Spiral Knights - Rebalance to Lockdown?

Rebalance to Lockdown?

89 replies [Last post]

Mon, 04/23/2012 - 18:18

Rommil

So.

Clearly, we need a weapons rebalance in lockdown (i know all lockdown players who have spent millions on their gear will cry NOOOOOOOOOO, and hate me for suggesting it.)

But Lockdown is pretty lame. Everyone is a skolver with Barbarous thorn blade/final flourish, Gran faust, and spams polaris at chokes. The whole thing is boring, homogenous, and lame.

And for the those who have invested a ton of money, its max pierce on the armor, and vh asi on the weapons. But really, its just makes for a lacking experience. Lockdown would be a ton more fun, if there were 10 different load-outs that were all equally effective, and it was a mini-mindgame to counter your opponents.

i'm sure this thread has been made a million times. But i just never noticed, as until now, i had ignored lockdown (and will likely go back to ignoring lockdown).

Mon, 04/23/2012 - 18:25

Pawn

well

lockdown really just needs to have polaris spam eliminated. It's funny, all these players puff up there chest and get in a who's more skilled "water recycling" match. Then they dash to the node and spam a ZERO SKILL polaris wall at the chokes.

I seriously don't see the appeal in this. Wouldn't it be just as fun to go to the training hall and spam polaris wall at a choke in there. At this point you aren't even playing lockdown. Your just standing there trying to make sure no gets to play.

Honestly, spamming polaris is waaaaaaaaaayyyy less skilled than all this auto-aim whining and crying and make-believe advantage complaining.

Most common scenario:

Skolver: Aaaaahhhhhhh a skilled gunner is coming. OMG nooooo. Spam polaris and run away.

P.S. even less impressive is when a 'famous' gunner shows up in lockdown and starts spamming polaris. I think....aww man, u were supposed to be good :(

Mon, 04/23/2012 - 18:42

Mk-Vl

Play T1 LD Only place someone

Play T1 LD

Only place someone with a proto sword and gun can get more damage than a hammer

Mon, 04/23/2012 - 19:05

Sypsy

@ RommilI'm going to call

@ Rommil

I'm going to call you out on this.
I was in that game you left right before you posted this. You were gunning. But there is definitely room for you to grow.

I believe that comes with more experience as I know you're relatively new to it. There is still a place in lockdown for gunning, and there are tons of ppl who can out play a skolver-toothpick.

There are also tons of bombers who play well. I have been in a rotation of games where there is always someone cringing, "Dammit, I'm against the bomber."

So yes, there is room for at least 3 different types of builds for all three weapons types. Perhaps not 10 dominate styles, but you can read all the other threads that people discuss about balance etc.

Re: Polaris spam

This thing is a non issue. Seriously. The bullets move slow and you can get around them. Especially the noobs that shoot 3 in a row. It's like dodging a lumber smash. Really, Polaris spam is meant to punish the impatient. It's hilarious to see someone dash downwards into spam, thinking they could somehow bust through it.

No one ever said you can run INTO the polaris spam. No map has a room with a capture point with a single entrance. You can get around from a different direction. If there are multiple ppl on a point spamming in different directions, why would you go in? 3v1 is never to your advantage. Go to a different point and capture it. If you must fight, you wouldn't be dashing in like a hero, since you'd have no more dash to fight.... It's all really quite silly. You learn these things as you play.

Edit: I think your suggestions could be more constructive if you could get more experience under your belt first. Complaining about balance when you're tripping on the first hurdle is unfair. Just keep in mind you will always complain about the hurdle that trips you up.
Once you can get past polaris spam, most of your deaths will come from either toothpicks or GF's. This is why a lot of people complain about those and auto-aim. Once you get past the swords, and die less from them (or at least can trade blows equally against your average skolver-toothpick/gf) then it's time to complain about the next thing that caused you to die (e.g., bombs, hammers, shock, heart trinkets, recon stealth, 2v1, lag, only having half health, RL distractions, crappy teammates). At least this is how this pub community seems to work.

Just remember, OOO does not balance around PVP to the point that it would mess up PvE. To people who want more balance, I would tell them to play Tribes Ascend or something.

Mon, 04/23/2012 - 19:22

Guyinshinyarmour

@Pawn
Those "famous" ones tend to trap you between bullets though, so you can't just strafe them. There is skill to their shot placement. Best thing to do is to stand still or back up. Maybe even move up and try to knock them in the face. Most of the no-skill spammers truly use it with no skill and can be sidestepped easily (as a goddamn guardian, so strikers have no excuse). They empty the entire clip and leave themselves wide open to a counter. They couldn't hit the broadside of a barn.

