Spiral Knights - PVP balancing feature (suggestion guardian)

PVP balancing feature (suggestion guardian)

10 replies [Last post]

Mon, 03/23/2015 - 11:54

Holy-Nightmare

Guardian is probably one of the least used classes in LD and when it is used it is often used for it's large HP, self shielding, and ASI. Guardian works ok as an offensive class but it suffers when it comes to team support. This class needs some sort of greater support feature than just covering a few hits for allies.

Suggestion: Give the guardian the ability to make status countdowns go faster for allies under the shield, prevent status for allies under the shield (allows allies to hazewalk when under the shield), double the shield healing rate when on a heal pad (in or out of base. In addition to this the guardian should not flinch to prevent them from getting stalemated by a haze bomber and should have damage taken by the shield be unaffected by damage boosts. After leaving spawn the guardian has a short amount of time where all under his/her shield be immune to damage and deathmark (spawncamp prevention). The Guardian shield should also be subject to the recon Deathmark but to a less extent (20% more damage and flinch immunity removed).

This would make a good guardian the player who indirectly turns the tide of a battle and should be the focus of both the allies and enemies. Taking out the guardian and not the back and forth of striker battles should be the way victory is earned. This would also make recon a key factor in taking out a guardian.

This suggestion in conjunction with:

http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/108689
http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/108937

should work well to make recons more effective at taking out guardians and making guardians a striker's best friend.

Mon, 03/23/2015 - 20:14

Crashburnboom

Guardian Speaking

I'm a Staunch Guardian/Recon in LD and I agree with this. +1
Too many times have I been flinch locked. I don't like shield flinching. I WANT to counter.

I'm interested in the spawn camping mechanic though. Never thought about that.
I'm neutral about the status.
However I think that Guardians should have an increased MSI (low) (at least in shield) as I have trouble keeping up with my striker "team"mates
For balance purposes, this MSI could be possibly only activated when a teammate is in the shield, encouraging guardians to guard their allies.

In addition, I think guardians should just have a greater healing factor in general (1 pips p/s), not just on healing pads. 1/2 pip is REALLY slow, and I don't even trinket.

I'm OK with dealing with Deathmarks though. I think that recon deathmarks SHOULD effect guardians more, which helps the assassination of solo guardian, further improving the need to be with a striker to guard the guard so to speak. I have an Idea about recon deathmarks, but I'll post that in the recon balance thread.

The meta should be Striker < Guardian < Recon < Striker

I"m glad you made these threads btw :3! I REALLY hope OOO listens. Just this once, at least.

Tue, 03/24/2015 - 08:17

Holy-Nightmare

@ Crash

I really like the idea of boosting MSI when covering a teammate, perhaps for the recon's sake this ability would only activate when covering a striker. This would make it so a Fast moving Guardian that appears solo wouldn't give away the recon's position or presence.

I think that buffing the heal rate when on an HP pad would make players value and desire to hold those positions just as much as a control point.

Tue, 03/24/2015 - 12:30

Fangel

I like it

I agree to the idea of guardians having a MSI while shielding a teammate. However, it should only be in effect when covering a non-shielding teammate (aka, striker boost, recon cloak, and fellow guardian shielding will not provide you with a MSI).

Another thing to consider would be if enemy recons could heal while inside the range of a guardian shield while cloaked, and while doing so, damage all players within the shield instead of heal them. The damage would be about 5 pips worth of normal damage (thus can be resisted), and the recon would still heal for the usual guardian shield amount. The recon would not lose shield while inside of an enemy guardian's shield range, effectively making them invisible to the guardian.
This introduces a new idea too - shielding guardians cannot be affected by the initial deathmark. However, a teammate that walks into a guardian shield will get deathmarked, and perhaps deathmarked players cannot be protected by the guardian shield. This means a recon hiding inside an enemy guardian shield would essentially kill off the guardian's teammates if they walk into the shield and get deathmarked, as they will have no defense and be losing 5 pips of health per second. Bonus points if a recon hiding in a guardian shield instantly deathmarks enemies.

