Spiral Knights - Well I DID love Lockdown until...

Well I DID love Lockdown until...

20 replies [Last post]

Mon, 09/26/2011 - 11:58

Crashfu

I hit a striker wearing wolver armor FOUR TIMES with a kamarin and he didn't die. Each time I saw at least eight bars of health fly out of him. He was also being attacked by the rest of my team simultaneously. Just walked right into the middle of us while we attacked him...

And then he killed my entire team, including me while I was wearing all quicksilver armor (IE high pierce resist) with two basic attacks from the 3* snarble barb. Basic attacks. Very high or Ultra damage bonus aside, you still shouldn't be able to kill someone who isn't a striker in two basic hits of a weapon they are highly resistant to without a recon debuff being on them.

Naturally he was the first one to shout GG when the match ended. Oh, that's nice.

And then, while wearing that same high piercing resist armor, someone else in chroma gear killed me in, guess what? Two basic attacks from a flourish. Claimed they used the charge attack. They didn't. They were a striker as well, but no wolver gear, so only a high damage bonus. That's only like, what, +20% damage? Against a highly resistant foe?

Or just, in general, the fact that my Sun Shards apparently does zero damage to all players regardless of armor or having the recon debuff on them, despite how effective it is against monsters. I get that I can't get the multi-hits against players for the same reason that the autogun series doesn't work in PvP, but just ONE of those shards SHOULD be doing the same damage as a standard bomb of its tier.

Or, people attacking at full speed while stunned. If I'm using a rigadoon and you're using a flourish, and I just stunned you, you should not be able to pre-empt my attacks when I take a swing at you first. That is rediculous.

Or how about people magically overcoming the multi-hit limitation, killing you with their second attack immediately after the first connects, when you should have still been invulnerable? With a minor attack speed decrease, the faster weapons still attack quickly enough that the second hit from the combo will be blocked by the multi-hit invulnerability. HOW are these people successfully getting in two hits in half of a second?

Mon, 09/26/2011 - 12:12

Skrumm

I'm not sure mercy

I'm not sure mercy invulnerability is even active in Lockdown.

That Striker, meanwhile, could have been wearing Heart Pendant trinkets to boost his health to outlast you and your team. Was there a Guardian nearby shielding and healing him?

Mon, 09/26/2011 - 12:28

Crashfu

@ Skrumm : Oh, there IS

@ Skrumm : Oh, there IS mercy invulnerability. You ever tried using one of the autogun series weapons? They illustrate the effect the best. Only one projectile from any shot will ever cause damage. Any others after the first will hit but not DO anything. You can see it in really fast weapons, too. Unless a person is cheating somehow, they can hit with the first attack, but then the second attack will cause no damage if it hits. It seems to wear off by the time of the third attack, if you hit them with it.

Heart pendants are... a possibility, I suppose. I kind of forgot that those even existed, especially beyond the one or two heart ones, after they removed the farming exploit. Still, at the MOST that would let a striker with only moderate normal resist BARELY survive two hits from a Kamarin. Not four hits plus getting whaled on by three other people. He definitely did not have a guardian shield at the time (would have broken by then anyways, with that many people attacking) and he didn't run away long enough to have been healed, since guardian healing is really really slow and we were far away from his base.

no, even with the unlikely possibility of dual-equipping maximum rarity heart pendants, something is really fishy here.

Mon, 09/26/2011 - 12:34

Madadder

yep.... heart trinkets would

yep.... heart trinkets would be my guess its unfair but OOO doesnt really care

Mon, 09/26/2011 - 12:39

Thoranhippo

There is a multi-hit

There is a multi-hit invulnerability, and I'll join Crashfu's opinion, its Gee Aye Why. Especially for guardians, example: I dropped a very random bomb, let's say Shivermist buster near a guardian. That same guardian can surely chill out while his shield is "attacked" by freeze, 'cause meanwhile I can't hit him at all. Great, isn't it?
Against guardians again. Let's say we're 1 gunner, 1 swordsman attacking him. Gunner spams his whatever bullets while I try to break shield with my sword. Bullets go faster than my sword slashes the only damages the guardian takes are the pretty weak bullets. Meanwhile that same guardian can feel free to just blow me up with his own sword between the sword combos.
Like it wasn't hard enough already, developpers had to double their HP, moreover. I mean balancing class is a fine thing, of course; but usually balancing means setting every class on a step of equality. And I'd tend to say nowadays not much more players dare going for Striker mode since its so underpowered. The problem (in my opinion ONLY) wasn't well cornered. Maybe strikers seemed too strong simply because it was used by skilled players only?
Anyway. Hope they'll think at least about that multi-hit problem. Because its a quite stupid feature to just leave players invulnerable from spammed strikes.