That said, if you get two or three people spamming it, you don't need any sort of shot placement to actually do damage, and it's a wall with no break. It's just lame. As I hear, that's the norm in GvG, which is why I try to stay out of that. Could be solved by having Polaris shots cancel each other out if they drift too close to each other. That way you only get one stream of fire downrage.

Mon, 04/23/2012 - 19:34

Jaroche

People who uses polaris is

People who uses polaris is just lame (even in pve), specially if they are pretending to be "gunners"; If you ask me that gun needs to be deleted from the game.

Balancing pvp is not going to happen, but why? because that would destroy pve behavior. Sure ask for pierce swords nerf (range and damage), good luck killing Devilites. Ok, maybe OOO could actually property balance both sides but the effort required is just not worth for them, they are too busy adding hats and silly ways to milk player's money.

Besides, making the ultimate skolver clone requires something like 100k ce and there is a lot of players willing to spend that much (just look at how much ASI VH SS/F goes). There is a so called winning formula that sells well, if it works for Haven Treasury why "fix it"?

Edit:
@Guyinshinyarmour yup, basically what most guilds just does, creating a bullet wall because is the ultimate skillz.

Mon, 04/23/2012 - 19:29

Pawn

@ Sypsy

Great points.
Some clarification:
I put away my axe to grind about toothpick skolver when went toothpick skolver myself. And then all that about trading shots with average players (and being rich i actually have a UV advantage most of the time, with asi high gf, asi med FF, Vog coat max pierc+max shock, skolver cap max pierce. And strangely after learning to trade with many toothpickers, i suddenly became able to whip out my umbra or hail driver and actually outgun the dashing striker or steady guardian.

In fact, sitting on the couch next to rommil i continually remind him that he just started and is improving constantly. He has one decent PvP gun, Storm driver no UV (well undead uv but whatevs). He just crafted a lucky umbra asi vh and i'm leaning on him to lvl this one up, and to add in an asi med or better toothpick or GF for emergency scenarios.

As far as polaris goes, actually, i end up being fairly shock resistant and can often take advantage of single polaris spam. My main point was that i don't see the appeal of it. The polaris actually functions to reduce the overall skill of lockdown. In my humble opinion. When i get frustrated is when u have 7 people spamming polaris in lockdown and at that point i find it mostly annoying (not deadly). And i'm always disappointed when a gunner to be admired yanks out a polaris. This is sharp contrast to my experience vs thisnameisinuse, when he out strikes a 2v1 with Valiance. Now THAT is beautiful gunning. Also, i kind of feel like polaris is a shortcut to AHHHHH SAVE ME for skolver clones. I just feel lockdown would be a better game with no polaris at all. Imagine the flow of lockdown if polaris was exact same as storm driver, and nova polaris as a nova driver. Would it not have a much smoother feel?

My other point is i find it offensive how many snobbish 'auto-aim' whiners there are. Invariably the people who hate auto-aim have such great latency vs other players that they have this immense natural advantage. And then they whine about a function built into the game to help offset known latency issues. When someone like feller is running around and destroying me with a flourish from 15 foot away (consistently, and every time, anytime we play), and i never once have had or can have or will have a fair engagement vs him because his latency trumps mine (and of course he is much better with 100x more experience on top of that) it seems asinine to then criticize my auto-aim. Especially when auto-aim is a hindrance vs having good enough internet/cpu to being able to play without it. On my old 2007 laptop, there is not a player in the world who could score 25k damage. It's not a possibility. It's an imposibility. You get .2-.5second freezes all the time. Slight pause then wake up dead. But then the second an auto-aim corrects a failure in the client computer relationship, i get hate. Then these same players are the first to pull out a polaris. All that complaining about auto-aim, and now they rely on a no-aim needed weapon to save them. Just seems silly.

No one ever opines that you got unlucky, but they are first in line to tell you when you got lucky.

Great post sypsy. You are absolutely right, and great points. +1

Mon, 04/23/2012 - 19:35

Neodasus

You don't need to rebalance

You don't need to rebalance lockdown, because players with skill will still run circles around you. What you're asking for is a weapon rebalance and OOO is already putting this in the works. I don't think anything will replace the FF/GF simply because the final flourish has the greatest range and power of all the 5* fast-speed weapons and the GF has that nifty curse ability.

Polaris is a joke when you have only one player using it. It becomes a serious problem when every member of the opposite team uses it in unison, though (Polaris wins GvG, not kidding). Haze bombs will always be in style, no matter what they use it will cause some problems for you.

