Spiral Knights - Mixed Breeds of Battle Sprite

Mixed Breeds of Battle Sprite

7 replies [Last post]

Thu, 10/22/2015 - 13:46

Fehzor

It would be cool if we could have battle sprites with varying skills.. for instance, a maskeraith with drakon's firebolt instead of quills, or a drakon that lets you heart attack instead of barrier.. or some other combination of skills.

I don't know how feasible it would be or where the line should be drawn, as that itself is an issue- would it be plausible to have a maskeraith that had quills, heart attack and deadly shadow cloak? Or a seraphynx that had barrier, firebolt and quills? I could see it working out. Maybe my style of play changes, yet only uses the intermediate skills of each sprite. The flip side would be that it would give me too much power.

The other way I see it working would be with limitations. Would it be plausible to have a maskeraith that only had its quills swapped for firebolt? Both skills are gained at about the same level, designed for the same purpose, everything.. perhaps the style of play that I'm going for has functions from both sprites?

Do others have views on this?

Thu, 10/22/2015 - 14:07

Fangel

Hm.

Each sprite specializes in one area, so it's more you get the sprite and play its role rather than make the sprite play your role.

If anything like this were to happen, sprites would not be able to have ultimates and each individual skill would require twice the skillpoints. In this way, you cannot have a maxed out sprite with all your favorite abilities, however you can have maxed out sprites balanced like they were originally.

I will say that sprites would determine their body and thus damage types via first skill, their sounds via second skill, and color via third skill.

It would be a kind of cool idea, but I don't know if it would be balanced for feasible.

Thu, 10/22/2015 - 14:40

Fehzor

Not having ultimates would be a deal breaker. Like I wouldn't use the mixed sprites if they couldn't get an ultimate-- a lot of skills are just too reliant on their ultimate in the end game, a prime example being deadly shadow cloak. Not having that sweet damage multiplier or stunning explosion would make it considerably worse, much worse than having access to another skill.

I actually think balance would be fine for the most part. Since you can only use one skill at a time and most of the time only really need to rely on one skill, it wouldn't expand the knight's power nearly as much as you might think.. For example, giving Seraphynx firebolt. You could use firebolt in some battles and heart attack in others whereas before you'd have had access to only one or the other... but if your friend was using Seraphynx and you Drakon it really wouldn't matter that much as all fights would receive a barrage of fireballs and heart attacks anyway. These would be targeted at endgame players who all have all 3 at level 105 anyway, if not six battle sprites and more reskins to witness each ultimate for themselves.

One restriction I would suggest would be limiting harness types. If I had a maskeraith x drakon, it would only get normal + shadow, losing both elemental and piercing. All 3 mixed would produce a normal harness only sprite. This prevents a piercing firebolt or an elemental quills attack, for instance. I'd also consider only letting players swap one skill out for another, as this would prevent the all 3 scenario.. wherein I end up with something that makes less sense like fireball, deadly shadow cloak and seraphynx's aura.

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Completely off topic but I'm cracking up about it- I wrote for endgame players and then I was like "oh" as I realized that I am just about the only endgame player, as most everyone else has better things to do than grind for radiant fire crystals and collect gear, and so on.. I mean I know there are others but it's so sparse that it feels that way, even if I've friended a dozen others they aren't on when I am and none of us play enough to see one another to grind enough...

Thu, 10/22/2015 - 16:17

Fangel

Last first!

Yeah I'm still grinding up radiants myself when I'm online, but I'm sort of dedicating my time to Payday 2 right now until Dark Harvest drops and I'll have a sudden direction to run in. Will probably keep radiant farming after the event because I'm always so lost in direction after events end anyways.

Back on topic, limiting the battle sprites in general is something to make this idea more of a reality. As it is right now, I primarily take my drakon with me because of its firebolt, however backfire barrier is a good second, but only for traveling or cheesing spike traps (learned I can run over small ones and not get hit by them - that was a fun discovery). However, I really only use my maskeraith for the chaotic haze - I also never use the cloak due to me never needing to hide from an enemy or reposition myself.

Limiting "mixed breeds" to only be between two sprites would help - all three gets a bit hectic. However I suppose we could give sprites ultimates - only if it still costs double skill points. You would need to max out the sprite skills still, however you can't use the ultimates on all 3 of the abilities. You might opt out of an ultimate firebolt, but want the valkyrian aura.

Limiting harnesses also helps, but for the most part the damage sprites do is only second to what else they do. This is why chaotic haze is more desirable than other versions of the skill.

It's just sort of my idea that a battle sprite that is a mixed breed is no longer locked into a certain playstyle. They are able to do more things, but lose the mastery of those things in the process.

Fri, 10/23/2015 - 07:04

Fight-Beetle

Quick thing

Fangel, you can use barriers, shieldbash (no dashing) and fire exactly one vial using cloak.

Fri, 10/23/2015 - 09:35

Fehzor

Yea the cloak is a seriously good sprite skill; if used effectively it gives you the best position possible with either a significant damage increase or an explosion that deals stun around wherever you pop up, all for free on a silver platter. This lets you kill healers or groups of turrets for free, position yourself to take on grievers, stall time or simply just stun/amplify some damage if nothing else.

Limiting sprite skills by ultimate would highlight their current problems big time. Lets say you have a seraphynx/mask sprite-

Quills = become nearly twice as effective
Heart attack = Tiny defense increase, possible loss of effectiveness
Aura = Enables new CTR builds or becomes a defensive boon

This sprite is a basically has an extra skill compared to one that has these skills from drakon/seraphynx-

Fire Ball = becomes easier to hit/gains some crowd control or gains stun
Flame Barrier = grants the user more orbs or a huge speed boost
Aura = Enables new CTR builds or becomes a defensive boon

None of these ultimates are considerably less useful than the others, whereas heart attack's ultimate isn't entirely necessary as its job is really just to spawn hearts. I'd rather this not shape how people select their sprites.

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What would you think about limiting this by rarity? For instance, players wouldn't get to custom design these sprites or trade them.

As an example, to get one you must pay a thousand grim, primal, or forge sparks (choose 2) to get one pod of 2 sprites of your choosing. So if I gave 1000 primal and 1000 forge, I'd get one maskeraith (grim) + drakon (forge) pod. It would randomly have maskeraith or drakon as the base, with one skill from the other transplanted onto it. There would only be one randomly selected ultimate for me to select when I got to the appropriate sprite level.

Fri, 10/23/2015 - 13:36

Fangel

Nah to rarity

Having a sprite be rare but play differently is just kind of a no. But acquisition is something else to go over entirely, and I'm not thinking about that too much.

Basically what I want to see is a reason to level up each individual sprite rather than level up a mixture. You know, sort of like nerfing chaos back to what it was before. Don't want to have battle sprites that are seriously just better than each other (drakon/maskeraith would be deadly). Preventing ultimates or doubling skill point requirements would make these sprites have more choice involved. Instead of maxing out every skill, you could invest equally in them all and have no ultimates, or gimp certain abilities to gain ultimates in others. This means you're truly customizing your sprite, not just altering what you're holding onto slightly.

Lastly I know that the shadow cloak skill is useful, it just has no place in my playstyle. I remember to use all seraphynx abilities. I remember to use backfire barrier and firebolt with drakon. I pretty much only use the haze with a maskeraith - but that's just my playstyle. I never knew the drakon would suit me as well as it does, so that's been a nice discovery. I thought masky would blend better with me but they don't.

Fri, 10/23/2015 - 14:15

Fehzor

I don't think that they would ever be straight up better, except maybe for you personally.

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Mixed Breeds of Battle Sprite