I must agree, the design could be improved. I think these need revision:

1: Block delay time.
2: Hitboxes and range of enemies.
3: Camera angle (option of top view)
4: Shield push as a separate action (as an option)

I think they also need more creative ways for mobs to attack. Currently, some of them have incredibly lazy design, or flawed mechanics. (quicksilvers or oilers, just to mention some examples).

The game is good, don't get me wrong. I enjoy it, but I'm not planning on spending a dime until it gets out of this wierd beta phase. And yes, I like to support the games I play.

Edit: Added 4th point.

The game has its issues, but were you trying to solo a level 17 arena with 2* gear with a gamepad? If you look around the forums or the wiki, or if you take some time to learn while playing, you will discover their weaknesses.

@Majic.

Actually, shock and fire arenas in t3 are easily soloable too.

That's not the point though, it's no excuse for lazy design, crap camera and flawed hitboxes.

"1: Block delay time.
2: Hitboxes and range of enemies."

These are actually caused by latency/lag, not intentional balancing. Character locations and activity are tracked primarily serverside, not clientside. There does appear to be some lag compensation in effect (where it can detect when you actually started your melee swing and adjust the timing of the hhit to match), but it can't "predict" your blocking and dodging. So you need to block and dodge a split second early, like in most online games.

(You don't have to worry about latency in Phantasy Star Online, but due to its clientside handling of everything, weird things happen when the game desynchronizes-- the same monster being in two different places attacking two different characters at the same time, for example.)

If you're fighting Zombies and Retrodes, you need to remember that you can't merely sidestep their melee attack, as they track you during the windup and follow-through. Shield-cancel after the second combo hit to survive it.

The game is really hard when you play with random people, here is a few examples what they do to make your life harder:

• trigger retrode beamspam
• trigger flame/rocket gun puppies
• spam calibur's charge attack (knockback)
• finish heavy sword combos (knockback)
• spam nitronome (knockback/visibility)
• spam agni of ash (visibility)
• spam antigua lines at wolvers/devilites (trigger dodging on all, don't hit any)
• shield bash blast cubes at 1/2 till explosion on you

That's because of latency compensation in that game. Blocking and movement do not appear to have latency compensation in Spiral Knights-- get two computers playing together in the same room and you'll see the split-second delay when the other player moves or blocks. The latency compensation DOES seem to be applied to certain attacks, which is why you might sometimes see your combo finisher swing twice in a row, while still dealing only one hit.

Let me address everything from the OP:

• Oilers "POWERSLIDE FROM HELL" were intentionally designed as part of its attacks. I'm not sure what you mean by "the entire lichen family" because I've never had difficulties with them with the exception of Oilers that are on fire, Quicksilvers that have been electrified, and large numbers of Toxigels.
• Gun puppies blasting at you while you try to kill 30 mecha knights is challenging, not broken or "lazily designed", in my opinion. I can solo an entire T3 fire arena with my Vanaduke character (DA/Peacemaker/Vog set), without dying a single time, and in fact without losing more than 50% of my health.
• The delay between pressing shield and it actually deploying is most definitely NOT 1 second. At most, it's 15-20 frames (~0.3 seconds). You are more likely having latency/network issues. How do I know how many frames it is? Well, I don't. But I've played enough Street Fighter to tell you that my estimate is accurate enough for practical use.

Body blocking is definitely a legitimate concern while fighting, and one strategy that I employ is "feathering" my shield. Basically you're spamming your shield button to get the knockback effect multiple times. Using this and paying attention to the attack patterns of everything surrounding you, it's possible to get mobbed by oilers and mecha knights and emerge unscathed. And I'm not just talking out of my ass because I've been in this situation and not gotten hit once, on several occasions.

@Novareid.

Can't spam shield push, since it has a cooldown. Also, the shield animation is not synchronized with the actual shield ability. The shielding itself takes too long for this kind of game, even on a lag free scenario.

I'm sorry, but you may have a laggy connection. OOO being a Java corporation does not help, apparently, but it works WELL with Spiral Knights. One can play it ANYWHERE. They sacrificed a little bit of performance for portability.

Second, Spiral Knights is server-side in order to prevent hackers from changing their client to do outrageous things. I play a client-side action game, which is some years old and has virtually no lag, BUT THE HACKERS ARE HORRIBLE. Lag or hackers? I'm surprised that no hackers are in Spiral Knights yet.

Third, once you have obtained a better connection or reset/repair it using Windows/manual methods, you must learn how to play better. I get lag issues as well, and it takes perhaps a second to register attacks from monsters. The answer is simple: keep your shield up longer until the effect hits. I must admit that my connection is from a USB Modem, so it is better than wireless. Even so, you must adjust your playing methods according to the lag: IT IS POSSIBLE, and with some games, it can be accepted.

