Spiral Knights - Dead end situations

Dead end situations

19 replies [Last post]

Fri, 08/10/2018 - 07:41

Sir-Pandabear

Off the top of my head I can think of two situations where you can fail arun in such a way that you're not dead, but just don't have a way to win.

Bringing two shard bombs to Roarmulus Twins. (Take a shot every time Zeddy rants about Shard Bombs.)
Bringing a pure shadow weapon to Vanaduke, getting to the final state where he's 100% immune to shadow.

You can sort of escape these now thanks to Battle Sprites, but a new player could still end up in this situation if they're sufficiently poorly informed and only has a Maskeraith that hasn't yet learned its third ability. Even with sprite abilities, even if you're not completely stuck, you're gonna have a bad, dragged out time.

I know there are some situations where a trigger can bug out and cause gates to not open, making you stuck in that manner, but this is a different thing. In these instances, the design of the game forbids the player from proceeding without crafting/bringing different gear entirely.

What do you guys think of it? Is it fine? Should the appropriate missions give warnings?

Fri, 08/10/2018 - 09:43

Bopp

response

Here's another one, although it's not about gear: You're soloing Vanaduke, ignoring the shadow fire, and you get trapped by it. In fact, once I had to quit the mission after I killed Vanaduke, because there was nothing else to be done.

Anyway, to respond to your points: On first glance it seems reasonable to warn players. But how often do players try it? Is it worth the cost of having 99.9999% of players read/ignore text, even though that cost is tiny per player?

Ideally there would be code, which would display the warning only if the player is attempting the impossible task. Grey Havens, please add this code, *after* producing new content and squashing bugs.

Fri, 08/10/2018 - 09:53

Quintinius-Vergnix

Aaa

A solution would be having each tile of shadow fire in FSC’s Throne Room spawn in with a timer, and when it runs down to zero the tile despawns (with a visual effect of shrinking down and vanishing with a puff of smoke).

Oh, and let the initial blast of shard bombs damage the RTs

Fri, 08/10/2018 - 11:39

Nigel-Thornberries

Shadow Fire

Regarding getting stuck in shadow fire, I don’t mean for anyone to use it as an absolutely 100% true escape, but I’ve managed to get out of it a few times by shield bashing, oddly enough. I just haven’t had the time (I haven’t played for 6+ months now), so I haven’t gone out to get concrete causes and results. Like, is there a specific way to do it? Angling? Who knows.

I’d still love to see a better indicator of where shadow fire would be dropping, rather than an illuminated area- or fix the whole ‘getting stuck’ thing entirely.

Fri, 08/10/2018 - 12:48

Bopp

before bashing

By the way, my getting-stuck story happened long ago, almost certainly before shield bashing was introduced to the game. If anyone can confirm that dashing or bashing lets you escape shadow fire, I'd like to hear it.

But meanwhile I don't want to derail the thread, which is mainly about the fact that some equipment is literally impossible to use in some situations.

Fri, 08/10/2018 - 19:04

Flash-Flire

The first one could be plausible, but I can't imagine many people would take ONLY shard bombs.
And for the second one, I have no idea who in their right mind would take only shadow weapons to the place where all the enemies that aren't called "gun puppies" or "oilers" are resistant to shadow.

Fri, 08/10/2018 - 23:51

Zero-Chill

meow

@Ze-Epik

Never trust the hipsters of Shard Squad.

@Quintinius-Vergnix

That's a great idea but again this can hurt teamplay a little bit. Having a buddy to help you get out of the fire or help with watering in general would encourage you to team up with at least one player. It's a team game and should be treated as such and should encourage teamplay as much as possible without being so frustrating on soloers.

@Zeddy

The shard's not hitting would be normal because they're designed to only hit things on the ground also regarding FSC and the boss fight, I think that's fine too, you shouldn't bring only pure shadow weapons in a zombie level to begin with, these are deservable punishes that the game gives you. Also, this encourages teamplay, if you don't have the right weapons you'd ask a friend to join and help you. They are mainly targeting new players go teach them that not anything can be used everywhere and if you're end-game already you should know better and you deserve to be punished this way.

