Spiral Knights - Sleep status revisited and a suggested alteration to make it unique and balanced

Sleep status revisited and a suggested alteration to make it unique and balanced

10 replies [Last post]

Wed, 09/02/2015 - 08:21

Holy-Nightmare

So, most if not all of us know that the Sleep Status is currently not in the game although it used to be. The large reason for why it was removed was because it was overpowered but abusable in the right circumstances. The Sleep status acted like Freeze in a sense as it prevented movement but it also prevented players from attacking as well meaning that getting hit once with sleep in a Solo party would be a death sentence. However, it also would slowly restore HP and in a large party players would take advantage of this by taking turns getting put to sleep while the others kept enemies at a distance.

So..... with sleep removed that means we have some armors with useless penalties and resistances. There have been quite a few suggestions on what to do so I thought I would throw something in as well.

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So what would be a unique effect that fits in the current game mechanics and is not abusable or OP? I propose that Knights afflicted with Sleep go into a "Drowsy" state.

When in a "Drowsy" state your knight will suffer debuffs, mainly in Damage and CTR. A Strong Sleep status would apply a -12 to CTR and Damage essentially making your attacks do about as much as a wet noodle. (-12 to make any set bottom out in power, even BK and Chaos)

In addition to this Chaos and BK sets would gain a Maxed Sleep Penalty (mostly because I just don't like those sets)
Plate Sets would have their Sleep penalty removed
GU sets would gain new sets with Sleep resists and Stun penalties, and others with Stun resists and Sleep penalties.

At different strengths the status would debuff more or less
At the weakest it would be a -2 in CTR and damage and the strongest would be -12

All enemies that deal Sleep would gain a Max weakness to Poison.

Wed, 09/02/2015 - 09:00

Hexzyle

If you know me, you know how your thread is when I say

Yeorright.

Wed, 09/02/2015 - 11:03

Holy-Nightmare

......

What's wrong with it? Stun drops Movement speed and Attack speed, why not make Sleep increase Charge time and drop Damage?

Wed, 09/02/2015 - 13:31

Fangel

We do need sleep back, and I think at this point most of us can agree that sleep needs to be based around a "drowsy" state and then enter a "sleep" state after so long.

Personally I like the idea of sleep being the "random" status, in that it essentially can cause various debuffs, but rarely causes multiple (unless you have negative sleep resist). There are various "random" things that can happen, such as:

Blackout - adds a black filter around your screen that makes you unable to see enemies that are further away. Hides enemies on the minimap.
Sleepwalk - your character will wobble and randomly take steps in various directions, turning slightly as well.
Drowsy - your knight will have reduced move speed and damage
KatNap - your knight will stop moving for a few seconds, and wake up/be able to move upon getting hit. If they don't get hit for this whole duration, they heal for 20% of the hit that inflicted the status. This effect happens in short bursts, sort of like shock but being hit pulls you out of a spasm
Refreshing nap - your knight will become immobilized, and slowly heal up to 50% of the damage dealt to them by the attack that inflicted sleep. Getting hit for 66% of your current health will instantly wake you up and stop any further healing.

(each has a chance to be inflicted upon being hit, 60% lower tier [Blackout - 70%, Sleepwalk - 30%] , 40% higher tier [Drowsy - 40%, KatNap - 35%, Refreshing nap - 25%]. If you are inflicted with 2 sleep statuses, you have a 60% chance for the first status to be a lower tier, and then an additional status roll 60% chance to have both. If you have negative sleep resist you will be forced to have a higher tier if you roll both lower tiers)

In this sense, sleep acts like a lot of things. It's a vision impairment (which is new), a movement jumbler (which is new), reduced stats (poison/stun inspired), movement interrupter (shock inspired), and movement halter (freeze inspired).

You can have up to two of these effects happen without sleep resist in tier 3, and if you have negative sleep resist then you can have all 5 of these effects active at once. Effects are chosen at infliction, and exist for the duration of the status.

I love the idea behind sleep, it's just not executed too well. The healing bit is a great idea, but it should no matter what be a percentage of the hit, but then we have the whole immobile being freeze problem. Having a status be random means that A) it would be less overpowered as you don't know what you're getting and B) It's not as easy to status-lock a player.

However this vision of sleep is complex and is sort of unnecessary, but I would still love a status that is unpredictable.

Thu, 09/03/2015 - 05:23

Hexaah-Forum

Poison already reduces your damage, so this would just be a rehash of it. Instead of damage, I think it should be ASI, CTR and movement speed as it makes more sense.

Plate sets should keep their penalties, but I don't think you can just say give Chaos and BK sets penalties simply because you don't like them.

Thu, 09/03/2015 - 05:42

Fehzor

Sounds like stun and poison which is to say walk it off.

