Spiral Knights - Lockdown Drop Balancing: Combat Bonus

Lockdown Drop Balancing: Combat Bonus

4 replies [Last post]

Sat, 01/07/2012 - 19:04

Probably been said before, but the lack of balancing sucks. But okay I can deal with that, I can deal with one team being composed entirely of high-hp top-geared players and the other being a bunch of people lost in the wrong tier, fine, okay, it's a challenge. And it motivates players to improve their gear.

But! There is no excuse for a lack of balancing upon a player leaving. It's crippling! Absolutely a death knell for the entire team. Especially when it's 4 vs. 3.

So I was thinking, it would be pretty sweet if when a player left, the remaining players got a bonus of some sort. Extra max hp, extra damage, and extra defense. Something like that. The spirit of the fallen empowers those that remain!

But to further help balancing, this bonus should also be temporarily applied to all teammates for any player who has not yet moved, to balance out the same team-crippling effects of AFKers.

That sounds awesome you say? Like it might very nearly solve the entire problem of how unfair a game is after a player has left? And all without reloading the instance to balance team numbers? Yes, yes I thought so. Thank you, that's very kind of you to say.

Sat, 01/07/2012 - 19:25

Mohandar

Capture rates

A better way in my opinion is to increase the team's capture rate. So if it normally a player's capture rate is 1unit/second and it takes 5 units to capture or nullify a control point, an X person team that is missing Y players all have their capture rates increased by at least 1/X. I would recommend increasing by 1/(X*c) where c is some balancing constant, because just having the capture rate of that player be redistributed doesn't solve the problem that the remaining players have less total health and damage output on average.

Heck, this could even be extended to gear as well: for each non-5* armor, helm, and single highest star-level weapon, you get a small capture bonus based on how far short of 15 stars you are. So if you are wearing full Dusker and have an Avenger and a Blaster, then you are short 5 stars (only the single best weapon counts), and you get some multiplier based on that number applied to your capture rate.

Sat, 01/07/2012 - 19:51

Juggernaut

But I want to say the system should work in such a way that on the chance a game ends up say 6:1, it should still be just as hard for the six players to kill and out-capture the one remaining opponent as it would be to be up against a full team. It should be a juggernaut type of game at that point. I think even giving the remaining single player instant cap power wouldn't quite balance things properly (though it would be pretty fun to be a striker with an instant capping bonus). He should have the health of a final boss.

As for the equipment balancing, can you imagine a striker running into the game naked and fast-capping everything with a system like that? It would definitely be exploited.

Sat, 01/07/2012 - 20:34

Uuni

I want an option not to queue

I want an option not to queue in with trinket buyers. They break the game. Striker with more HP than a guardian is just wrong

Sun, 01/08/2012 - 14:13

Defeats the Point

If they were to remove or segregate players with better equipment in Lockdown, or remove the bonuses, or do anything to take away from the importance of having good equipment, then it demotivates players in their quest for better equipment. Many players live for the PVP experience, and so having equipment bonuses be part of that experience keeps them striving for something in the game, and also keeps the game's economy moving. If you don't like them having so much health, then your only option is to also have more health, which means either paying for the energy or working for the energy to do so.

Complaining about the existence of well-equipped players is basically admitting to being too lazy to put the effort in to getting good equipment. Come on guys. Three Rings works pretty hard to make sure everyone has an equal opportunity to play on a level playing field in this game. Some people have to work harder because they don't want to pay, but after enough hard work the results pay off as much as spending a few bucks for better equipment.

Let's stay on topic here and focus on improving the currently unaddressed imbalance created when a player prematurely leaves a match.

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Lockdown Drop Balancing: Combat Bonus