Sat, 08/11/2018 - 06:15

Nitronicx

Dead end situations

I actually once happened to do FSC with (probably Ascended?) Calibur and Virulent Catalyzer when I was 4*. I think I was in party with other knights. It was really hard since I had neither powerful gear nor much experience with FSC. However, we managed to get to Vanaduke and I burnt tons of energy for revives only to get to his 5th and final phase and find out, that I basically can't deal any damage to Vanaduke anymore. Well, I doubt we could finish it even if he wasn't immune. It's a good memory nonetheless.

I really want to argue that you can defeat RT without doing damage to them directly, because I remember that few times they entered another phase as soon as rockets hit them, meaning those rockets depleted last bits of their phase health. But when I tried to prove it and took Shard Bomb to RT, I was running aroud for a pretty long time and wasn't able to move them even to phase 2. I also couldn't check if I did any damage at all because I only had said Shard Bomb with me.

Personally, yes, I think these things shouldn't happen. You should be able to deal at least some amount of damage no matter the enemy or your weapon choice.

Then there are other things I don't like much, specifically those that require you to output certain amount of DPS. Some examples are respawning Royal Polyps in final phase of Royal Jelly boss fight and self-healing tendencies of Darkfang Menders (you basically can't kill one with Proto weapons unless you're really lucky).

@Stuck-In-Shadow-Fire
Perhaps it isn't even needed for Shadow Fire blocks to be uncrossable in Vanaduke fight. I think it wouldn't hurt if you could run through them at cost of being hurt, burnt and maybe also slowed down (similar to piles of snow in Winterfest content).

@Zero-Chill
I don't think FSC should treat players like pirated Earthbound copy. Give players disadvantage at most, no need to make all their effort pointless. I feel like more reasonable would be making all enemies immune to shadow damage than punish players like that.

It's true teamplay pretty much eliminates all of these problems, but I think you prioritize it a bit too much. Soloing is also a thing, one could say it's quite different and unique to playing in a team. Personally, these small encouragments for teamplay shouldn't exist at risk of killing entire solo run.

Sat, 08/11/2018 - 08:14

Sir-Pandabear

@Zero-Chill

I don't think that's quite fair. Shadow weapons are great for most of the game's content. It works very nicely against the three other boss missions and you almost never find fiends and undead mixing with the other four enemy types, but you will find the other four types mixing all the time. It's perfectly reasonable for a player to reach the end game with nothing but DR and Grim Repeater, two very effective weapons against zombies.

In the case of shard bombs against roarmulus, I was surprised when I found out. The roarmulus poke their heads a bit into the arena, it certainly looks like you should be able to hit them considering shards work fine against any of the game's flying enemies. Shards used to be the only weapon in the game to come in all damage types, I've seen new bombers therfore conclude that getting only 2-3 shard bombs is a correct, viable path to walk. Nothing up until that boss really argues against that because shards are really good in T2.

Sat, 08/11/2018 - 09:39

Zero-Chill

meow

@Zeddy

That's the whole point of it. You're not supposed to play the entire game with only a few weapons, this is what encourages variety, what the game is based on, so that not everyone just crafts the same set for all of the game's content and most of the people would follow. Being able to complete the game easily with only a couple weapons that should fill the same role would just prove how bad the game is when it comes to encouraging players to use the vast variety of gear it offers.

As for the twins case, I think maybe they're higher since gorgos, greavers and silkwings fly closer to the ground. We only have a top-down view so we don't know how far up from the ground they are.

Sat, 08/11/2018 - 11:50

#10

Fluffybug

@zero

I'm sorry but that 'flying' thing is maybe the single silliest things I've ever read about game balance, which is genuinely kind of impressive. Like, I understand you're trying to rationalize a bug into the game logic and that requires reaching, but how on earth did you come to the ground thing? That's not something that meaningfully exists in the game mechanics, it applies to no other interaction between weapons and enemies anywhere else in the game, you just somehow pulled that outta nowhere and no shade I'm genuinely impressed.

