Spiral Knights - Some balaning things (sort of) and new equipment.

Some balaning things (sort of) and new equipment.

10 replies [Last post]

Tue, 07/28/2015 - 12:43

Technobrony

I've been playing spiral knights for a bit, and see a problem with some mechanics, specifically enemy mechanics, more specifically, the Darkfang Mender mechanics. As such, I have a suggestion for balancing this, sort of.
I suggest making the wrench wand be able to heal other players (making the right-click heal, instead of shield). If you feel that this may make it overpowered, you can make the weapon take up BOTH weapon slots.
I also suggest making an upgraded "Darkfang Wrench Wand" or something like that, (5-stars, obviously) that has the abilities of the Darkfang Menders (Holding Right-click to to charge a Healing Rune, and holding normal charge to make a healing shield (that is easy for the enemies to break)). If you want to balance this, make it take up both slots, and, if you so choose, have it not be able to melee.

Anyways, moving on to the second part of this post, New Weapons, Armors, and Shields (based on monsters!)

Swords:
(***) Trojan's Blade - A recreation of the swords used by the Trojans. Powerful, but slow. (Shadow Damage)
(****) Darkened Trojan's Blade - A stronger version of the Trojan's Blade, inflicting even more damage, and being slightly faster!
(*****) Shadowy Trojan's Blade - The strongest of the Trojan's Blades!

Handguns:
(*) Puppy Gun - A handgun, that looks, and simulates a Tier 1 gun puppy, shooting a single projectile a fair distance.
(***) Super Puppy Gun - A handgun, upgraded from the previous, that looks and acts like a Tier 2 gun puppy, shooting 3 spread projectiles, but only having a single shot clip.
(*****) Power Puppy Gun - The previous, upgraded once again to look and act like a Tier 3 gun puppy, shooting 5 spread projectile, one after the other, at a shorter distance than the previous, and still having only a 1 shot clip.
(*-*****) Howlitser Hand-cannons (Shadow Damage), follow the howlitser attacks, and look like the howlitsers.
(*-*****) Polyp Needle Gun (Piercing Damage), follows the polyp attacks, and looks slimy.
(*-*****) Love Puppy Gun (Healing Bull(ets)
(***-*****) Retrode Beam Cannon - Fire's a beam, which causes a row of explosions after a short while.
(*-*****) Scuttlebot Gun - Short range, but a 3 bullet spread. (Elemental Damage)

Helmets:
(***) Horse-Head Helmet - A helmet modeled after the Trojans' heads! It's good Shadow Defense!
(****) Dark Horse-head Helmet - Heavy, but more protective!
(*****) Shadowy Horse-head Helmet - Even heavier and more protective!

Armor:
(***) Trojan Armor - Modeled after the Trojan's armor, but improved to be pierce resistant too! (Shadow + Pierce Defense)
(****) Darkened Trojan Armor - A darker version of the Trojan Armor! Protective, but heavy!
(*****) Shadowy Trojan Armor - Heavier AND more protective!

Shields:
(*****) Darkfang Thwacker Shield - Works like their shields, can't be used but protects you from behind.
(***) Trojan Plate Shield - A Plate Shield modeled after the Trojan's Plateshield, and protects from shadow damage!
(****) Darkened Trojan Plate Shield - A darker version of the Trojan Plate Shield, that's even more protective, but heavy!
(*****) Shadowy Trojan Plate Shield - The most protective version of the Trojan Plate Shield! It's really heavy!
(***-*****) Shankle Shield - Enemies can damage your shield, but will also take damage!

Just some ideas I wanted to throw out there. And no, I didn't check all 568+ pages to see if anyone had suggested anything like this. And I never will check all those pages of suggestions. Anyways, if you have a suggestion for balancing, let me know, and I may update the post.

Tue, 07/28/2015 - 13:00

Lord-Kingmeep

Darkfang healing wands for knights

This would be completely unfair on the account that if knights could heal each other with an endless pool of health they could simply stop moving on for a moment and completely heal each other, this would make everything a lot easier and take out the point of dodging attacks since you could simply just regenerate with ease, I mean there is a reason they didn't make regeneration an ability for all knights.

Tue, 07/28/2015 - 13:14

Technobrony

RE: Darkfang healing wands for knights

I do see where you're coming from with that.
HOWEVER.
I didn't list tons of details for a REASON, which is item balancing. As in how much healing it could do (Obviously a LOT less than the actual Menders), and COOLDOWN. Which can both be used to limit it to a realtive standpoint of balance. As it could cause a status effect on knights which lasted for quite a while and prevented them from getting healed by staff for x amount of time.

And part of the reason for the idea of the staff was BECAUSE the menders don't seem balanced at all (others don't either, but the menders are my main complaint). And having a mender class for knights would balance things a little bit, but not entirely. It's NOT possible to be completely balanced at the moment, but this would help with thing until they do. And I know the Tier 3 monsters are for the "best of the best". But that's the thing that I don't like! I'll spare you any more lines of ranting.

Tue, 07/28/2015 - 14:41

Fangel

Er.

We do have a healing class, and it's the seraphynx battle sprite. Any weapon that can heal a knight at will, either yourself or another, does not have a place in this game. Even if you can wait it out, that doesn't stop knights. We'll sit at elevators for 30 minutes if it means we'll get an arena.

Wrench wand is a small gimmick weapon, as is the thwack hammer, and most 0* and 1* items. No need to make a full set for it, especially not as a healing weapon. If you really like the charge attack then maybe suggest it to simply be another cold iron carver but for constructs/different charge attack.

Now as for your other gears:
Trojan sword
Sounds like a shadow troika... Which is basically a faust. Trojans actually deal normal damage anyways, so a troika fills their weapon role there.

