Spiral Knights - Hot take on compounds

Hot take on compounds

10 replies [Last post]

Thu, 10/24/2019 - 10:16

Fehzors-Forum-Alt

Compounds are fairly straightforward if you're a decent bomber with decent bombs.

Decent bombs require decent CTR, which requires specialized armor or chaos and heat level 10 on the bomb, or UVs, etc..

These methods of getting CTR require lots of play time, money, etc. to acquire.

Compounds start out in T2 and even T3, when the player does not have these things ready.

I think the solution would be to move compounds to late T3 and then T4, if that comes out.

EDIT- do read the whole thread though, there are better solutions out there.

The real issue seems to be that compounds were created to benefit bombs, but bombs are dysfunctional due to the large emphasis placed on CTR and the bandaid fix of compounds just frustrates players rather than forcing them to bomb.

Thu, 10/24/2019 - 11:34

Zincamania-Forum

Well but beginners might

Well but beginners might learn to deal with them faster if they get them immediately in T1. + with the right armor, minis don't hit very hard. I think compounds are mostly difficult because beginners who reached T3 go in with elemental defense and a combuster against mini bunnies and mini slimes

Thu, 10/24/2019 - 13:28

Fehzors-Forum-Alt

Well they'd definitely learn to cope faster if we gave them the tools they need, but we don't- they need like, bombs with CTR, and they're not going to go out of their way for it, they're just going to be angered when they fail.

Really it comes down to how the game handles armor- specialized armor sets just aren't fun to craft since you use them rarely, while weapons are very fun to craft.

Thu, 10/24/2019 - 21:17

Midnight-Dj

The only way to win a rigged game is to not play

Or, just skip it like me, really go do something else for five minutes and come back to play another level.

Thu, 10/24/2019 - 23:35

Fehzors-Forum-Alt

Yes Midnight. We were just talking about why you do that since you fit the bill quite well- you're a casual player that isn't developed enough at the game to handle compounds. Perhaps you could enlighten us as to what you've been trying against compounds that hasn't gone your way? When you have tried playing the level I mean.

Fri, 10/25/2019 - 01:30

Midnight-Dj

Wut

Perhaps you could enlighten us as to what you've been trying against compounds that hasn't gone your way?

Going through compound is fine, I just find the level tedious, remember how I always say? The juice isn't worth the squeeze? I know they buffed the rewards recently but still, with a two weapon set up, sacrificing one for a bomb just rubs me the wrong way and I don't play enough to justify unlocking any more slots.

And as you have already mentioned, CTR is hard to come by when you have to cover all the elements in compound. And besides, if you really want to help new players, just recommend them something useful. Blitz needle for dust bunnies and pulsar for everything else. Really, beating compound is easy without bombs. It is just tedious, like graveyard and candlelight keep, there are some mechanics (respawning enemy w/o loot and invincible enemies) I don't enjoy so I skip the level. And only play them when I got unlucky with RNG.

Now I await your response about how all life in the universe is space dust or something.

Fri, 10/25/2019 - 13:08

Osmosi

It might be an unpopular opinion but...

Ok, let me start by saying that I don't really have the optimal gear to go in Compounds so Promos-Are-Content, if you say that what I'm about to write is due to me being a n00b go ahead, I won't take that personally.

In my experience, the thing that bothers me the most about Compounds are the last areas before the elevator when you have to get the keys or push the buttons. Just like Midnight-Dj mentioned, the thing that I hate about them the most is the infinitely respawning enemies, which is a mechanic I really don't like in general, which becomes very irritating in compounds.
The ironic thing is that minis stop respawning in the final areas where you have to press the buttons after you've pressed them all, but that's just a minor note.
Promos-Are-Content might argue that constantly respawning enemies are there to make for a fun difficult challenge, but I disagree with that. I just find them tedious and to be honest, fighting minis is pretty annoying and dull.

In an ideal world, we'd get a little bit of minis more often during the rest of the game and possibly completely revamp compounds to focus on some other theme. That's because minis should be those little enemies that are easy to deal with individually but become a threat once there are a lot of them or when supporting other monsters. In some sense, I'm kind of suggesting the idea that minis should be at the bottom tier of their given monster families and should be a little bit more common; to compensate this increased presence they could be made a little weaker perhaps(which is something Promos and other veterans might not like). Right now I tend to see minis as those annoying enemies that appear mainly in one kind of level designed to put you at a disatvange because there's always an endless source of them for whatever reason.