(I play striker only. Disgusted, but just a bit cause I still can handle fine to see all other classes are now so "healthy". STRIKER FTW)

Mon, 09/26/2011 - 13:29

Farakos

Strikers have very low

Strikers have very low longevity in the hands of an unexperienced players. Many lowered geared players selecting striker in random matches get smashed because of this - the run speed nonsense just is not a defensive ability, is easily predicted/countered, etc. The easiest targets for me in any match are strikers wearing full vog or the 4*/3* versions of that armor and a version of da/gf including 5*). I will literally try to "chase" them from where they will go off respawn and kill them over and over and over. If I were an undergeared player I would select guardian or recon because their abilities provide a level of defense that ignores current gear level. If a geared striker can kill another in 2-3 hits with a piercing weap or 1-2 hits with a gf/da yet an undergeared striker needs 4-6 hits with a piercing weap and 3-4 with a sealed sword or 4* you see why they are just running around waiting on death. Undergeared strikers literally need to catch people who have just survived a fight, currently sitting low health, to get the kills. Furthermore, they are the most ridiculously easy targets when they are trying to capture a point. That is why many people are under the impression that only skilled players use striker. It has nothing to do with actual skill most of the time but more with the fact that a lot of people tried it and had to pick something else to be effective. A lesser geared player can easily pick recon and bomb/stealth capture or a guardian can sit on a midpoint flag and protect the teammates coming and going to that point.

I never use the second swing of the barb unless all im trying to do is hit with the third swing (aka some guy is shooting a slow gun like callahan or polaris and gets caught on a reload, im going to spam my sword so my last swing gets him as its way faster than his gun reload + very deceptive range). Otherwise just use the first swing of the weapon and time the next attack for the moment the swing will not continue to swing two but rather begin another swing one.

Mon, 09/26/2011 - 14:13

Kwizzy

Hi from the Chroma suiter. It

Hi from the Chroma suiter. It was a swift flourish (full piercing damage), and full combo attacks. Just lucky aim. I don't usually use that weapon because it gets me killed too often playing good players. All I do with flourish is combo & charge, which is very easy to predict and thwack me in the back.

The other player you're complaining about is simply really good. I'm assuming it's either C- or M-. They're -great- at dodging attacks and fight until they die. I can confirm they don't use heart trinkets from all the times they've been on my team. I don't know much about the Kamarin, but I know it certainly doesn't hit people for 8 pips - that would 1 hit me normally and most of us in t2 pvp.

There is some immunity to damage if you've been hit recently like someone else said. So while four of you might've been hitting the knight, he only takes damage from one. Most good strikers love fights like that, because they can hit all of you and only take damage from one.

Remember to have fun! It's just a game, and in Lockdown, even the losers win their Krogmo coins. :)

If you haven't yet, try mapping your shield key to your left mouse button and using WASD to move. Makes it incredibly easier to dodge attacks, especially as a striker if you mix in a short burst of speed.

Mon, 09/26/2011 - 14:12

Splinter

Theres an invulnerability?

Theres an invulnerability? How? Are you talking about when you shield and it breaks?

Mon, 09/26/2011 - 14:19

Thoranhippo

Talking about when for

Talking about when for example 4 persons hit you at the same time, only one person's damage will be taken in account. Best example for me is a guardian shielding from a status ailment bomb: as long as the bomb is hitting his shield, no one else can harm his shield or him in that specific case (but the guy had better just stay shielded). The bomb cannot harm his shield and you cannot harm him, he just has to wait until the bomb blast collapses and keep doing whatever, killing, running, shielding more..

Mon, 09/26/2011 - 14:35

Sick

Hmm..

Yes mercy invul is in LD. Like OP mentioned, try using a blitz on someone. Not all hits will do damage.

Question is...how many active frames (starting from the first confirmed hit) are there?

