane, Snarby and Merc Demo have higher stats because they're Shadow Lair armors."
- SL do not need to be better than other armours. They are already visual trophies. Plus they have boosts in the first place.

Tue, 02/10/2015 - 02:23

#11

Almond-Riddle

@Chaos

I think that managing Aggro is something beyond what OOO can do. You're never gonna convince me and I'm never gonna convince you otherwise, so I'm just dropping the part about the aggro.

Point of the matter is, Azure has to suck.

Boosts that are all over the place and hardly useful at all. For all the trouble it takes to get them, I'd rather they actually be worth the trouble from a statistical point of view.

Tue, 02/10/2015 - 13:19

#12

Chaos-Mist

Warning: Superiority Complex.

"For all the trouble it takes to get them"
- Need I point out Royal Jelly Palace is probably first or second most played mission. The Jelly armour is available at 3* in tokens and is also a HoH armour, making it extremely easy itself. Getting 5* Jelly is definitely easier than getting 5* Skelly, and Skelly has no boosts so should have higher defence than Jelly, rather than being in the same bundle.

"Point of the matter is, Azure has to suck."
- Stop hating on Azure. It's got to be a line which is definitely not meant to be the best but it shouldn't "suck".

Tue, 02/10/2015 - 13:34

#13

Fangel

Hmm.

I like the suggestions sort-of. An aggro shield seems neat with the other concerns others have shown. I mean, what the shield could probably do is apply a "status" effect that tags the player as "invisible" (like dodging does) while inside the shield, but while shielding applies an "attack-me" tag to you that overwrites an "invisible" tag.

Defense rewrite is needed. Thunder's thread is one I'd like more, but in general the idea is the same.

If universal bonuses stack with family bonuses, all the better. It'll make all the gunner armors fun to mix and match family bonuses with universal if needed.

However, in your hierarchy for classes, arcane salamander and heavenly iron should probably split and make their own group, maybe above specialist sets. They are specialist set reskins with a slight modifier to stats. Cobalt line should be put up the ranks though, as although the recipes are given away for "free", it's the only set many new players see and should thus allow them to survive.

Wed, 02/11/2015 - 04:09

#14

Almond-Riddle

@Chaos When I said for all

@Chaos
When I said for all the trouble they're worth, I meant the shadow lair ones. not Royal Jelly.

@Fangel
Of course in my chart azure is bad by comparison. But it's still higher than Specialist sets and is a more than durable enough to carry you through tier 3. It's totally possible to play through the whole game in Azure, it's just bad by comparison to all the other armors. Sure, I might bump it up to have defense equal to the defensive sets, but certainly not more.

Also, Arcane Salamander and Heavenly Iron are both already really high up the list. Especially Heavenly Iron because it comes with a shock penalty.

Wed, 02/11/2015 - 12:12

#15

Fangel

Yeah, something like that.

Defensive sets are pretty much the "special damage defense" sets, whereas cobalt is "a fair amount of normal damage, and piercing because why not". Doesn't need to be above defensive sets, but should be close-by.

I was saying arcane salamander and heavenly iron should be moved down so that they're close to the other specialist gear. They are both still specialist armors. All statuses except for curse are more or less viewed as equal via the game's logic, so no need for anything super special there.
Heavenly could have an overall boost to defense, but it shouldn't really be up there with the more defensive-sets when it's not really defense-oriented.

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