Before anyone gets into it, auto-aim is a joke. I can't even play recon with it, it ruins the timing by distorting the angle of the attack. The only use is for strikers to simply attack in the general area and pray for a hit. I can see how this could help a guardian, but it is absolutely terrible for recons.

Mon, 04/23/2012 - 19:43

Mk-Vl

As for

autoaim, I turned it off and felt a pretty noticeable difference. There isn't that split second where the computer pauses to recorrect my angle. Granted I miss every now and then where if I had it on I wouldn't have but still it just feels cleaner. I have to admit though I live in america so I usually have three bars (on a lucky day if no one else on campus is using the internets I can grab 4 for a few minutes) so I don't have constant lag like others. I feel that It does the job it's supposed to do- help those with lag. For those without it's really more of a hindrance than anything.

Mon, 04/23/2012 - 19:48

Sypsy

@Pawn It's great to hear you

@Pawn

It's great to hear you went from being able to play skolver to moving to guns while out playing an average skolver with an umbra. =D That is how I learned to gun, so it's great to see someone else also learn in that fashion. I hope to play you soon sometime!

I also use a valiance, storm driver, and umbra (funny, luck got me vh asi on it too, more about that below), but I still use a polaris. Thinking about it now, if you took it away from the game, I think it could be a lot of fun. But for the times when I'm caught between two polaris shots, I need the polaris in order to pressure the gunner. A driver just doesn't cut it. But I agree with you there, take the polaris out of lockdown, and it can be an interesting game. Perhaps have GvG - No Polaris games, but this would be player agreed.

Polaris is also useful for 2 or 3v1 situations. It's satisfying taking out multiple ppl with a driver or valiance, but there is definitely a risk there since you essentially need to dodge 3 people. With a polaris you can at least divide and conquer far more easily.

--
Re: vh asi on drivers.
I am seriously considering selling my vh asi umbra for an asi med and pocketing the profit. My storm driver has med asi, and the difference is hardly noticeable. I can see the difference in the training hall, but it doesn't really affect me in lockdown. Asi med vs no asi does make a difference though. IMO, sell the shadowtech, get an asi med. Also, I usually carry only one driver, and I reach for the storm more often because of the chance to cause shock, even though I could be dealing just a bit more damage. Further to that, most gunners run shadowsun, and the umbra is nerfed against them.

Now ASI on the antigua line or valiance line is very noticable.

Mon, 04/23/2012 - 19:51

#10

Dirt

Direct, gear-based PvP will

Direct, gear-based PvP will never be good in a game like Spiral Knights. The only PvP that will work even remotely well is mini-game-based PvP, like Blast Network.

Mon, 04/23/2012 - 19:54

#11

Pokenuevo

I'd like to talk about the Polaris, after a particular game in Furnace today.
Here's my sad story: We capture the first point, as the other team shortly captures their first point. We all head as a group to gang up on whoever is in the middle, lone behold, Polaris bullets flooded our only pathway. Some of our strikers tried to run in quick and get them. Nope, another Polaris guy came in. Here, we start planning, kind of, and try for an all out attack. Nope, they had 2 BTB Strikers in Skolver protecting them and running back after every hit. We ended up losing by not too large of a margin (maybe 85 points) because we luckily could get through when there was a minute left.
Overall, I believe the rebalancing should happen, and it will, don't worry.

Mon, 04/23/2012 - 19:58

#12

Sypsy

@ Pokenuevo I would have gone

@ Pokenuevo

I would have gone to their other point and captured it. Then wait for them to come down, thinning out the top for your team to capture. If they don't come, I'd have gone up around the back.
Or else, I would have used a storm driver charge since it has a longer reach than polaris spam. Once they see charges coming, they split and stop shooting. Wall stops.

Mon, 04/23/2012 - 20:01

#13

Hadn

Storm Driver > Polaris.

Storm Driver > Polaris. Faster, bouncy shots that can cause equally the amount of shock = a win in my book. ;D

Everything has a counter to it atm especially now with the added change to the charging weapons lark so no need for rebalance. Gunners that keep distance as a striker > Swords, Bombers that use Nitro / RSS are pretty hard to get close to now if you're planning on poking them, not forgetting status hazes to drop the speed of the so named "toothpick clone".

If I'm honest I get killed more by a sword in the Brandish line / Calibur line 'cus the swing speed / combos are even more annoying than someone initiating a dance with me without permission with a Flourish. People get caught off-guard more by weapons they've not had practice against / not expecting to be against so its fairly balanced by my book. (Even if latency is the real victor).