When the guardian lowers their shield, they can be affected by the initial deathmark, and even if they shield again they can be fully deathmarked, and be remarked for as long as they shield.

What does this do? It makes the new guardian very vulnerable to recons, and recons would turn guardians into moving circles of damage rather than a teammate protector. Guardians can still fight back, but if all they do is shield on a control point then a recon could sabotage their operation.
And with that idea actually, make recons able to capture points 20% faster than the regular capture rate while cloaked, and allow them to capture points at 10% of the current rate while cloaked and only one enemy is on the point. A guardian capturing a point will not actually be capturing it while a recon sits inside their shield, and once they notice they'll have to fight back the recon.

Bottom line I like your guardian suggestion, but I hope that the flinching carries over to not shielding as well so you can be swinging large swords like nothing's even hitting you.

Tue, 03/24/2015 - 18:49

Crashburnboom

Much appreciated! @Holey

Much appreciated!
@Holey Nightmare
In my experience, those field healing pads are often the source of much conflict and well sought after anyways. I see players defending the healing pad to get a few, essential pips in the middle of fights. But the problem is the lack of healing pads on many maps (aside from the spawn ones). Also, the places where those few pads are, are usually battlegrounds or shoved to a corner where only a few can use them rarely. The latter are are barely used as well because you could just go back to base instead.

Besides, strikers need a better incentive to go under a shield (more hp). 1/2 pip isn't enough when you could just be speeding back to your base healing pad, right? This especially applies to hp trinket players (of which, I am not). In addition, I find myself waiting like 20 long seconds using my shield to heal off some damage I took. (when lo and behold, I come across another striker).

Not sure about the MSI only with strikers though. It might be hard to distinguish strikers from recons in the game's code. And give guardians less incentive to pair up with recons, which I find to be the best allies (because they can help "defend" you and you can keep up with them :P).
And if recons get any MSI as often suggested in the recons balance thread, then Guardians might not be able to catch up.

@Fangel
That whole Guardian into damage dealer is an awesome idea. That could help balance recons against guardian + striker pairs.
Also, I question the amount of damage that is done (as we are trying to make guardians a bit more supportive and balancing the other classes will increase the amount of recons) but that's negotiable. Maybe just cause 4 pips of damage upon mark and canceled out healing? We should move this discussion to the recon balance thread.

Wed, 03/25/2015 - 11:16

Holy-Nightmare

@ Crash

Recons should be able to move faster, if they move the same speed as a guardian shielding them they won't be able to take full advantage of the shield (moving in and out to attack enemies and cover the Guardian)

If guardians restored HP faster then it would be harder to get out from under a camping team (even with the other guardian ability I had suggested), keeping it low means they have the ability to lengthen the time of allies on the field, not make it near permanent. HP pads are generally located a decent distance from spawn to make it a bit harder to camp teams, making the Heal power increase only when on HP pads means that to provide that help to the team the Guardian can't be giving support on the front lines.

Wed, 03/25/2015 - 18:30

Crashburnboom

@Holy-Night

@Recon Speed
Hmmm. The problem is that there needs to be a greater incentive for the recon/striker to stick around the guardian. (Generally, my teammates leave me in the dust if they are even slightly faster than me.)
Let's talk about that. Should there be a boost for other players? Maybe 1 full pip p/s for being unshielded. Or some form of defense or attack bonus (which incentivizes players to go in the shield for greater attack speed? I'm not sure boosted healing on a pad would be "greater support"

Well, why (as a striker) would you want to wait around to be heal...

Oh wait! You mean the Guardian's healing power increases when the GUARDIAN is on the pad right? I thought you meant the healing power is greater when someone is both in the shield and on the pad. Derp I'm an idiot. That's a nice idea.
BUT
Still, there needs to be a bit more pads on the map and in more available areas for that to work. Pads right next to the conflict? Like that one on the bottom of that map that I can't remember with the two pillars on top of it outside the two compounds.
Also, I feel the Guardian Should be helping teammates on the front lines. As a guardian, do you want to be sitting on a heal pad all game? You can't really move either when you're limited to a 1 by 1 area of the heal pad. That's just asking to be gunned, etc. I'm not sure doing that counts as "support".