What if it penalized you for standing still too long? Like the counter went down with movement instead of time? Standing still, even to release a charge, would make the counter go up and eventually you would doze off, recover a fraction of the damage dealt, and wake up.

Also Fangel had a good idea, and had their name in my phone's dictionary which I mention because the message

Fangel was saved

Popped up and made me giggle.

Thu, 09/03/2015 - 08:36

Holy-Nightmare

@ Fehz & Fangel

I do like these ideas but they aren't really in the game code atm; debuffs are...

@ Fangel

I don't think randomized status effects would be that easy to do... not to mention while it isn't abusable or OP I can't think of how it would affect monsters. That would be a ton of coding for just one status.

@Hexaah

BK and Chaos are supposed to be Glass cannon sets as far as the theme goes they should be weak to nearly every status effect. It also would have little impact on how they are used since Sleep is a status dealt by only 2 monsters in the game.

Not to mention your idea just sounds like a more powerful Stun.

Plates don't really need a sleep penalty, after all they are "supposed" to be the most defensive sets in the game.

@ Fehzor

I like the idea of the status power scaling up when not moving..... would require a bit of extra coding but hopefully not too much. If it gets implemented then Stun should get the reverse as it is a similar status. With Sleep staying still would make the status more powerful, with Stun you would start out at the high end and as you move it wears off.

Thu, 09/03/2015 - 10:33

Fangel

Well that's the thing eh?

If we want a revamp to the status we shouldn't be constricted by what's in the game already.

I like the idea of sleep being on a timer before you fall asleep, moving preventing it.
Something like the player suffers debuffs but if they stand still for a total of 3 seconds then they have the revamped sleep status (up to 50% health recovered of the hit, taking 66% health damage instantly wakes you up).

But I still do like the idea of a few minor random inflictions. Heck, 4/5 of the things I suggested for randomization has things similar to the code in the game already.

Thu, 09/03/2015 - 10:58

Hexaah-Forum

@Holy-Nightmare Okay. Fair

@Holy-Nightmare

Okay. Fair enough, I didn't think that through about it being like stun.

By that logic regarding the plate sets, armors like Skolver and Vog Cub shouldn't have any status resist because they are more "offensive".

Face it. Sleep is a broken status. It's not likely to return. If you really wanted it back, you could make up some story like:

Past tier 3, conditions within the clockworks become very humid, and release a gas which causes some monsters to mutate (mostly slime, although 000 could introduce more sleep inflicting monsters). Freeze themed levels no longer exist beyond this point in the game as it is far too hot. Mutations that occur cause some monsters to be able to inflict sleep to knights. Because it is extremely similar to freeze yet slightly more dangerous, it would make sense to have advanced players only experience it and not new players.

The only alternative is to change sleep into a completely different status, which it is still going to be partially similar to freeze.

Thu, 09/03/2015 - 11:45

Holy-Nightmare

.......

@ Fangel

I wanted to keep it easy to do in the game's current code. As we all know OOO doesn't have a large staff so keeping it simple is helpful. Randomization is in the code but not in that area or at least not to that extent. If OOO had more staff and were spending time pushing out major changes then yeah your idea would be cool (would require lots of testing though)

@ Hexaah

I mentioned why sleep was removed in the OP and how my suggestion is unique and not capable of being abused.......

All the offensive sets have one status resist which is fair.... The plate/tank sets need some tweaking but that is a different thread for another day.

Thu, 09/03/2015 - 12:30

#10

Fangel

I suppose

We can look into what statuses we have right now to try to prevent too many overlaps:

So with all these in mind, we can see that sleep in its current state is a tougher freeze, as it "Stops movements, stops attacks, heals over time". The "heal over time" bit is the unique part of sleep right now, but the "stop movements" is not unique, and the "stops attacks" is a more extreme curse.

Reducing stats is a thing that poison already kind of does. I think obscuring things would be a good way to make sleep stand out. Putting a black layer over the screen (like the red low-health overlay, but larger) is a good start, and is something we don't see from any status right now. I like the idea that you have to keep moving to stay awake, else you fall into the "immobile but regenerating health" phase again, but again, waking up after taking a large hit. Makes you time attacks that don't keep you moving more cautiously, but you're in control of the situation.

Essentially, this would be a less "game-stopping" curse effect, but also something that you can utilize. Get to a safe spot and heal up to 50% of the damage you took from the sleep infliction, but you're out of the game for as long as you sleep. If you do stay in the fight, you need to stay mobile.

Heck you could make it so that if you go less than X speed you'll get tired so that people who are inflicted with sleep will have to A) keep moving, B) not hide behind their shield. If this happens in lockdown, stun/sleep combos would be a devastating combo.

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Sleep status revisited and a suggested alteration to make it unique and balanced