Spiral Knights - PVP balancing feature (suggestion striker)

PVP balancing feature (suggestion striker)

30 replies [Last post]

Tue, 03/10/2015 - 08:44

Holy-Nightmare

Instead of having Strikers walk as the same speed as guardian or recon give them an unmodifiable MSD Med.

Aims: Promote class diversity and reliability on teammates. Give Recon and Guardian the edge to take out strikers who use excessive boost. Make striker battles shorter.

Pros: Striker classes would have to be more careful about running out of boost since Recons and Guardians can now catch up to them (as well as enemy strikers with Boost).

Cons: Striker will have trouble running back to base to heal and this debuff will be unaffected by MSI armors like BK or Mercurials

Tue, 03/10/2015 - 11:14

Fangel

Hmm.

Not actually a bad idea, however I would rather make strikers more glass than less cannon. Moving fast and attacking fast are sort of things strikers rely on for defense, similarly recons rely on not being seen and guardians rely on blocking the blows. Removing the capability to dodge is a heavy hit to survivability instead of their defense.

I would rather decrease striker defenses to be 50%-70% of the tier defenses, and guardian to be 120%-130% of the tier defenses.

I see what you're getting at for strikers and I think it's not a bad change, however it's not the change we necessarily need.

Tue, 03/10/2015 - 12:12

Holy-Nightmare

@ Fangel

Reducing striker defenses would make it even more of a Trinket user exclusive class, leaving non-trinket users easy OHKO targets. Guardian and Recon need some changes but that is a thread for another day. ATM recon, striker, guardian all walk the same speed which means a smart striker has total control over recon (you can see invisible one's footsteps) and guardian encounters.

Tue, 03/10/2015 - 12:45

Fangel

Well it is the speed-go-get-'em class

There are other fixes that have been discussed, such as hiding recon footsteps, preventing flinching on guardians, etc... And for the most part those are good suggestions. Reducing a striker's total defense doesn't actually hinder them as they'll have the same defense for the armor they're wearing (chaos would have more than 50-70 defense in elemental/normal, so to say), however it will make weapons they do not defend against hit harder.

I should have said "Base" defense before I suppose, as I was meaning base defenses being lower, not overall defense being lower. Hopefully that's clearer now.

Strikers are OP but only because of things outside of the striker class, really. Ignoring trinkets, strikers would hit the same amount (which is hard) while also being hit harder. A striker without trinkets already dies in two hits to a heavy sword with no damage boosts which they don't fully resist (i.e., that poor chaos user I kept killing a long time ago with my gran faust).

As for a MSD, I think a "low" MSD would be fair enough for the class. Alternatively, have the player suffer MSD: medium once their boost is all used up and for 2 seconds after it's recharged. Wouldn't make the fast class overall slower, but more punishing for using all of your shield (as all the other classes can't just use a dash and have their shield back in full as quickly).

Wed, 03/11/2015 - 11:13

Holy-Nightmare

@ Fangel

Having striker take the full brunt of any attack they don't have armor to resist would also be helpful as it would greatly cut down the time they have on the field.

An unmodifiable MSD would pair well with your proposed BASE defense drop essentially making a boostless striker a sitting duck.

Wed, 03/11/2015 - 11:59

Fangel

True.

A base defense drop would be great in general, same with a base status vulnerability I think. I really am against strikers walking over statuses they don't naturally resist against, or at least we should get more dangerous statuses so rich players aren't always covered (looking at you, curse mist bomb. I really want to make that black kat striker rethink their plan of status walking).

Having a static MSD is sorta eh, but I'm okay with having a MSD: Low that can be overcome by gear. Medium is very noticeable in combat, however low isn't too noticeable from default but will make all the difference in a close fight.

Tagging a MSD and lower base defense on strikers would be a simpler way to go about it (and we'd see how game balance would work), however a situational MSD after their boost is broken would give the striker class more tactic to it. Heck, with that code in the game you could add similar things to other classes (guardians get a low defense boost, recons get a low movement boost) when their shields die.

Wed, 03/11/2015 - 12:30

Holy-Nightmare

@Fangel

A static MSD is to counter the numerous BK set users in LD. Since it would be unmodifiable not even they can get by this one.

The problem with haze bombs in PVP is that the time between status infliction ticks is too long, the current model is fine for PVE but not PVP. If you aren't immune to a status you should get inflicted with a status the moment you step foot inside the Haze.

