Spiral Knights - 5* anticlimactic

5* anticlimactic

4 replies [Last post]

Sun, 01/23/2011 - 22:33

Ready

So does anyone else think most of the 5* gear is anticlimactic? (Not that I have a lot of it mind you.) When we go from 3* to 4* it seems like there is a decent bump in usefulness of the gear (presumably because most 4* stuff only needs a level five 3*) and it doesn't take that long to heat up the 3* gear as needed. So then to make it to 5* you have to grind out a tremendous amount of heat to get that 4* gear completed, dump in a bunch of crowns and CE, find rare materials, and what do you get? Gear that is seemingly only a few small percentage points better. Thus far the only piece of gear that I've thought 'Ooh cool, 5*!' is the magma driver, because the fire damage when you light something on fire seemed to actually go up quite a bit more that a few percent (though the normal shot damage seemed to barely change.)

Maybe I shouldn't be looking at the 5* gear as a goal that is going to provide a reward, but that was/is my natural inclination given the effort that goes into getting. It seems like it would be hard to provide much of a bump because the 4* stuff is pretty close to the max on the stat bars. Heh, maybe they could have the 5* gear 'go to 11' and have it bust through the end of the graph. ;)

I know rebalancing would probably be required and be a pain, hopefully ooo has some kind of internal modeling system they can try things out on a statistical type basis.

What do other people think about the 5* gear?

Sun, 01/23/2011 - 23:00

Ynahteb

Try out the bombs and you'll

Try out the bombs and you'll be impressed. The blast radius increase from 4-5* is awesome. But yeah I know what you mean, it's moderately annoying to upgrade a 4* sword to its 5* version and have it seem to actually decrease in power pre-leveling.

Mon, 01/24/2011 - 08:15

Pauling

Some 5* items are actually

Some 5* items are actually very good, mostly concentrated in the weapons- especially the 5* elemental bomb, whose blast radius AND damage get major boosts. The swords and guns can also be very good.

However, on the armor side, the sense of wonder stops at 4*. In general, there's a really big jump in protection from 3-->4* (where you cross the "pay real money" line), and then a tiny step from 4-->5*. (even though that step costs the same as, or more than, all previous crafting steps combined) Another problem is exemplified by armors that provide a speed bonus- pretty much all of them offer "speed: ultra" starting at 3*, which leaves no room for improvement as you upgrade.

(Admittedly, the smaller speed bonuses might be too small to notice. That's a separate issue, and it's hard to measure without knowing how or when speeds are capped)

Likewise, certain armors are overly nerfed for their bonuses. (out of 315+ items, that's bound to happen) The Mad Bomber suit comes to mind: in exchange for a bomb-specific damage bonus (low), you get LESS normal defense than the precursor, and the Heavy Demo suit's fire resistance turns into multiple status *weaknesses*. So there's still work to be done both within upgrade trees, and across the various alternatives.

Tue, 01/25/2011 - 00:30

Liviola

Legacy Username

I made a Leviathan Blade and

I made a Leviathan Blade and at the moment it's kinda meh, performance-wise. Maybe it will get better when it's at level 10, but even so, I'd like it to have some kind of unique bonus or cool attack feature (I'd love a sword that can stun enemies).

I'm sure it will look awesome when the final art/animation for it is in place, but in terms of what it does, it is rather dull.

Thu, 02/03/2011 - 16:11

Ready

Well I went from Master Blast

Well I went from Master Blast Bomb 4* at level 9 inflicting ~80 damage on a Tier 2 Trojan, to the Nitronome 5* inflicting ~60 damage on the same Tier 2 Trojan. Color me annoyed at the down grade. Radius appears the same.

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5* anticlimactic