Actually here's an idea: Guardian healing is boosted on heal pads and control points.... (that's probably a bad idea, but it would help the guardian protect points). But I do think that Guardian healing should be greater.

Anyways lets talk about other forms of support.
- We could have a damage boost, which encourages players to attack in the shield (and onto enemies that get into it with a sword) and protect the guardian by shooting inside the shield.
- We could have a boost to defense
- We could make shield regeneration be a greater effect (not having to wait for it and a passive effect)
Strikers do value the amount of boost they have.
For the sake of balance the shield regen would not affect the guardian's shield
- We could double healing
- On healing pads
- On control points and healing pads?
- Not at all
- I don't think boosting MSI in the shield would be good as it hinders guardians from catching up with their allies.

And Spawn Camping should also be addressed, though I'm not sure if this is the thread to talk about it.

Wed, 03/25/2015 - 22:22

Blandaxt

how about....

@Crashburnboom:

Love your ideas so far with fangel's and holy-nightmare. I was thinking why not give all players under the shield a temporary 3- 5 second mini shield that they can take with them out of the shield like a buff and a movement speed boost. This would make guardians buffers. This way guardians would be appreciated when they activated their shield.

Also why not give recons that ability to stun and inflict movement speed decrease low on a player they attack that has deathmark so that would make recons debuffers/negative inflictions. This way guardians and recons would be the opposite of each other. While a striker would gain the ability to strike extra hard at recons that are cloaked. So if a recon is cloaked, there defense would drop down to a striker making strikers the ban stick for recons. This way recons would try there best to fight while cloaked or just fight strikers not cloaked.

Also what you said before about guardians not flinching when attacked and getting extra defensive abilities when getting attacked by a striker. This way guardians would have a lot more health when fighting strikers and guardians would have a more defensive advantage when fighting recons.

Thu, 03/26/2015 - 11:41

Fangel

Hmm.

If we could have a natural "damage bonus vs (class type)" of medium per shield, that would be kinda neat to encourage the combat triangle. Make that stack on top of other damage bonuses too, so you can technically have +8 (!) to a certain enemy type, and after doing this give strikers a -2 against guardians. This just means a striker without damage boosts will be doing base sword damage against a guardian and VH sword damage against a recon. These bonuses are applied after all other bonuses, so even while using the black kat set strikers couldn't reach max damage VS guardians. That gives guardians artificial defense against strikers without technically "boosting" their defenses.

If we were to do this I don't recommend giving recons reduced defense while cloaking as they'll be super susceptible to strikers already.

Mon, 03/30/2015 - 11:40

Holy-Nightmare

@ Above

Even with the current Mechanics a good guardian can be an amazing utility to their team potentially doubling their staying power on the field. The problem with guardian now is that it has little to defend itself. Without good teammates it will quickly get gunned down by the much faster classes and with flinch it offers little to point defense.

Along with a few buffs I would LOVE to see a few new missions of even short video guides explaining how each class should (basically) be used.

@ Fangel

I have always thought that a good idea since it would really help out with balance. (our current class choices are like Kalos region starter Pokémon...... everyone gets Froakie/Striker.....)

Sun, 04/05/2015 - 19:19

#10

Blandaxt

HAHA

@Holy-Nightmare"

HAHA, so true. Everyone picks the fire pokemon. not the water or grass type cause striker is faster. I think having the system be more balanced like rock paper, scissor would definitely improve gameplay and team coordination. Similar to this game i use to play called fantasy earth zero.

Kinda wish sk had a bit more of this feeling. You know, more npc contact, having a layout fied showing the center base field of the intelligent enemies like gremlins, robots, fiends ect. General field for weaker general monsters like beast, jellies, ect. And more of a pvp layout where players could fight each other not just for money, but territory, and the battles actually matter. I miss this game T_T..... oh well. Moving on.

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PVP balancing feature (suggestion guardian)