Cutting resist on strikers by a small amount would still mean PVP is P2W, perhaps even moreso since only the richest of the players can afford to buy or roll the highest status resist UVs. If the Resist drop was large (like -6) then only the richest players in the right set (Skolver with maxed freeze resist) would be able to become immune to them.

I would love to see other classes get boosts but OOO would need to see how each individual one works towards balancing PVP and how they work together before deciding whether or not to include them all or just select ones.

Wed, 03/11/2015 - 13:58

Fangel

Well it wouldn't be much

At most all three rings needs to do is make striker have a universal status debuff of low. What will it do? It will make strikers who use skolver get at least a freeze low on their gear (which isn't too hard to get, nor expensive), or use a freeze resist trinket instead of a health trinket. Does this give trinket users a boost? A very minor one, but they're giving up what makes trinket users so annoying in the first place, which is good for the game.
With a natural -1 to every status, it also makes players who are strikers and wearing anything that doesn't naturally resist the status unable to status walk, as minor status requires 7.5 points of resistance to be immune to while unnatural resistance will only provide 7 with double maxes. Natural resistances also will be vulnerable to these statuses, thus mist bombs will be more of an immediate threat to everyone, making bombers a higher threat.

And I agree, first modify striker, then see if we still need anything more.

I also think that we should counter the issue with striker rather than the issue with Black Kat/Chaos users.

Sun, 03/15/2015 - 08:46

Rectilios

I do agree

I do agree that strikers are extremely overpowering compared to the others, maybe not too overpowering to guardian, but to recon, IMO the recon's invisibility isn't really much of an advantage when you're against a striker, because strikers can just speedboost around the place without having much time to recharge their bar and can do alot of damage, plus recons are too slow compared to strikers, a 1vs1 fight with recon and striker, the recon would have no chance.

I'm not saying we should nerf striker, but recon needs some upgrading,
my suggestions to upgrade recon.

Recon:
make them move more faster while cloaked.
make recons see strikers in the minimap while they're speedboosting and nearby(or maybe others?).

Tue, 03/17/2015 - 10:54

Fangel

Guardian has its troubles too

For the most part these issues arise in Tier 3 PvP. I can't vouch for the lower tiers as I don't want to un-mark all my PvP loadouts just to play a lower tier, but a max damage striker (which are all fairly common) can knock out a guardian shield in a manner of seconds.

We all have our ways to balance things, but my overall status on how to make the game more balanced without breaking the fun factor:

Strikers have a -1 or -2 to all statuses, whichever will prevent status walking double maxes on incorrect gear
Recon footsteps are hidden and recons gain a +1 MSI after being cloaked for 1 second
Guardian gain flinch immunity while retaining invincibility frames

Just these things will shake the meta and put players on a more balanced playing field. Recons shouldn't be noticeable while cloaked, strikers should not be walking through every status they want to walk through, and guardians should be able to counter flinch-locking with ease and without the server screwing them over because of connection issues.

Fri, 03/20/2015 - 09:19

#10

Holy-Nightmare

@ Fangel

Thanks the new BK sets (which need a debuff) you can reach Max damage in T2 as well.

And when it comes to T1 the Triguard set is best since it resists all T1 damage and status attacks (since there is no Pierce or Shadow damage in T1 LD)

Sun, 04/05/2015 - 18:50

#11

Blandaxt

i agree!

@Rectilios:

I completely agree with your suggestion.

@Fangel:

I agree with most of your suggestions. The 1 second limit is just way to short no matter how i look at it. It feels even shorter then the drakon 2 second move variation that gives speed boost. I think while cloaked, recons, should gain a speed boost period. No time limit, but right when the cloak themselves, for the first 2 seconds or 1 second, they should leave a small noticeable trail of dust as they walk. This way, we get a hint of there direction, before it completely vanishes.

@Holy-Nightmare:

I didn't know that there were no shadow damage and no piercing damage in tier 1. hmmmm, that kinds sucks, but that is fine i guess.

