Spiral Knights - Ideas for balancing defensive and specialized armor sets to class and glass-cannon armor sets

Ideas for balancing defensive and specialized armor sets to class and glass-cannon armor sets

16 replies [Last post]

Mon, 04/30/2018 - 13:16

Zero-Chill

This can be done in a variety of ways, and even after this, some people - including myself - will keep using their regular class or glass-cannon sets.

１。 Defensive armor sets

Method #1: Adding one more status to resist.

Currently, the only armor set that has resistance to 3 statuses is the divine set so I suggest he following:
Royal Jelly set: sleep, stun, poison
Grey Owlite set: fire, freeze, shock
Dread Skelly set: curse, freeze, poison
They will each have 4 points of resist per piece which is the equivalent of a max unique variant.

Method #2: Adding more specialized defense.

All of the 3 specialized elemental defenses should have an increase, I suggest it being their normal defense bar plus the equivalent of a max unique variant. It appears to be as much as the equivalent to a high unique variant at the moment, I think.

２。 Monster-specific sets (also applies for divine veil and radiant silvermail)

I suggest adding a low on all of them. Sets that focus on only one monster family will have it at high instead of medium per piece which is max instead of very high for the whole set. Sets that focus on two monster families will have it at medium instead of low per piece which is very high instead of medium for the whole set. As for the fallen set to be balanced after this buff it will have its damage versus fiend penalty decreased from medium to low per piece which is medium instead of very high for the whole set.

Mon, 04/30/2018 - 14:31

Flash-Flire

hmm

I think another way you could approach this is by making it so that armour affects the damage you take more on higher difficulties. So on elite, it'd be practically impossible to survive more than 2-3 hits with glass cannon sets, but if you have the right defense (e.g. skelly set in FSC) you'd take FAR less damage.

Not only would this encourage people to expand their arsenal, it'd also work to nerf glass cannon sets, because they're 100% the best armour in the game. This could change it.

You could also do that in addition to your suggestions, since specialised sets are very underpowered right now.

Mon, 04/30/2018 - 15:54

Zero-Chill

meow

Doesn't the game already do that? If you look closely you'll see that Arcana's damage is more than Final Flourish's damage on D28 FSC Slag Walkers while Final Flourish does more damage than Arcana in D27 and earlier on. That's proof that specialized damage priority increases as you go deeper and I believe it's the same for defense as you'll get much much higher damage than you would on the earlier depths from a pure damage type you're protected from than not. The thing is, the defense penalty isn't even close to make a difference between say Chaos set and Grey Owlite set, where it only matters if you have so much health that that extra couple elemental defense bars could count. They look like they're more than that of Chaos' by only the equivalent of a high unique variant, that's why I'm suggesting they get buffed a bit to the equivalent of a max unique variant. Which means you'll tank at least an extra pure elemental hit (since they both have the same normal defense but Grey Owlite has more elemental defense). Of course, even when the specialized defense sets get buffed, the plate sets would still be valuable as they provide more normal defense which means they're better in the places where there's more than that can deal just normal and elemental/piercing. Also glass-cannon sets are sometimes rather stupid to use, say for example if you're in LD and there's a haze bomber on the opposite team or if you go to a place with a lot of whisps or oilers. Some people prefer the class sets to the glass-cannon sets. Also while we're at it, please buff Mad Bomber GH, thanks :3

Tue, 05/01/2018 - 00:51

Flash-Flire

@Zero-Chill

I didn't say as you go deeper, I said with higher difficulties (so defense is more effective on Elite than it is on Normal).

(also yes buff mad bomber: maybe give the helm bomb CTR high and the armour bomb damage high)

Tue, 05/01/2018 - 03:54

Zero-Chill

meow

Higher difficulties = more damage caused by monsters = damage resistance matters more, it's already set like this. Also for Mad Bomber CTR medium and damage high per piece is pretty awesome, means that you can maximize your bomb stats without any UV's or trinkets. Which is fair considering Chaos almost does that but for every other weapon type without any more drawbacks, curse medium per piece isn't enough to balance this in my opinion.

Tue, 05/01/2018 - 04:39

Sir-Pandabear

Higher difficulties = more damage caused by monsters = damage resistance matters more

This is actually the other way around!

Let's say you have three armours: Chaos with 0 piercing defence, Wolver with 125 piercing defence, and Jelly with 150 piercing defence.

