Spiral Knights - Super Brawl Feedback Thread

Super Brawl Feedback Thread

3 replies [Last post]

Fri, 12/12/2025 - 15:15

Nurr-Rus

Hi there! I am the creator of the first 5 maps for Super Brawl, and I am looking for feedback.

The maps were constructed pretty much blindly with only an amateur understanding of the PvP meta. This should explain why the current SB meta is "Oops, all handguns!"

Having played a little and spectated a lot, I've made some notes:

- The gamemode needs vitapods. To be fair to ourselves, we wanted to make the game give everyone a reasonable vitapod at each round start, but a nasty bug made this impossible at the last minute.
- ...however, it appears that pickups are not lost upon death, so I figure the issue is easy to fix - I'll just need to add some accessible vitapod spawners

- Vials are too unwieldy to use most of the time. They are useful and can turn the tables, but they are slow to unleash and hard to aim. I'd like to add some additional pads which will give out Boosters instead (speed boosters, defence boosters, but probably NOT attack boosters - there's enough firepower already)
- Heal pads have turned out to be useless -- capsules are much better and can be carried even after death. I could make heal pads more effective, but the capsules don't seem overpowered, so I might just axe them. The rule of SB is "move always", and heal pads force you to break that rule.

If you can add something more to these notes - feel free to!

I also need feedback on the maps.
Each map has its own identity and experimental mechanics:

- Archipelago has all pickups at the center
- Crescent has sleep vials and tricky capsule spawners
- Old Town has player spawns and spawners scattered
- Courtyard is spacious and very open, also has a secret room (which, I fear, turned out to be fairly useless)
- Firestone Circle has lots of breakable blocks, but no pickups

If you liked certain maps or passionately hated them, do let me know! Hell, make a tierlist of them! I'll really appreciate it.

Thanks for the help in advance. Good brawling to you!

Fri, 12/12/2025 - 15:46

Leidran

Regarding the Handgun meta

While the maps could incentivize the use of melee weapons a bit more through more cover and sleep/freeze/shock/stun vials to allow for high-damaging hits, I do not believe the overall structure of maps has that much of an influence with how powerful guns are, the fact they are so spammable and deal a significant amount of damage is the main culprit here, and I believe can only be fixed by modifying or limiting the weapons themselves, which is probably not easy to do considering how hard games are to balance in general and how much of a mess this game's balance and (possibly) code already is.

Additionally, I'd like to add that vials work surprisingly well as surprise attacks from bellow due to camera angles, and as a way to disrupt an already on-going fight to occasionally steal kills. It admittedly is a bit annoying when it happens, but it is so infrequent due to how hard to land they are that it is bearable.

Sat, 12/13/2025 - 07:52

Thats-Rough-Buddy

SK PvP updates in 2025? Group hallucination?

Your map designs are not the issue. Running away and spamming guns, specifically 5* blasters, has been the most foolproof strategy in LD ever since the gunner update. The damage-range-speed balance is off the charts compared to all other weapons, even surpassing Acheron in perceived unfairness.

Even hackers/cheaters who use files to enhance their sword range can't counter max damage blaster spam, it's that effective.

If I wanted to encourage more close range combat variety without affecting PvE, I would cut damage of all guns by 50-75% when in any PvP mode, or make damage dropoff severely with hit distance from shot origin point.

The maps themselves are great, insane to see super brawl in 2025.

Sat, 12/13/2025 - 17:39

Gianor

Echoing the previous two posts, the maps themselves are not what is causing the dissatisfaction people have with the gameplay, it is just the archaic 15 year old game mode, and the tools available to us today do not mix well with the design space of the past.

People forget how much this game has changed but damage bonus on handguns really didn't exist when Super Brawl was around before. Chaos was low per piece not medium, shadowsun (or any gunner armor at the time) had no damage bonus at all, and black kat was a twinkle in the eye of the devs. Handguns were useful as poke but calling them the main gameplan is a stretch, they were carried extremely hard by old hybrid damage Sentenza. Comparatively swords did crazy damage, and Skolver/Vog Cub really had no competition in the armor department. Even if we used the power of hindsight to realize Valiance was actually kind of a really good weapon, it would just not hold up.

In the era of omni damage max, msi, and modal blasters, it doesn't surprise me that this is what the experience boils down to. Giving everyone a chunky vitapod would actually be a welcome remedy imo. Blaster is typically 5-6 shots to kill depending on defense vs. damage type and acheron is almost always 3, and while acheron still has a faster TTK, the risk really isn't worth it. A higher HP pool will be more felt when trying to kill with handguns vs. a sword.

Now that my boomer Super Brawl rant is over here's some feedback that you're actually looking for:
-From what I have seen the sleep map is by far the fan favorite solely because of the vials. If you want to experiment with vials going forward, I would focus on the ones with CC (shock, freeze, sleep, stun) over the ones without. Everytime I got hit with a fire/poison vial I just kind of didn't care. Now, if there was a sealed sword vial, where the status inflicted wasn't determined until it hit, THAT would be awesome, but I know that's not in your power.
-Boosters sound cool, but I would watch to watch if the 30 second timer that these orbs have in PvE is hard coded to the pickup. 30 seconds is 10% of the match after all.
-I agree with your sentiment on healpads.

Here's my ranking:
5: Courtyard - As far as the maps go, this is vanilla. And there is nothing wrong with vanilla, but its giant size really has it lean into the gameplay people don't like of just spacing with guns. People seem to have the most fun with this mode when its a chaotic melee brawl. If this map was still open but more cramped, it would be great. I love the idea of the secret room, and it would actually pay off if there was a reward to getting to the end first (like a boost!). An indiana jones race against 7 others to the end of the corridor to get a boost is kino gameplay.
4: Firestone Circle - The breakables are great but most will be gone a minute into the match, where it just turns into a better courtyard in my opinion.
3: Old Town - The geometry here is so good, I have seen so many crazy plays in the fenced off areas beside the stairs on the left side of the map, and the building on the right side. The only thing I really found frustrating was the erratic nature of the spawn sometimes made me have to 180 the map to find action, and when the timer is red and you're racing for points, it can feel like you got cheated.
2: Archipelago - The middle is big enough to move around in but close enough to still feel bombastic. The small amount of actual walkable ground keeps things entertaining. The only downside for me is that being in the center opens you to getting shot from all angles by onlookers on the outer ring. Maybe toying around with walls would be cool.

BIG GAP

1: Crescent - Nice and roomy, terrain to play around, the variable X factor in the sleep vials. Easily the most fun map to play. If there was one gripe I had, its that there's no reason to really visit the top half of the map. With the camera zoom out not accessible in this mode, playing top half leaves you extremely exposed to sniped by a sleep vial while at camera angle disadvantage. If you put remedy capsules up here, players would have a reward to take the risk, a get out of jail free card for when you head back down south to join the chaos.

Thanks for your work mate.

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Super Brawl Feedback Thread