Fri, 03/20/2015 - 13:23

#12

Fangel

I say one second for a reason

The 1-second is there to prevent switchshooting gunners from having a fake constant MSI while fighting and make recons who need that MSI remained cloaked. Perhaps they leave footstep trails during this delay time, that's a good idea.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 15:39

#13

Notjerma

This is a perfect idea

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 18:42

#14

Zincamania-Forum

-1 Your status suggestion

-1

Your status suggestion will have the opposite effect. Right now there is a decent variety of viable armors in Lockdown: Skolver, Vog, Snarby, Shadowsun, BK, Chaos, Ancient Plate or combinations of these are all common. If you want immunity to certain mist bombs, lets take shock as an example since its one of the strongest mist bombs, then you can try a combination of UVs or natural resists like the divine sets shock resist. Now if you make it too hard for a striker to reach a decent amount of status resist, it wont matter if strikers use chaos or a set with immunity, they will be walled by the mist bomber anyway. Now since status resist becomes practically useless, chaos sets and even more so BK sets will become even stronger in comparison with skolver/snarby/etc. I believe this is also the reason why chaos is so dominant in PvE: there is strong status everywhere, rarely moderate status,. Since you cant cross active traps anyway, you get no real penalty for using chaos set. In LD its different, minor status can cover entire passageways, and gunners can also spread status that might be a little harder to dodge than in PvE, so many players look at different options as well. To get back to the mist bomb, with the status resist penalty you want to give strikers, ppl now have no reason to try and reach immunity to certain status, they will simply get a chaos set or BK set if they can afford it. They can now proceed to spam max or near max damage bonus guns at the mist bomber, taking him out in a couple shots.

The same idea goes for what I read in one of your posts, about making a striker take 30%ish more damage and a guardian taking 30%ish less. Unless the new values still have certain breakpoints that make the more defensive sets still take 1 hit more than the chaoslike sets, ppl will run the most offense they have in their arsenal, cause defense becomes useless for strikers that take 30% more damage. This will result in more chaos/BK sets spamming blaster lines at everyone, killing strikers in 3-4 shots.

Right now even dual penta strikers arent walking tanks. a voltedge charge can OHKO a skolver with dual pentas, or at least comes very close to OHKOing. Also a 1v1 battle between a skilled striker and a skilled guardian will not always have the striker as the winner, in fact, the guardian has a decent chance to win. To me guardian and striker feel balanced with each other. Recons definitely have some good things in the invisibility and deathmark and their huge amount of shield, which lets them switch shoot guns forever. However I dont think the footsteps should be as visible as they are on snow maps. I think having them be very hard to spot, but still visible to the alert player in a calm situation - on all maps - would be a better option.

Also the reason I think Striker is the most played class by far is not because it is simply the best class. Its a good class but its also the most fun class to play for many players, since its the fastest at getting you back in the action after dying. Nobody wants to spend half the time walking to the action, they want to be a part of the action. Maybe a solution to this is to give all players a 5 second speed boost upon respawning, allowing every class to get from the base back into the action fast.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 21:56

#15

Leekcoco

Nerfing Strikers down -1 for

Nerfing Strikers down -1 for statuses is just going to turn every game with bombers into a Polaris spam war. I know that's probably my counter if it happens because quite frankly every other option takes far more effort than it's worth to get a bomber off a cap. It's fine at the moment because I can probably count the number of Shockwalking Skolvers who still play on one hand. It's not something everyone can afford.

Mon, 03/23/2015 - 08:33

#16

Zincamania-Forum

Imo, its not fine because

Imo, its not fine because there are only a few shockwalking skolvers around. Its fine because its not really a problem. Mist bombers still have 3 other mist bombs they can use against shockwalking skolvers. A poisoned or stunned skolver will not last long, a burning one will not be able to break and kill a guardian before the fire pressure becomes too much to safely handle.

So if everyone starts to run shockimmune skolversets, the meta will simply shift to a more poison/stun/fire based loadout for the mist bombers. Keep in mind that its easy for mist bombers to switch their combination of bombs, for example you might have a very good set that is immune to stun shock and freeze, but if the bomber uses shock+poison, it will still cover your immunity set (with poison cutting your damage output and making you die faster) as well as chaos/BK users who assault the capture point (shock+poison). Immunity to all bombs in one set is very hard to get but will indeed make the mist bomber useless against you. However if you want to achieve such a set, you will have to give up some offensive bonuses.

Mon, 03/23/2015 - 12:02

#17

Holy-Nightmare

@ complaints

As I mentioned in post #2 I was working on some other threads to work with this one.

Since striker is getting a speed and status resist debuff I figured it would do well to make the guardian an even better combat medic.
http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/108938

In this thread I suggest giving the guardian the ability to shorten the amount of time statuses are inflicted to those under the shield and to prevent statuses for those under the shield. This coupled with the suggestion to remove guardian flinch (except when deathmarked) would make guardian the class that would allow strikers to hazewalk and provide them with cover during battles.