A monster hits you for 500 damage.
Chaos user takes 500 damage
Wolver user takes 375 damage (25% less damage)
Jelly user takes 350 damage (30% less damage)

Now on a higher difficulty the same monster hits for 800 damage instead.
Chaos user takes 800 damage
Wolver user takes 675 damage (15% less damage)
Jelly user takes 650 damage (18% less damage)

As you can see, the more damage a monster does, the less your defence matters.

Thu, 05/10/2018 - 22:45

Zero-Chill

meow

Well, maybe that's why they just need a defense buff, it's also much easier than reworking how defense works. After all, the point of higher difficulties is to be harder for everyone, it's still harder for the glass-cannon sets.

Some more ideas to add...

Radiant Silvermail shouldn't get the undead damage buffed but rather add another status to resist to be on par with Divine Veil. I suggest it being freeze. Divine Veil shouldn't have its fiend damage buffed as well because it already has 3 statuses to resist.

Heavenly Iron should have its fiend damage buffed to medium per piece while keeping its sword damage low per piece, just because shock is way too harsh to reward by fiend damage med and sword damage med, this would also make it on par with the other swordie sets.

Almirian Crusader should have its curse resistance buffed to max while keeping its fire debuff on medium as it currently serves no real purpose standing against Valkyrie which has +2 fire debuff while having fiend damage and poison resistance and more curse resistance. Yes it has glass-cannon defense bar, but it doesn't make any difference as the difference is just so little.

Fri, 05/11/2018 - 22:07

Fehzors-Forum-Alt

I think the big secret is to make armor more interesting rather than just sturdier. E.G. chroma could make you go invisible after standing still for a while.

Fri, 05/11/2018 - 22:15

Zero-Chill

meow

It's always easier to just tweak the stats as this can require way more work... Also if the status and bonuses got tweaked like I said, some people would actually choose the armor with 3 statuses or 2 statuses and some good bonus instead of one status or none with an OP bonus in a lot of situations. But like I said, of course some people are skilled enough to use one armor set in the most of the game (I currently only own a Black Kat set for example).

Sun, 05/13/2018 - 05:57

Fehzors-Forum-Alt

Good armor makes the player feel a certain way. Black kat makes you feel really powerful, as does chaos. Tweaking stats would help some armors out a lot. Plate sets with all defenses at super high standards would make the player feel powerful in a different way for example.

BUT

What is the player supposed to feel when they wear chroma? That they're good at killing slimes in a specific scenario?
What is the player supposed to feel when they mix black kat and plate? That they're offensive and defensive? Just balanced?

If we want armor to work the best way is to give out special bonuses. These aren't nearly as hard to code as you might think. Here are some examples-

1.) Plate negates 30% of all damage in addition to its current stats, whatever they are = 49% damage resistance for a full set
2.) Chaos grants you +20% extra damage on charge (but only gives ctr low+damage low per piece)
3.) Black Kat Cowl doubles all speed bonuses (but only gives you damage low + msi low)
4.) Black Kat Raiment doubles all damage bonuses (but only gives damage low + msi low)
5.) Chroma Helm = +5 seconds of invisibility time regardless of source
6.) Chroma Armor = Holding still + not attacking for 4 seconds grants 5 second of invisibility; like maskeraith

In this way, chroma makes you feel strong, like an assassin. These kinds of buffs would stack much better than just giving the armor some stats. Yes they are work. Making games is work. I have faith that the developers can perform work on their game to accomplish making the game function and be fun, because I have seen them do this before.

The reason this was not done was so as to keep all knights roughly the same class. I now believe this philosophy of same-ness to be wrong- battle sprites for instance create clear class distinctions for the various play styles. Armor should be updated to be fun, with less limitations.

Sun, 05/13/2018 - 07:12

#10

Zero-Chill

meow

Maybe the buff on chroma is good but can be overpowered since it's a game breaking mechanic it can be stopped at like 3* maybe or 5* but very low defense. But I'm still certain buffing them t deal extra damage to specific mobsters is better as they're specialist gear that's what they're good at... Killing slimes at a specific scenario.

Wed, 05/16/2018 - 13:07

#11

Fangel

i get the idea

From what I can tell, special abilities rather than buffs are usually something that knights are granted in the form of consumables. In the case of invisibility, perhaps the chroma sets could have a chance at dropping a "5 second invisibility" consumable upon taking a hit or killing a slime enemy, and the player will start each level with 3 invisibility consumables added to their toolbelt in an empty slot (extras will be deleted).