The other thing that may be contributing to slow shield response is the recovery time after an attack. If this is the case, you may be overcommitting yourself. Try using just the first strike or two of a combo. Or get a cutter line sword, which allows fast shield response just about any time you need to interrupt your attack to defend yourself.

@Gigafreak

We are not talking about latency issues, but even with them there are many ways to reduce the impact of it by huge amounts, like GGPO's rollback technology. The "cast time" in shielding forces you to shield on prediction, and not on reaction, on an "action" based game. That's a poor game design decision, in my opinion.

The hit box - net code issue is just trash. So many games handle it just fine (just look at Bloodline Champions, to give one example), but you still think that we need magical prediction machines to handle it? The net code and hit box handling is sub par (at best), and this game can improve those 5 times and still be subpar. They need to adress them, it's urgent if they plan to implement PvP mechanics that will frustrate the players their way out of the game.

Your ignorance in the subject is clear, so let's just agree to disagree here.

@ Novareid:

20 frames?

At how many FPS you think this game runs?

And/or, are you aware that the shield animation isn't in synch with the actual protection?

You are implying that it takes around 0.3 seconds to go from neutral state to safe state (on a lag free scenario)? My estimation would go more around 0.6 at best (with my experience on competitive PvP games, witch is not great).

My suggestion would be to reduce the "cast" time to instant, to promote reaction gameplay and not predictive gameplay. This doesn't mean it should cancel other action's animations though, it would work just the same, just faster. A strong point on this belief is the future PvP mechanics. The game in general is a little too slow, in the annoying way but also in the "it can be improved" way.

I like this game a lot, but it has some issues (some mentioned on this thread) that put it into shame when compared to similar games.

It is kind of free though, i'll give them that. They might not have the resources needed to make a first world gaming experience.

Actually that sounds like a good idea... I'll try to do some more numbers and make a thread in the Suggestions forum.

Fair enough. I find it sufficient in almost all situations, and I don't consider myself to have fast reactions, so I don't really agree.

I have no way to confirm whether the delay between keypress and activation has a built in delay, or is entirely due to network latency. However, it occurs to me that since different people will have different network latency, having a built in minimum delay would put players on more even footing. While requiring better prediction instead of better reaction time might arguably be bad for PvP, so is giving an inherent advantage to players with faster connections. If there is an inherent minimum delay, though, it would make a lot more sense for it to be represented in the shield raising animation.

@dirt

You are the one confused. :)

It's not block issues (at least for me), as said before, I solo my way to the core on a daily basis including arenas and danger rooms. You completely missed the point, and I strongly suggest you to try and understand the thread replies if you plan to continue on this debate.

Just to quick adress your missunderstanding: let's give you 100% skill, you are the most skillful Spiral Kinights player in the history of the universe, and you are very popular with the women because of that. With all the real money you've got from your pro status, you were able to hire people to run tests on frame data on Spiral Knights. Write those numbers. Now put us the noobs that need to learn to play and lack skill into those tests. You'll notice that frame numbers wont change.

Also, if the speed of an attack (neutral to damage status) is faster than the defensive mechanic (neutral to protected) you are forced to play in predictive ways. You, dirt, still have all the women and are incredibly popular because of your Spiral Knights skill, but you are blocking those attacks on prediction not on reaction.

As you can see, we are not talking about what you are talking about. :)

I think this game would benefit a lot from reaction mechanics, even more with PvP gameplay.

Sorry, AkuTenshii. I don't mean to over-analyze or make you feel defensive. The reason for it is simply that I said it sounds like one thing, someone else said it's another. We can only guess at what's affecting you based on our own experiences, and your words. Thanks for the clarification.

Now, is the noticeable delay between keypress and visible shield activation, or between keypress and actual safety, with the shield visibly appearing very quickly?

@TiVVV34

Exactly.

Actual dodging on reaction is so rewarding and requires actuall skills (again, take a look at Bloodline Champions). But this game's current mechanic's approach rewards prediction too much, and extinguish reaction on many scenarios without other reason than lazy design or poor design approaches (like the one given by you).

The balance in this game IS horrible. Gunslingers really could use some love!

Remap shield to right click, attack to left click. Don't always use your entire combo of attacks. Problem solved.

I'm starting to wonder if this is one of those "Gear > Skill" scenarios, where no amount of personal ability can compare to having better stuff.

For what is worth, when the Jade Titan gate went online, I decided to get my T2 access by soloing as far as I could with strictly proto-gear. I soloed all of T1 and the first two levels of T2 (up to depth 10) without dying, and I stopped only because I ran out of time. I'm certain that this is not any sort of record, I'm not that skilled of a player. I doubt you can get through all of T2 with just proto-gear because eventually two healers can heal each other quicker than you can possibly deal damage and your proto-shield can't hold off greaver attacks, etc., but skill goes a very long ways.