I also made a suggestion or two on recon.
http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/108937

With the guardian losing their flinch immunity while deathmarked and the other buffs suggested to recon it too would become a necessary class for LD should you need to counter a guardian while becoming even more sneaky.

Mon, 03/23/2015 - 13:41

#18

Leekcoco

I had a shock maxed Ice Queen set in the past and could walk three bombs, but it was still much easier to gun-spam a bomber off. So yes, Waterbeat is right. The bomber is not playing a solo game, their team mates can easily pile up on you while you're busy with them.

Mon, 03/23/2015 - 20:26

#19

Crashburnboom

My thoughts

Add MSD: low

Lower defenses

Remove Bomb Charge Decrease to low (or none).

Buff the other classes!!!!!

I like the 5 second speed boost idea, but maybe add defense and possibly attack bonuses to help hinder spawn camping.

Tue, 03/24/2015 - 08:29

#20

Holy-Nightmare

@ Crash

Being able to quickly get to a point and setup area denial bombs would be unbalanced especially since with my suggestion strikers would have more trouble hazewalking than before.

Strikers are the speed and damage class
Recons are the area denial, assassination, and debuff class
Guardians are the tanking and support class

In fact I think making the Bomb Charge time increase VH a value you can't modify with armor or UVs would be a good idea.

Tue, 03/24/2015 - 10:48

#21

Fangel

Making it a good value

Not to bring conversation backwards, but the main reason I mention making strikers have lowered status defenses is because I do not want them to be bomber immune. Does it just mean they can bring a gun and fire upon the bomber? Of course, because bombers are weak to guns.

Lockdown already is a damage-spam fest. Look around, you see chaos, black kat, and polaris everywhere. Claiming that this will just make more of it show up is only partially true, as people will just default to max damage sets. Making striker feel obligated to use damage boosting sets is fine, but this also promotes use of a status resist trinket to overcome that status vulnerability instead of another health trinket. You'll have been getting trinkets from missions anyways, hope you held onto them!
It's a shame that we automatically assume a striker is a max damage dual penta-heart pendant player with UVs. By making the max damage sets more vulnerable to statuses (that is, making sure they cannot reach a breakpoint with just UVs) we make the striker a hard hitter, but also hit hard. We also make sure strikers have to take out a bomber creating area denial or waiting for a teammate/finding another way around instead of just boosting through the area denial and rendering the bomber useless to their team.

The point isn't only to make shockwalking skolvers stop, but also to make skolvers unable to freeze-walk without a UV investment (a cheap one at that) or a trinket investment. This also makes players who already have stun + shock + pierce max sets need to re-evaluate their approach, as they have good status resistances for sure, but now they are vulnerable to statuses again.
Keep in mind, if you just change over to recon or guardian you can walk over those statuses again, so all this does is restrict striker movement in a specific circumstance. If there are no mist bombs, you likely won't even notice the change.

Mon, 03/30/2015 - 11:54

#22

Holy-Nightmare

@ Fangel

Mist Bombs are a staple weapon for someone playing to win the match..... most people play to get high damage numbers. I would really like to see the point system get reworked to put more emphasis on captures, defends, and kills than trading blows and running back when your HP is low.

Sat, 04/04/2015 - 06:44

#23

Mookie-Cookie

@Holy-Nightmare

I feel damage is a better indicator of how well somehow is playing compared to kills. I mean, if you engage someone, but you ultimately lose, yet you caused ~80% of damage to them. A team mate comes in and one-shots them because they have hardly any health left. Your team mate gets the kill, but you did the work.

I do agree on the captures/defends part, though.

I'm not sure if you drew a conclusion on the whole MSD thing (given I'm late to the party), but what exactly happens to MSI from sets? Does it just magically not apply? Which means strikers will abandon speedy sets and go more damage-oriented ones, given Quicksilver, etc, are now essentially useless as a striker?
I'm all for adding a MSD, but an immovable one? I'm not so sure..

Sun, 04/05/2015 - 19:36

#24

Blandaxt

WEll..

I Think rock paper scissors is the way to go. Strikers are good against recons, recons are good against guardians and guardians are good against strikers. While good, just means boost in their abilities towards that particular class, like boosting the recons ability to take away half or more of the guardians defenses while the guardian is death marked, or boosting the strikers attack when inflicting melee damage on recons or boosting the guardians defenses when taking any kind of damage from strikers. This way the classes go in a clockwork circle pitting one thing against the other with not too many abnormalities.