Mon, 09/26/2011 - 14:59

#10

Ailea

Remember, the pips you see

Remember, the pips you see flying out when you hit someone represent 1/4 of a bar. 8 pips = 2 bars of damage.

Mon, 09/26/2011 - 16:19

#11

Crashfu

I would think that the

I would think that the striker-who-would-not-die might have just been getting hit by weak bullets or someone who doesn't understand how mercy invulnerability works could have been hitting him with a cutter or something, but I was actually seeing the huge shower of lost health bars coming out when I hit him...

Unless, it's possible, that Spiral Knights suffers from the kind of client-side/server-side discrepancies that plague games like, oh... Team Fortress 2? I think the TF2 veterans know what I mean. Some laggy guy comes running up, you blast him in the face, you see the blood spraying all over suggesting that the shot hit, you shoot him again and again and again but he just doesn't die, because even though your client says the shot connected, the server says otherwise. Or you see someone aiming a sniper rifle at you and you duck behind a wall and.... get shot anyways. Because THEIR client said you were where you were a second ago when they pulled the trigger, and the server gave them the benefit of the doubt.

If Lockdown suffers from that same kind of problem, then it would actually explain a LOT of things. Otherwise, I just don't know.

Oh, here's a new one for you, though. Saw some guy with a really long, vaguely spanish name, who had his movement PERMANENTLY stuck on striker dashing speed. I would have thought it was just some kind of visual glitch, but.. I was low on health at one point, standing next to the enemy base. Had full dash bar, so I dash towards home. Get about 2/3 of the way there and keep running. The guy overtakes me and, without slowing down even once, resumes dashing away. I never once saw him move at non-dashing speed, and only half of the time was he even in the dashing pose or having the effects that go with it such as the energy 'wake'.

You can explain any of the other stuff that happened to me, but permanent dashing? There is no way that isn't a hack. No way.

Mon, 09/26/2011 - 16:40

#12

Speetz

I use my right mouse button

I use my right mouse button to shield/use ability and my left to attack, then WASD to move. I can dodge and maneuver very well in LD, and when I play a match that isn't lag infested or there isn't that ONE guy with a crappy ping who it's impossible to fight, I do very well.

I play in Skolv/Vog with the SWORDS TRINKETS which makes up for the lack of bonus you were talking about. I have High on both, with a bunch of defense UVs and extra power/CTR/speed on my swords. Some of us are dumb and put way too much into this game XD

Just have fun, and try to do what you can ot be your best; take advice from other players and realize that lag is really affecting the game for all players. (As those of us with good ping might get affected by those with baaad ping)

Anyway, good luck, and have fun!

EDIT: Trinkets can also add tons of defense if done right, especially with UVs. I have 2 on my coat and one on my hat for shadow and piercing defense. Gotta take it all into account.

Mon, 09/26/2011 - 16:39

#13

Fehzor

Yeah, thats how I roll.

I was playing recon with merc helm, and charged q-silver earlier today... the merc helm is only lvl 1 (haven't had time to level it yet), and I was using RSS, vile striker, and pepperbox. I didn't do bad at all, and got my usual 2.8ish thousand damage, and won a few matches, so...

Mon, 09/26/2011 - 16:54

#14

Tengu

I'm going to suggest you

I'm going to suggest you check your latency and network jitter.

If you're on WIFI, sorry...take what you can get. low latency (like 10ms or less) and low jitter (aka very stable) connections are gonna have the leg up on us slowbys. I have a 30ms latency most of the time, and it's the difference between connecting with a speeding striker and not. If I'm attacking a low latency guy, it'll look to me like I connected, but I will have missed by a small amount. :\

Mon, 09/26/2011 - 23:19

#15

Craftsy

Hacker? I barely know er!

I have to say, you're awefully quick to call something a 'hack' Crashfu.

That always-on running you saw someone doing? Why does that have to be a hack... it's more likely just a bug.

And as for your game with me, I honestly don't recall any fights in that game where you hit me four times with your kamarin. I do recall the game (since I did very well in that game and you called me a hacker), but the individual fights didn't particularly stick out so I can't say for certain what happened in the fight you're remembering.

