Spiral Knights - Update 10/9 Feedback Thread - Shadow Lairs and Lockdown Zoom?

Update 10/9 Feedback Thread - Shadow Lairs and Lockdown Zoom?

14 replies [Last post]

Tue, 10/20/2020 - 10:24

Rakaraka

This was overall a great update in my opinion. I have just finished running an SL myself and I have to say it's a lot easier and definitely a good balance of difficulty and reward. It took roughly half the time compared to before most of the party only used 1 spark. We ran Darkfire Vanaduke. This in my opinion is a welcome changed and the bugfixes are good too. Thanks!

The addition of zoom in Lockdown is a questionable addition in my opinion. It kind of invalidates of recon's invisibility as strikers and other classes can just zoom out and see a recon go invisible, and then go and eliminate them. As Recon is my favorite class to play, I think the zoom should either be a special Lockdown mode or removed entirely.

Again, overall a great update. I'm curious to hear what other people have to say about the changes.

Wed, 10/21/2020 - 17:41

Sir-Sappy

Yeah, Recon users will definitely suffer, anyone can spot any recon cloaking/uncloaking in a larger area of the map, so it's harder to use the invisibility to advance and/or cap points. Striker is already pretty overbearing in the entire game with their speed and buffed swords/usable guns, this will just make Striker users even more powerful against the other two classes.
Playing zoomed out so far is a little strange and uncomfortable, people who'd want to play zoomed in would be at a far disadvantage than players who play zoomed out, which many may choose to stay zoomed out through all of their gameplay.

I don't plan on playing Lockdown while this exists.
The amount of zoom out it grants is a bit excessive, I would mind less if the strength of it was lessened by half, or just hope it gets removed entirely.

There's ways knights know what's going on in the game and where enemies/fights are happening by seeing what points are being uncapped, and the movement of teammate dots on the map, easier viewed on the overlay map. It is easy to recognize when an ally is in a fight. It would be nice if GH actually gave us the reason of why they made this zoom functionality in the first place.

There is still a problem with enemies flanking from below, this zoom addition helps specific circumstances but on any upper-part of any map you're still at a disadvantage since you can't see below due to the angle of the camera view.

Tue, 10/20/2020 - 11:23

Fishysh

thanks for changing shadow

thanks for changing shadow lairs. Now dfv is playable without it taking 2 hours. why was it ever a change that you thought was good

Tue, 10/20/2020 - 12:40

Bidoknight

Thanks for the change.

I feel like I got back what little hope I had left before the AH mail update now, with GH actually making a change the community wants. Maybe this means that we can expect more change in the future? I sure hope so.

Tue, 10/20/2020 - 12:51

Fangel

my thoughts:

The monster health fix in shadow lairs is excellent. I have strayed away from shadow lairs entirely since their change, but with the latest change it is encouraging me to grab keys and give them a go. Punishing players for getting hit isn't a bad thing, but punishing them for landing hits was always an odd choice to me. I'm glad to see we're no longer punished for playing well, while still making statuses very powerful in shadow lairs since most people who ran shadow lairs still loved the buff they accidentally got.

Bugfixes are definitely welcome - the too small window is also very nice since it will allow for strange setups to work without making users forced to have a certain sized screen.

My only real concern comes from the lockdown camera. At a first glance, I like it - one of the largest complaints/tactics with the Spiral Knights camera view is that you often get ambushed or hit by a projectile you couldn't react to from below. This camera change creates a more fair PvP experience due to how fast knight projectiles will move, which is a step in the right direction.

What I'm not a huge fan of is the fact the view players get is so large. This is an accidental nerf to recons, who already have a hard time when someone knows they're around. Now, it's even harder for a recon to approach cloaked - this almost forces recon players to play with the zoomed out view to know when to cloak.

I believe that recon should have some changes to compensate this change. Faster movement speed while cloaked has been long overdue for recons, and now that we can see them further away they should be harder to guess the movements of with faster movement speed.

Another change that could simply to make the recons be automatically cloaked to the other team at a certain range, and disable this auto-cloak once they are within range. This range could emulate the original camera view, allowing recons to once again ambush foes, and ultimately make this camera change a buff for every class.

Alternatively, the camera angle could simply be changed so that it's more of a top-down view and less of a zoomed-out view. This would make the angle issue get resolved without giving players the ability to track recons effortlessly.

Overall the changes made this patch are pretty good, but as one would expect with a live game the fine details being ironed out over time is something that takes time, so I hope that we see a few buffs to recons before 2022 ends (because hey I'm realistic at least).

Tue, 10/20/2020 - 12:54

Yatez

fnd

Tue, 10/20/2020 - 13:39

Ibuyitems

I actually just want some cronus feet pics, or at least not to dc every 2mins for literally just standing in haven doing nothing.

Tue, 10/20/2020 - 15:04

Sgt-Brownie

Building a Building a Building a...

Fangel more or less stated my thoughts on the LD camera, but basically, the problem is that it's so zoomed out it gives a distinct advantage to whoever uses it, especially against Recons; zoom it back in so it's more of a sidegrade to the default view rather than an upgrade.

I'd also say it's high time Recons got a proper buff to finally be able to compete with Guardians and especially Strikers; on top of the MSI buff to the class Fangel suggested, I would also remove the MSD on cloak that has been plaguing the class and just about everything related to it from the start -- from the amount of ground it can effectively cover to the approaches and escapes it can perform.