Mon, 04/06/2015 - 11:28

#25

Holy-Nightmare

@ Mookie

The MSD wouldn't be able to be modified on strikers so a striker with the BK set wouldn't move any faster or slower than a striker with Ancient Plate set, this would mean ALL strikers have the same walk speed.

Damage can be included but I don't think players should be able to see each other's damage at the least. In TF2 the Medic and engineer play keep roles in winning a game by keeping allies healed and by making it easier to get to the front line. Their roles are passive and while their score may be equal or higher than their allies their damage is often lower. Just because a player's damage is lower doesn't mean that they have less of a place in PVP.

@ Blandaxt

That was probably the original idea for LD but with the introduction of trinkets people can play the striker class and not get killed in 2 sword swings. With the new BK set and several other problems in LD (recon footsteps, guardian flinch) it is the strikers that control the battles. When fighting any other class they can keep their distance and if someone comes after them they just boost away or shoot the enemy in the face. Recons can't catch an enemy that moves faster and can see their footsteps, and guardians can't tank damage as well thanks to VH and Max damage sets that can shred their shield from a safe distance. Not even bombers work anymore thanks to UV rolls and the new gunner weapons, and that stupid ring on the ground that tell enemies where the bomb is going to explode and when.

Fri, 04/10/2015 - 17:57

#26

Mookie-Cookie

...

Just because a player's damage is lower doesn't mean that they have less of a place in PVP.
I never said it did.
Damage has its place within the three roles. Just because people have taken a liking to using it as a basis without it having value across the board, doesn't mean it's any less of a valid way to determine someone's skill.
If a striker gets 20k and another gets 2k, which do you think is the better striker? Now imagine a striker has 20 kills, and another has 2 kills. Which is the better? What if I told you the one that got 20k damage was the one with the 2 kills?
In my opinion, damage is a better indicator of a damage-hungry's player's ability, over the number of kills they managed. Caps, and other stats help to indicate a player's overall usefulness. I mean, damage-hungry players have their place. They keep the other team occupied, while their team caps.
You don't have to be good across the board to be considered valuable.

Mon, 04/13/2015 - 11:30

#27

Holy-Nightmare

@ Mookie

One of the problems with SK PVP is that we have so few values to determine skill (we only have Captures, defends, damage, and the game score). TF2 on the other hand has numerous ways to determine skill.
https://wiki.teamfortress.com/w/images/b/b0/Scoreboard_UI.png?t=20140622...

We could borrow a few like:

Kills
Deaths
Assists (pairing up to get kills/captures)
Defenses (reworked to hand out a point for confronting or blocking enemies that are capping)
Dominations (Killing a certain person multiple times without dying)
Revenges (Killing your dominator)
Support
Healing (of allies)

If people saw that they could score a large number of points with a different playstyle they might try other classes.

Tue, 04/14/2015 - 06:40

#28

Blandaxt

yeah

@Holy-Nightmare:

Completely agree. Besides only having only one type of game for ld and bn, another factor that makes the game not interesting is that so few amount of ways to determine what you did in that match was no counted for and is not part of the game system. Adding so many possibilities would definitely help players feel like they participated even if only a little.

Also, i have one small suggestion. How about late entries into the ld/bn matches. Like if a guy leaves the match and a spot is open on the teams roaster, why not allow a late entry to get in and fill that position?

Tue, 04/14/2015 - 08:15

#29

Holy-Nightmare

@ Blandaxt

There might be some trouble with people finding ways to stack teams, it would be nice if the game Immediately drafted someone from the waitlist onto a team, even better if it picked a person who would help balance out the match.

Losing a good player because of outside world obligations (or whatever excuse they make) and then getting a 4star knight elite drafted onto your team when you are currently far behind in score wouldn't be considered much help.

Regardless there should be more than just 4 variables that determine your skill in LD. Sure a turtling Guardian won't gain much damage or many caps but the HP regen and the damage he tanks is certainly a large factor in a successful game, A good guardian should be rewarded with a big number of some sort of variable.

A good Recon isn't able to take a huge advantage from his deathmark but an allied striker sure can. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to see how much extra damage your deathmarks let your team do?

Tue, 04/14/2015 - 09:42

#30

Fangel

Yup.

I wouldn't really say yes to a domination/revenge point system, but the other ones would be good to add.
Only issue right now is that the scoreboard is so small, so we'd have to expand it more to fit these items in... Unless there was an "extended scoreboard" button on the scoreboard that took up more room on your screen. That'd be good too.

Search

PVP balancing feature (suggestion striker)