I can say I've been hit by kamarins in t2 pvp a lot in the past few days, and they hurt. A lot. I've been killed by a few, enough that I've adjusted my play style against them. As for what you saw, I offer these possible explanations:

-latency spikes in your connection caused your client to think you'd hit me when you hadn't
-under-geared people on your team were probably going down in one hit
-I was dodging well that day
-brief invulnerability from being hit could easily have saved me more than once
-Your dead teammates drop 1 heart each for me, I *often* eat these to regain health mid-fight. Yes, some of your teammates actually gave me health. I often leave hearts kicking around from previous kills to eat during tough fights as well.
-If you were guardian and shielding, when I hit your unresistant teammates they take a ton of damage... which breaks your shield. Yes, those 1* people with four health went down in one or two shots, AND took your shield with them.

Personally, I maintain that most people die from (almost) any of the popular 3* pvp swords in two or three hits. And should. Feel free to argue that snarble is overpowered, but you should start by saying how many hits you think someone should take before they go down. Personally I think needing to get hit 4 times or more before you die is excessive... it would swing the balance far in favor of guardians and make fighting a big grind.

Just for reference, I typically wear a pierce resistance trinket, an elemental resistance trinket, and use the twisted snarble barb. There're no interesting UVs that I can recall on any of the gear. This is tier 2 lockdown, because I quickly grew tired of the 1-shotting and 2-shotting that tier 3 lockdown was all about when it came out... once I'm confident that tier 3 is better balanced, I'll probably invest in some gear for it.

On a side note, I've played a reasonable amount with the shockburst brandish (elemental/normal) and I'd say I don't do quite as well with it... but I still do just fine.

Lockdown needs some work, but tier 2 weapon balance should be low priority IMO. If you're going to call out for changes, call out for:
-tier 3 weapon balance (yeah, it's a bit better now, but still...)
-minimum gear for a tier (I'm tired of people in tier 2 having two or three health)
-finding some balancing mechanic for when people leave (replace them? If it happens in the waiting room, don't start the game yet?)

Mon, 09/26/2011 - 23:50

#16

Nicoya-Kitty

I've been eating a lot of

I've been eating a lot of kamarin lately too, and I think it's partially calmed my pierce sword rage. That and taking a step back, a deep breath, and remembering that if I walk away from just 50% of the battles I fully commit to, I'm doing ok. (especially considering I'm usually crazy enough to single-handedly take on 2 or 3 enemies parked on a control point)

As for the sun shards, I just started using mine today and I can't say I'm disappointed in any way. I certainly wasn't counting on it to keep up with the DPS on my micronome, and given that its role in my arsenal is for long-range harassment more than anything I'd say it does its job quite well.

Are there bugs, weaknesses, and balance issues? Sure, of course there are, but these things will be worked out in due time.

Tue, 09/27/2011 - 07:10

#17

Cobalt

Tl; Dr. Buuttttt... I don't

Tl; Dr.

Buuttttt...

I don't see why people take normal weapons into Lockdown.

Everyone(There are a few, like Divine, Dragon, etc) has normal defense.

I was wearing Ancient Plate set and was taking on this person who was using Nitronome, and it only did two and half bars. That's silly.

I did test Nitronome in the LD testing, and it didn't perform well either. But then again, I'm not an experienced bomber.

rantrantrant.

Tue, 09/27/2011 - 07:22

#18

Dirt

Naturally he was the first

Naturally he was the first one to shout GG when the match ended. Oh, that's nice.

ALL OF MY HATE!

Tue, 09/27/2011 - 09:52

#19

Nicoya-Kitty

@Cobalt well, the alternative

@Cobalt well, the alternative DPS bomb is the Twisted Spine Cone (T2) or Dark Briar Barrage (T3), and given how popular piercing defence is in T2 at least (hello dusker armor) it's not much worth giving up the knockback. It probably wouldn't be as bad in T3 with more people running Vog gear, but I've heard things are moving towards skolver there to counter shivermist spam so...

I dunno, I'd probably add it to my bomb loadout if I had a third slot open.

Now, if there were a shadow version of the micronome...

Tue, 09/27/2011 - 10:20

#20

Cobalt

Shadow Version.

Hell.
Yes.

A decent Shadow dealing bomb is WAY overdue. The Vortex series have small blast radius' compared to a 5* haze bomb. If they even have that range, I still would not be happy with them. A shadow version of the Nitronome would be wonderful.

OOO, y u do this to us.

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Well I DID love Lockdown until...