TL;DR: I don't really like endless enemy respawners, and I hate the design of most of the final rooms of Compounds.

Fri, 10/25/2019 - 13:53

Bopp

little gremlins

Disclaimer: I can't remember whether I've ranted about this topic already.

The 2012-02-22 update introduced those little gremlin monsters. They are super-easy but numerous and therefore tedious. At the time I wondered: What is the point? In retrospect, I think it's to dis-incentivize surgical weapons (high DPS against a single target, like Acheron) and re-incentivize mass damage (DPS against crowds, like Gran Faust, Dark Retribution, etc.).

I bring up the little gremlins because compounds (released 2013-04-10) are a more extreme version of the same idea. You're supposed to use mass-damage weapons such as bombs, just as Promos-Are-Content always says.

This thread's new point, about removing compounds from Tier 2, where most knights don't have decent mass-damage weapons, is reasonable. But the bigger issue is that compounds are difficult-tedious, not difficult-fun, without mass-damage weapons. So I agree somewhat with Midnight-Dj.

Just to brainstorm, here's another solution: Add a new pick-up-able booster (like defense, speed, damage) that takes the knight to CTR+6. Make the compound critters drop this booster frequently, so that a knight in a compound fight is almost always at CTR+6. Then the knight can spam charge attacks, which tend to do mass damage.

Fri, 10/25/2019 - 16:47

Fehzors-Forum-Alt

I added this to the OP, but-

"The real issue seems to be that compounds were created to benefit bombs, but bombs are dysfunctional due to the large emphasis placed on CTR and the bandaid fix of compounds just frustrates players rather than forcing them to bomb."

----

Regarding Midnight DJ's comment, I think it's really interesting because skipping levels is often desirable for me as well- not because I don't like the enemies or whatever but because there's better loot or whatnot on the level next to it. The issue here I think is that it requires time to skip levels, which doesn't really fit the nature of the game.

If they added an option to pay 3-5 energy to skip levels I'd certainly be game, although it would be even better if sometimes you could just choose which next level you got, like if you had 2 or 3 elevators at the end to choose from. You could even go as far as putting the high paying levels like arena on a 2-3 energy cost elevator next to the free one.

Sat, 10/26/2019 - 05:20

Zincamania-Forum

I think a lot of the

I think a lot of the tediousness comes from bad drops as well, I too hate infinite respawns because the monsters that you kill don't drop anything. That said we probably don't want infinite spawns to drop anything except maybe some heat because otherwise people could cheat afk with a nitronome to get free drops. I get the same feeling of tediousness anywhere with monsters that don't drop loot, but in compounds it's worse because a lot of the minis do not drop stuff. So you are finishing off the last few minis only for them to drop nothing at all, which sucks. I don't want to spend effort killing monsters that don't drop loot, but I don't want to put in effort to think about which monsters I should leave alive because they won't drop anything, and which monsters I should kill because they may have loot. What about making minis drop some heat and maybe materials? Compounds could be the type of level where you go to collect a specific material you need. And perhaps add more regular monsters to each encounter, it's fine if it makes it a bit harder as long as we get a better balance of monsters worth killing

Tue, 11/05/2019 - 11:31

#10

Bidoknight

Another issue.

I feel like the main point of it was intentionality to be a more difficult level, but the problem is that it's not more rewarding like for example arenas are, in fact it's less rewarding because of how terrible the drops from the minis are because so many don't drop loot. And while they can be seen as an incentive to run bombs, they can also be seen as an incentive to run normal damage weapons because of the fact that they have two main enemy types which also means it's "harder". They are especially difficult for newer players with a smaller arsenal since then the only viable option might be a normal weapon, if they even have that.

IMO what should be fixed is just even more boxes and that all enemies actually drop loot. Could even consider making them harder and put an extra elevator like with arenas or Vaults so they can be another nice challenge for older players that newer players can skip.

Not to mention how hard it is for newer players especially to understand what enemy types they contain. (Color of icon for the middle part and last part) name of it, creeping = slime, burrowing = undead etc for minis and the first part, but note that the enemies there can be split between others that deal that type too, and first word for status, which is normally also the way, I think. Maybe I got it wrong, I'm not really complaining about it since with this system it can't really be made properly transparent. )

Also, remember that 5ish minutes are the minimum time, bad luck can get you like 20. Not to mention you can't always skip them.

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Hot take on compounds