More to the point though, the idea that players are meaingfully forced to diversify their loadouts elsewhere is complete nonsense, like look at the sheer homogeny of most end-game set-ups and especially how ubiquitous Chaos is and tell me you think this is happening anywhere else. And I mean, if the idea -was- to force players to run different weapon families (Not even just damage types, families, considering this bug renders all Shards useless) why on earth doesn't it apply to literally any other set of weapons? You can use a Combuster everywhere, it'll be disadvantaged in places sure, but you'll always be able to get through with persistence and yet Shard Bomb of all things - maybe the least used family of weapons in the game, are the ones that need a hard wall against a mandatory-progression boss so people don't use them too much?

Of course putting aside the fact none of this is applied to like any other weapon in the game, Nick literally once said an important part of the game's design philosophy is these exact sort of things not happening: https://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/763#comment-4813 so this obviously isn't a design decision, it's a mistake and one that should be fixed.

Sat, 08/11/2018 - 13:53

#11

Zero-Chill

meow

Wasn't what Nick said before the shard incident?
Also considering the flying thing, brandish charge explosions can't hit them as well cause they're too far for them to reach and they hit the ground and stop at the edge. IDK if anyone mentioned it but I just felt like there was something like altitude involved in this cause this can't be just a bug. It doesn't look like a bug to me at least. And just that one situation won't render an entire bomb family useless. And regarding the chaos set. I think the glass-cannon sets are balanced enough, but mad bomber still needs a buff that's for sure (an extra damage low per piece would be the game changer IMO). Anyway, back to the topic, chaos, it still has a lot of status debuffs, just cause players learned to be better at the game and dodge statuses doesn't mean chaos is overpowered, if you give it to a new player they'd just die a lot, pretty much like I used to do before crafting something that could actually protect me.

Sat, 08/11/2018 - 14:15

#12

Sir-Pandabear

@Zero-Chill

That's the whole point of it. You're not supposed to play the entire game with only a few weapons, this is what encourages variety,

And I think that principle was true before August 2012, but shard update and gunner update happened and you can craft many weapons in literally every damage type, no need for diversity at all.

The twins aren't unhittable becacuse of altitute, SK's hitboxes don't work that way. They're unhittable because their hitbox is slightly off the ledge.

I also think there's a philosophy within the game of always giving you a fighting chance no matter your loadout. For instance, in one of the castle levels there's a wave early on where you're attacked by ghosts from over a ledge. If you only brought brandishes, there's no way for you to attack the ghosts. The designers put in fire pots to give you a chance regardless. Enemy families also have a damage type that they strongly resist. They could've been made immune to the damage type, but instead they just take an impractically low amount of damage. Why does this change with Vanaduke? I suspect it's because Vanaduke was made during Beta when defenses worked totally different and nobody thought to bring him up to speed since.

I just noticed that Fluffybug said basically the same thing but also provided evidence.

Sat, 08/11/2018 - 15:26

#13

Zero-Chill

meow

You can still kill the twins with their rocket damage (I don't think you can shield bash them) and you can kill vana with water orbs and shield bashes if you didn't bring the right weapons. It's possible, but in no way practical. Basically like bringing a weak shadow weapon to vana or bringing a shard bomb to the twins. Regarding the altitude thing. Well I just assumed it, I got no evidence but I think that would be an interesting mechanic if it was even in the game, the model of the twins appear to poke into the arena but their actual hitboxes are just over the edge which means that shard bombs aren't able to hit them because they can't hit over gaps. After giving it some thought maybe you're right and they should actually hit, it can be made possible by just allowing their hitboxes to be actually in the arena rather than just over the edge of it. Regarding vana, I don't really know about the beta cause I didn't even know the game existed then, but if that's the case then you're right, he should be damaged by shadow weapons but maybe he should get additional shadow resistance in the final phase.

