Nerf the thwack hammer
Fri, 11/19/2010 - 00:10
I think the Thwack hammer is too powerful when fully heated.
Thwack hammer is a one-star item; I'm only at 9 levels of heat right now, and I'm doing triple digit damage, and interrupting enemy attacks with little to no effort (on the PC).
To clarify: When I'm on the PC, and have good frame rates in combat, I can see the enemy attack animations beginning, and < swing > and the attack is stopped, and damage is done, and the enemy is knocked back, and < swing > again and I'm moving forward, doing triple digit damage, knocking them farther back, and usually killing anything by then. If not, my next attack -- and even the delay in attacking here isn't a problem, as they have to come back to me -- does.
Or, if I have a bunch of things, I just back off, and build up a charge. Now I have to release my charge attack very early as they are approaching me; it takes time to deliver. But it does a heck of a lot -- I have yet to see anything survive a charge plus a normal (first) swing.
For a one-star item, at depths 8-12, at 9 levels of heat. It's not even fully charged, and if it behaves like the other swords I've seen, it will get another ability at 10. (Or maybe not -- checking right now shows that it already has attack speed increase and charge time decrease. Hmm ... checking more stuff seems to indicate that the first ability comes at 4 heat, not 5.)
Now, this requires being able to time my attack. This approach is [s]useless[/s] very hard for me to pull off on my mac.
Seriously, right now the only things that are giving me trouble are:
Gun puppies that cannot be reached
Large sections of spiked floors
Gun puppies hiding behind large sections of spiked floors
And bramble with poison, etc.
And once my jelly shield and armor get better, even the spikes won't be an issue anymore. As it is, once the shield reached two heat, I could manage to avoid taking damage from spiked floors (without the puppies), and where it levels up to, ...
Frankly, it's looking like that flame thrower goblin is the only real thing I've seen shallower than level 12 that I'm worried about now. (Oh, and the sleep lichen :-).
Just how overpowered is it?
So overpowered that even when I'm in an area where I know I can just use my blaster and slowly pchoo - pchoo - pchoo away at the monsters, at 11-15 points per, I'd rather just charge in, swing wildly, and take the enemy out in 1/5th the time for almost no damage. And if I do somehow blow the timing, all I do is shield, walk around (so they have to switch to movement and reset their attack timings), and start over.
Seriously, the thwack hammer is overpowered for depths 8-12, and it's one-star.
Fri, 11/19/2010 - 00:29
#2
How much deeper? How deep
How much deeper? How deep should a one-star weapon be a kill-all?
I can already handle 3-5 monsters at once, and was doing that tonight.
If you look at the six zones -- 1-3, break, 5-7, Moorcroft; 9-12, break, 14-17, Emberlight; 19-22, break, 24-29, core; and you look at six levels of weapons (zero-star through 5 star), it seems like one-star should be for the 5-7 zone. For 9-12, a one-star item should be looking a little wimpy.
Yes, I don't expect that a Thwack Hammer will take me to the core. But how deep should it go?
9-12 and it shows no sign of being outclassed at all.
Maybe I'll switch to the crappy mail and helmet next time, and let you know that it's not those that are responsible. (But not the shield ... I like the spike protection ...)
Fri, 11/19/2010 - 00:41
#3
I have a lvl 10 Thwack
I have a lvl 10 Thwack hammer. Speed wise, it has 2 speed reduction: ultra, one for recharge and one for something else. So that gets quite a boost compared to the lvl 1 Shoebox. Also, I have reached Emberlight with it nearly fully solo. (except 1 level where a friend had to revive me after a dc) The major thing I also love about it is that doing it's combo second hit, you have a big chance on stunning your opponent. So yes perhaps it's a tad overpowered for the number of stars it has :p When I play around Mooncroft I can kill nearly all in 2 blows, 3-4 at the most, not taking the biggy turtle into account of course.
I may be mistaken here, but isn't there a higher-starred sword with the same attack and speed stats as the Thwack hammer? Something in it's description with "it has a motor inside that can give out bursts of energy" or something alike, have only seen it briefly while ago. I found it odd anyhow.
Fri, 11/19/2010 - 00:48
#4
All items (every single one!)
All items (every single one!) will be rebalanced soon.
Fri, 11/19/2010 - 00:53
#5
Well if you're going to rebalance every weapon
What will happen to people's current equipment?
Fri, 11/19/2010 - 00:55
#6
@Shoebox
I would assume that
@Shoebox
I would assume that there won't be a before and after version. Unless they decides to do something to that bomb that's unobtainable now.
Fri, 11/19/2010 - 01:09
#7
I'm just thinking ahead here
If they turn hard earned equipment into a pile of crap, that real money was spent to make, what do we get for that?
I understand that this is part of the testing process.
I'd be fine with it if it didn't cost me any Energy to make all of my equipment, but since it cost me quite a lot of energy that I paid for.
I would like to know what is going to be done to counterbalance this.
Fri, 11/19/2010 - 03:09
#8
Shoebox: Your counterbalance
Shoebox: Your counterbalance is the 25% bonus when the game fully releases.
This is a test version. What you do here can be, and will be a complete "waste" game-progress wise. Everything will be cleared in the end when the testing is done. So there's no need to complain about having a loss like that at this stage, you knew it was coming when you first started here.
Fri, 11/19/2010 - 03:30
#9
That's not a counterbalance, that's a reward for being awesome
Basically, we're losing our gear in an effort to make the game tougher.
What are they going to do to counterbalance that?
How are they still going to make the game worth playing for the people who lose their gear now, for us to keep testing and spending real money now so they can make money in the future?
I'm not a negative person, I don't particularly enjoy saying these things. But the game's community is pretty much comprised of the most hardcore players.
If people lose their gear, get forced to pay more money to test an even tougher game and the price of Energy spins out of control because of how much demand is placed on everybody, the game is going to come to a standstill.
I'd be fine with weapon balancing if it were closer to the end of the preview or it was at the start of the next one, but right now it seems like a bad move to go ahead with something like that, when there's already very little keeping people playing beyond the promise of more content.
A lot more needs to be done to the game before they start with minor tweaking about.
Fri, 11/19/2010 - 04:08
#10
You're not going to lose any
You're not going to lose any gear, and if you "lost" all your gear through it being made worthless then clearly that wouldn't be balancing. That would just be replacing one set of unbalanced stuff with another set of unbalanced stuff.
The whole point of balance is to make all options equally viable. All your equipment will still be perfectly fine.
If they do screw up the rebalancing, the problem will not be that you don't get compensated; the problem will be that they screwed up the rebalancing. But all rebalancing done so far (first bombs, then some swords more recently) have been steps in the right direction.
Trust them.
And I would like to say, that the Thwack Hammer works fine.
It's not overpowered at all.
It's extremely slow, more than two monsters and there's a good chance you will get your own attacks interrupted.
And the charge attack takes a huge amount of time to launch, making it almost pointless for anything but whomping enemies popping out of the ground.
Once you get to the deeper depths, you're going to want something faster, like a Brandish or Spur, just because of how often you'll be interrupted using a slower weapon.