Turret guns
It goes from blaster to autogun, but worse at both areas. Saying no to those.
Love puppy gun
As I said before, reliable healing is bad. This is why the seraphynx heart attack doesn't simply heal knights, instead it forces them to mark and kill enemies to get health.
Retroid gun
Brandish charge. Nah.
Scuttlebot gun
Divine avenger swing, but with gun bonuses. Also worse than a divine avenger. No.

Trojan helmet
We have these, except they are costume helmets, included in the colossal promo. So, again, no to this.

Darkfang shield
This exists as a very, very rare item. Last I checked there were 7 in existence, however there may be more that are unrecorded. They act like a wise owlite shield. So, this already exists, just is very rare. I will say no to making it only defend from behind, as all shields defend in all directions anyways, so it's kind of pointless to only defend in one way.
Trojan plate shield
A plate shield variant that protects against shadow? Sure, but have it split off at 5* like all the other plate shields do.
Shankle shield
A shield that deals damage to attackers? Could be doable... Just don't have any status resistances and you'll be okay.

Tue, 07/28/2015 - 15:22

Technobrony

RE: Er.

I just though things were a little under-balanced, in terms of enemies, for the wrench wand healing thing.
As for the rest, I was just throwing things together that might be interesting. I didn't exactly look through the entire weapon and armor database for similarities though.
For the thing that WERE usable:
Shankle Shield - Just pure, normal defense. No status resistance, or other damage resistances (though you could have a split off for alternate damage resistances in terms of upgrading).
I also see you missed the Trojan Armor, which in itself probably has similarities to, or is exactly like, some other armor pieces.

I would have also mentioned permanent weapon and trinket slot upgrades, but I'll make another reply about that in detail later (so don't respond about that yet).

Tue, 07/28/2015 - 16:28

Fangel

Oh, right

Yeah I don't know why I looked over that. The armor for that would be almost identical to radiant silvermail, unless you propose it have normal defense too, which would be a start to throwing balance out the window.

And since you mentioned them here, I'll give you my thoughts on permanent slot upgrades because they have been suggested so many times already - don't make them permanent, make them last longer for a better price.
Slots are the "subscription" model to Spiral Knights. You pay monthly for your slots, or learn to play without them (without slots the game is plenty fun!). Instead of permanent upgrades, have longer lasting ones, such as: 30 days, 90 days, 180 days, and 365 days. Prices would be less than if you were to just buy the 30-day upgrades in the long run, but if you want slots now then 800 energy a month isn't hard to give up. I think in the past I recommended giving a certain percentage off per slot type, so that 90 would be 5% off, 180 10% off, and 365 20% off (based on how much it would cost for a similar amount of time).
Heck you could make a 15-energy 2-day trinket slot, and a 25-energy 2-day weapon slot as well, and give these out in mission rewards for players.

Depending on how much you play the game, these might seem like "permanent" slots without actually being permanent.

Tue, 07/28/2015 - 16:31

Trymal

Trojan Armour

First of all, shadowy sounds sort of... not right. Just plain shadow would be better. Also, the trojan armour could just e another costume that goes with the trojan helm. I DO like the trojan blade, except Fangel is right. It sounds like a shadow troika. That is all I have to say.

Trymal

Tue, 07/28/2015 - 18:43

Technobrony

Will make a new post.

So with the information I've been given here (thanks Fangel!) I'm probably going to make a brand new post. With new equipment that is UNIQUE (transferring Shankle Shield and Trojan Plate Shield), and the actual thing that got me believing some things were unbalanced. If you want to see what all I've added and changed, then check out the new post. It'll be much, MUCH better than this one.

Tue, 07/28/2015 - 22:25

Jcyrano

not a single bomb was made that day

wow ok nice with all the guns and knives that Fangel discarded... what about bombs... YES BOMBS and bomber equipment

Wed, 07/29/2015 - 09:02

Blandaxt

response

- "suggest making the wrench wand be able to heal other players "

* Don't agree with that suggestion. Though having the wand have more uses such as being able to destroy mender's runes with charge attack, being able to impair enemy menders would be pretty cool.

- " suggest making an upgraded "Darkfang Wrench Wand""

* I agree, it would be pretty cool.

- "something like that, (5-stars, obviously) that has the abilities of the Darkfang Menders "

* Completely disagree. Having monster abilities should be limited only to having the status abilities. Monsters should retain their unique abilities. Though having more variety of those monsters is what we need. Not just one healer for all types of monsters, but lots of different kinds of healers.

- "Swords: Trojan's Blade, Darkened Trojan's Blade, Shadowy Trojan's Blade. (Shadow Damage)"

* I like the set up, though i feel it should have it's own mechanic even if it derives from the troika family. Also the name i feel should not be trojan's blade instead name it Breaker blade, Titan's Breaker, and Nova Breaker. This name does feel taken by the breaker line lol, so replace it with spliter. Anyway the mechanic of the 2 swings can be the same. The charge mechanic instead will split the ground in front of the knight up to 4 tiles long and causing damage to the monsters and pulling the monster's toward the line of the slash like the suction power of the graviton bomb. This weapon would also have poison status added for extra measure.

The rest i don't feel i'm too interested in them so i'll leave them alone. Anyway, some nice thoughts.

Wed, 07/29/2015 - 08:30

#10

Technobrony

I DID make a new post.

Yes. I did. And I have the link. It's here.
Also don't ask why I didn't edit this post. There's a reason. Some of it is explained in a reply to a reply on the new post.
Also, thank you Blandaxt. I'll update the NEW post with the modified wrench wand suggestions. :)

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Some balaning things (sort of) and new equipment.