Sun, 08/12/2018 - 04:21

#14

Fluffybug

Why -do- Brandish charges not

Why -do- Brandish charges not hit the Twins? Magnus guns can pierce them still, you'd think the Brandish charge would continue through them. I don't think Cutter ghost swings can hit them either despite the actual swords being able to, which is just more weirdness with their hitboxes. Which really highlights how it's just a poorly thought out hitbox interaction rather than a weird set of esoteric balance decisions that don't conform to any logic.

As for the duke, I don't think Vana should be immune but at the very least given FSC's status as a Shadow stratum and the general encouragment in the game to diversify the -type of damage- you do, people aren't generally taking Shadow weapons in there. Meanwhile the Shard Bomb bug is just entirely nonsensical and not strictly analogous; it'd be more like if Vanaduke had a weird immunity to the Brandish family as a whole for no apparent reason. The game encourages you to use different damage types, but its entirely content to let you use the same weapon family everywhere else and indeed a whole lot of people who do make and use an xburst Brandish + Nightedge, or a Magnus/Tundrus, or pair up Alchemers, people really shouldn't come up against walls for doing this. Given Shard Bombs are the only damage bombs with differing damage types avaliable to a new player at that point besides the Spine Cone, I really don't think it's that unreasonable to think a few of them would go Shards-only, in fact if you aren't privy to the community attitudes towards Shard Bombs you'd really have no reason not to - they're honestly pretty good at that point in the game.

Although I do agree Vana should only be Shadow-resistant, no other enemy has a flat out immunity. And if someone really does want to go Shadow-weapons only they should be free to, you can do it with Pierce & Elemental, no reason Shadow should be uniquely disadvantaged.

Also as an aside I apologize if that last post came across as harsh zero, it was just meant to be friendly ribbing since the alitutde thing was genuinely very funny, but reading it back I realize it sounds a lot meaner than I'd intended.

Sun, 08/12/2018 - 05:07

#15

Zero-Chill

meow

You don't have to worry, I'm thick skinned.

I still think that a game like this shouldn't allow you to use everything anywhere you want to encourage diversity but it's actually the opposite of what the game is build on, excuse me for being blind to that fact.

Sun, 08/12/2018 - 05:16

#16

Fluffybug

I mean, if it makes you feel

I mean, if it makes you feel any better it's not like Spiral has ever been well balanced to begin with. Originally Wolver armours had bigger bonuses than Gunslinger & Demo sets did, and then once they had all those balanced that still made defensive and family-damage armours kind of bad. Then instead of buffing any of those they went and made Chaos ridiculously good and Mad truly obsolete (Although honestly with Trinkets Mad was semi-obsolete already, and Sprite perks added to that for anyone not totally f2p) and that's not even getting into the slew of balance problems with weapons. Like why would you ever even make things like the Cold Iron or Hunting Blade apart from looks, but instead of buffing any of the weird useless stuff we got like a buncha new variations on old guns that mostly didn't need any? Like did we really need a Shadow Autogun of all things?

And remember the og Shard Bombs weren't "bomb like" but then they added a gun that more or less literally punches people? Spiral Knights is a dang fun game, but well balanced it has never been.

Sun, 08/12/2018 - 08:42

#17

Zero-Chill

meow

Well, I wish I could use the old shards, they seem really fun but unfortunately you can't just simply get what you want. Do you?

Sun, 08/12/2018 - 11:47

#18

Sgt-Brownie

"Erecting a Handgun Dispenser."

I vividly remember trying a bomber main solo run of the game once and being simply unable to damage a particular kind of Battlepod with any of my bombs (and I did have a blast bomb back then) because the blockades it spawned would always out-prioritize the Battlepod itself in receiving damage, even when the Battlepod itself was clearly in the blast radius, and they respawned too fast for me to take them all down with my bombs -- let alone giving me a chance to damage the Battlepod itself.

Not sure if it has been fixed since, but needless to say, I gave up on my 2* bomber main after that mess of an experience.

Sun, 08/12/2018 - 13:05

#19

Zero-Chill

meow

Oh right, that reminds be of a bug, or maybe it's intended IDK but in the boss battle in OCH the battlepods can't be damaged by the orbs of Dark Retribution, only the initial explosion does damage.

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Dead end situations