However, in terms of armor balance, I believe that special abilities isn't necessarily the path to take, but rather toying with the current options that we have and asking the questions: "where is this great, where is this okay, and where is this bad?"

A handful of options have not been explored in terms of item buffs, such as the following:
Sword CTR
Weapon-specific MSI
Bomb ASI (likely would need an overhaul)
Dash Time Reduction
Battle Sprite Cooldown Reduction
Shield Regeneration Speed

There are clearly more options too, but these are just a few off the top of my head. I'd love to see some of these touched upon!

Thu, 05/17/2018 - 03:02

#12

Zero-Chill

meow

If there will be an item with bomb ASI it should be high per piece because its effect is minimal anyway. Maybe it should be added to Mercurial Demo but then it wouldn't be balanced compared to Mercurial.

For weapon specific MSI I suggested a bomber shield in another thread.

Sword CTR is interesting, maybe adding it to Kat Claw Cowl is a good idea, the same should be done for Kat Eye Cowl but Kat Hiss Cowl would get ASI as well, making it good for situational bombing if you're a hybrid.

Battle sprite cooldown? Ever heard of catalysts?

Thu, 05/17/2018 - 20:55

#13

Fangel

brainstormin'

Just because something exists elsewhere doesn't mean we can't use it again. I was listing buffs not currently on gear that could help make gear better. If specialist gear lowered cooldowns on 2nd or 3rd slot abilities (or universally), and plate sets lowered cooldowns on seraphynx abilities, for example, it would open up more gameplay options, especially in the battle sprite area where abilities are used occasionally in combat instead of being part of most people's everyday fights.

Having a wider range of buffs that boost what we currently have would help the current game dynamic big-time. Bringing valkyrie to a fiend level is suddenly a good option if you want to spam your heart attack/angelic aura.

Obviously I'd need to see these buffs in action before I make a final judgement, but I like to keep my mind open to things that as passive rather than active when it comes to balancing gear.

Fri, 05/18/2018 - 03:55

#14

Zero-Chill

meow

The thing is that I don't think it should be on gear. Gear is supposed to buff your defenses and/or weapons/damage against a monster family and battle sprites aren't either. It would be good to have a unique trinket kind for battle sprites where you can further buff certain abilities. A trinket that your battle sprite wears, not you. There would be one trinket slot per sprite and you can select a single ability which the trinket will buff. Since giving each ability of the 9 (27 including ultimates), it shouldn't vary for every ability. Just make the skill last longer rather than decreasing the recovery time. For example if Maskraith's quills ability lasts for 2 seconds it will last for 3 seconds thus deploying more quills. Or maybe it could just increase the damage on the damaging abilities. I think either would be great. However, I think it's an equally as great of an idea to make specialized sets for battle sprites where each set affects a certain pet. Might work the same way I mentioned in the battle sprite trinkets idea. Another idea is as you said putting buffs onto existing armors. I suggest certain lines for each pet. For example the Virtulisk set would provide a buff to Maskraith's quills while Arcane Salamander would provide a buff to Drakon's firestorm while Ancient Plate set would provide a buff to Seraphynx's shield. Etc...

Fri, 05/18/2018 - 07:33

#15

Fehzors-Forum-Alt

@Fangle

As long as armor buffs are interesting, effective and targeted at a certain style of play then they'll work out. I'd prefer abilities given to them as a new design direction purely because that's the easiest way to satisfy those conditions, but keeping it to buffs would be fine if the developers prefer.... they'd just need to find a lot more buffs to give them because damage, asi, msi and ctr are rather limiting, especially with UVs making damage/msi the more powerful buffs.

Things like your dash time reduction and sprite cooldown reduction would go a long way. Good job.

@Zero Chill

You need to break up your wall of text into short paragraphs so that we can read it. I'm not trying to hate on you or anything because I do want to read what it says. You do a good job of this sometimes, but like in posts 2 and 14 I'm not going to take the time to read them.

Fri, 05/18/2018 - 18:16

#16

Flash-Flire

For the bomb ASI, I still think the best way to rework it is to make it fuse time reduction.

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Ideas for balancing defensive and specialized armor sets to class and glass-cannon armor sets