Tue, 10/20/2020 - 15:39

Jessecho

Hallelujah.

It shouldn't have taken this long, but at least they listened to feedback again. As small and rare as they are, GH's updates often address long-standing complaints or requests: they added the Amputator and Turbillion, re-added Sleep, added new Arcade levels, and upgraded Compound loot. On Shadow Lairs, they got it so wrong and seemed so out of touch in the face of a year's worth of complaints.

Next year, can we fix Neutralizer's damage and Shard Bombs?

Tue, 10/20/2020 - 20:35

Thats-Rough-Buddy

The lockdown change is cool,

The lockdown change is cool, i agree it affects recons unfairly, perhaps a recon buff is in order?

ideas for recon buff:

1) attack whilst cloaked (no charge attacks though, and damage reduced by 70%)
2) cloak never runs out
3) movement speed while cloaked increased to striker speed
4) recons are invisible by default, only visible for ~5 seconds after they attack, or get hit

keep it goin GH, seeing that "the game will be updated" purple text never fails to get my hype

Tue, 10/20/2020 - 23:11

#10

Airbee

Thanks GH for fixing SL's <3

I agree with everything Fangel said about the zoom in Lockdown. I ain't seeing it that bad, but it probably should be changed in some way. Its cool to not get surprised by some striker from the bottom side before getting a chance to react :D

Wed, 10/21/2020 - 04:41

#11

Cloudperson

:thxgh:

SLs look way more enjoyable now, thank you

Wed, 10/21/2020 - 06:25

#12

Bbsc

Well, this shows that the

Well, this shows that the developers off the game ACTUALLY listens to the feedback! The backlash on the developers over the difficulty of Shadow Lairs were unwarranted in my opinion.

This will also encourage me to spend money on this game to support the developers. Well done GH!

So in future, if there are any unwelcome changes, just post your feedback and the developers will listen to these if it is feasible. It is also unfair to say they have abandoned the game and care about our money only.

This really made my day!

Thu, 10/22/2020 - 16:39

#13

Zenphyre

Might as well post a second boop.

Welp they reverted SL's so looks like I'll be soloing them this weekend :T.

The update is nice and good thing they kept damage at T4 still so I'll have to be extra careful when adventuring on my own hehe. I do wonder though if some of the people that complained are in possession of a mixer/orbitgun because for them they kinda have no right to complain. Having a <1% item that does damage AoE style and high DPS to make the already easy game (besides the T4 SL's and possibly grinchlin assault for some) even more easier and complain about SL's being too hard is pretty contradicting. And yes you can say "oh but it's ineffective against gremlins/lights up oilers/charges up quicksilvers", again one is fire and the other shock so an easy switch between them and for gremlims, I'm sure the high DPS can still mow them down but what can I speak for it since I don't own either one.

Aside from that at least it makes it better for those that solo them to be able to do them with confidence once again while knowing the aspect that statuses are still important instead of raw damage. For the LD zoom feature I placed my feedback in one of the other recent threads and expecting to get grilled on it since you know, "Oh so Zen got a big mouth for stating that LD zoom doesn't matter huh?"... can't please some people lol. I'll probably expect the same thing in here.

After some time under GH it should already be engraved in our heads that they won't constantly update the game. All the threads we thrown at them will (and I'm not saying that they completely ignore what we ask, plus I'm sure they somewhat look at the Suggestions instead of this section) influence them to change minor details in the game and at this point almost everyone that plays the game should know that it'll take them a LONG time to get that change done.

Maybe what we should be doing is expanding the storyline cuz you know, who is King Tinkinzar, the rest of the Crimson Order, the source of the swarm, finding Alpha Squad, ever leaving Haven and going back to Isora? Been 9 years you know and we about to hit the game's tenth anniversary next year so maybe additional surprise story content? (My hopes aren't that up for it lol). Imo I'm more into updating that along with nerfing the health of SL's back to normal like what they did and the LD zoom feature is just a toggle. Alas though doing all that to cover more of the story will take centuries.

Anyway that's my perspective of the update so I'll be prepping myself to explore the vast wonders of the beefed up underground areas of heavily guarded forests and citadels while charging in with swords, bombs and guns ablazing. Hazzah! :D

Sun, 10/25/2020 - 20:38

#14

The-Ancient-One

Well I've been contemplating my response to this for some time now and I somewhat endorse the changes to the shadow lairs, I was personally looking for a nerf to enemy normal defense and offensive potential, as normal damage weapons will find no home here and players with more defensive armors than the usual chaos kat could use a break from getting two shot same as the chaos katters. Regardless, the change is correct because it appeases the players without actually changing too much-- which should calm down Fangel's rambunctious gang.

And. While I don't play much Lockdown these days, I don't think the recons are at that much of a loss since they already got murdered by experienced strikers constantly. Really they need to like, give recons status resists, give them MSI while cloaked and probably remove the whole "marked for death" thing, since that just gives away your position more than this change does. But that's just my 2 cents, which aren't worth more than 2 cents because again, I don't play lockdown.

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Update 10/9 Feedback Thread - Shadow Lairs and Lockdown Zoom?