In most cases it's learning particular player's playstyles moreso than being "the best" with a certain weapon. (Naturally knowing a weapon like the back of your hand helps but if you don't know how someone is going to move / attack then you're at a slight disadvantage). If you know someone spams a flourish combo you can lure them to swing first leaving them vulnerable. If someone spams polaris then as Syps said, there are ways around the map without having to go down that corridor. The knockback perhaps needs to be reigned in a little.

As for suggestions to help "balance" / make the game more interesting. There could be a "friendgroup v friendgroup" option where you can invite 5 other people from your friends list to be in the same team as you are I'm sure most players are fed up of being stuck in an unfair team in random games.

Or - At the start of the game 2 "captains" are designated and its a coin toss to see who gets first pick of the other players and then alternate picking the rest (this could split teams fairly but probably too much of a cafuffle for people that want fast games).

I also think that perhaps if, using 6v6 for an example, there are 6 "classes" with set weapons / armor for each team and only 1 player can be each forcing players to tactically get the best out of their team by assigning a class to the best suited person.

Of course these are just initial thoughts and I clearly haven't ironed out any details whatsoever so don't just shoot me down for the hell of it. :P

Mon, 04/23/2012 - 20:04

#14

Pokenuevo

I don't believe that my

I don't believe that my team's spawn had any other pathways to get to other points, aside from the middle, at the start. The Polaris people were ready for us basically. Although, my team had no Alchemer users, quite saddening. I, myself, was using an Acheron, Biohazard, and FF (which I didn't even use). Unfortunately, I couldn't help much because Biohazard is not useful in this situation (but I usually love it). I just ran up with my Acheron charged, hoping to scare or damage them. The explosions would get me as I tried to get back and heal every time (from other shots after being shocked).

Mon, 04/23/2012 - 20:06

#15

Rommil

let me elaborate a pinch

Sypsy:

you are both right, and wrong. You are right, that i am incredibly new to PvP. And therefor, it is with trepidation that i set out to make a "hey we need this!!" thread. As i don't want to be the guy in hour 1 of spiral knights that supposes to suggest a fix for teh CE market, and grace everyone with my unique idea for introducing pets.

But there is room for us both to be correct in this endeavor. As, altho i'm new to lockdown, i'm old to the game, and there is a sincere SKOLVER+GF+BTB/FF+POLARIS problem in lockdown. I don't think anyone would be so head-in-the-sand as to deny this. I'm not saying that gunners and bombers can't play and be effective, but anything short of the above is suboptimal (the only thing that might be on teh same level is a max peirce snarby suit, with the same weapons). And of course, you have some uniqueness (i guess) in what you choose as your fourth throw in weapon.

I see this as a problem.

And here is the issue with gunner vs. swordsman. A gunner, you have to be incredible accurate, to have your tiny pellet hit a target. you even have to lead them. its as if you are shooting a discontuous point after an enemy, thus you have to be super exact to land. As a swordsman, you have a wide horizontal slash (and there is no dodging along a y axis plane, only the x-axis plane) thus you have a somewhat contuous point of attack. You have a wide margin of error, and you do not have to be nearly as exact or amazing with your attack, nor do you have to bother so much with leading. Thus it is, that it takes quite a bit less skill and accuracy to hit with a sword. AND THEN every swordy uses the polaris!! (spam). the issue i take with this is, that its basically the one gun that has a wide swath attack. so every swordy uses the one gun that doesn't take skill or accuracy to land. this is why i think its lame.

So while yes, i do hesitate to come in and question and criticize the mechanics of lockdown during my second night, really, of joining the fray. I know the game and the game mechanics intimately from playing clockworks, and those mechanics are the same (but different) in lockdown, with players substituting for mobs. So its not like i turned on an entirely new game and experience and then went about criticizing it. I dare say, its form 100s of hours of in - game play that allows me to pinpoint lockdown issues in a fraction of that time.

Again, i admit, there is a problem with me coming in and asking for change within my first few days of lockdown. But you cannot deny that my criticism is correct.

Mon, 04/23/2012 - 20:13

#16

Canozo

Could we suggest 1v1 first

Could we suggest 1v1 first then we talk about balancing it >.>

Mon, 04/23/2012 - 20:20

#17

Rommil

also

in the name of balancing:

I think that if they wanted to, they could tweak weapon balances for PvP while leaving the balances off in PvE (to address the devilites issue). I'd think. but im' no programmer. And it seems like everyitme they adjust one thing, it unadjusts 20 other things!!!!

[which has led me to believe the reason we rarely ever almost never get content updates. i fear--purely speculative--that there is sum fundamental flaw in the programming code. And then every hour of actual new content added creates 100 hours of bugs to fix. So OOO has just kept this as their dirty little secret and tries to distract us with a world full of cosmetic updates. always cosmetic updates. I realize this is quite the conspiracy theory, but i find it hard to fathom why else they wouldn't/couldn't add content a LITTLE QUICKER. Don't mean to be that guy, ya know, but one new T3 mission in a year?]

Mon, 04/23/2012 - 20:22

#18

Alphasnake

Tea and biscuits.

I've already started using other weps. Mostly Leviathanorz. And a bomb, but only so I can be cheap to swordsmen. I plan on getting a FOV in there also, since no one actually HAS elemental resist, 'cept for some. And maybe a Catalyzer of poison. So I can be cheap. Well, by spinning the things around other players so my team can kill them, that is. I have nothing else to say for this :P. Also, I'd myself would use polaris, but only because I am doing what I think is strategic enough. Or..... Something.

Mon, 04/23/2012 - 20:35

#19

Jaroche

@hadn you mean, Apathy vs

@hadn you mean, Apathy vs randoms? =0 I'd like to gather 8 friends and play all in the same game, BUT everyone in random team to make it fun.

I love how people with few hours playing lockdown always ask for "rebalancing" but ones with +100 hours don't. Be my guest.

Mon, 04/23/2012 - 20:33

#20

Hadn

@Jaroche

Yeah that works also, much more guaranteed than having to all hit "join" the moment the number of players waiting drops.

Mon, 04/23/2012 - 20:36

#21

Icycloud

You have hundred of hours

You have hundred of hours clock does not meant you are exp in LD . It's just like a polit who clock 100 hours in commercial plane and he can claim he have the exp and he can fly in f16 fighter plane because he had clock 100 hours. Pve and pvp are both different things . Btw, u clock 100 hours is at Pve or at ah ?

I'm sword recon . I seen some successful sword recon and most of the time failed recon.

There is one thing I always notice . Only people getting pawned in LD were to ask for rebalance . Those who are good in LD live with it on whats going on. Every moment have it's counter .

Mon, 04/23/2012 - 20:37

#22

Sypsy

@ Rommil You forgot that a

@ Rommil

You forgot that a sword does considerably more damage, all else equal (say max damage on both). So yes, it is to the advantage of the sworder in almost all aspects.

But at the same time, the sworder has to get close to a gunner to hit him. That leaves him with very few places will go when he dashes. Next to the gunner.
The gunner, on the other hand, can move away and shoot from any direction. He has a lot more space to pick and choose.

I usually play a hybrid of sorts (FF, AP/Sent, umbra/storm, polaris). When I sword against some gunners, it's ridiculous how "narrow" I start to think and predictable I become sometimes. I essentially play into the gunner's palm.

For PvE, this advantage is still there. Being an effective gunner takes more "skill' than an effective sworder in some circumstances. (placement, herding, cc etc.) OOO has always focused on swords as the main damage dealing, so it's not really a surprised gunning isn't supposed to be vastly superior to it.

----
Anyway, for the most part, I agree with you. Regardless of your level of experience from which this recommendation comes, changes should be implemented to be more fair to most players, new and experienced. New players have a pretty large hurdle to jump if they want to get experience under their belt so that lockdown becomes fun. OOO could mitigate this frustration by adjusting some things like the size of the polaris expanded shots and knockback and other things.

I agree that just because myself and other players have adjusted ourselves to the problem, doesn't mean the problem has gone away. Thinking about it more, yes there are strategies one can implement to overcome Trollaris walls from a handful of strikers, but the "skill" required to execute it is far more than the "skill" required to put that very wall up.

Mon, 04/23/2012 - 21:29

#23

Trying

THE SOLUTION:
We should be able to jump

Mon, 04/23/2012 - 21:41

#24

Trollingyou

The Trollaris does have a weakness

True, it's extremely hard to pass a wall of Trollaris spam, but the same can be said of winning against a team full of skolver toothpickers. As a hint some of other guns charge shots can match the range of the polaris. If your having trouble getting by one Polaris, remember that the shots don't initially start off big.....

Also, I find its much easier to get high damage with guns other than the Trollaris, you don't see people racking up 10k+ damage using Trollaris only. It just has a ton of crowd control, almost as much as a bomb. I use it mainly to punish rushers or if a good amount of people are crowding together on a point. If you do that, your asking to get spammed. Most of the good players I run into do not crowd together, unless it's in a guardian shield, cause they know multikills can result from that.

What would be interesting though is defeating a team full of bombers. What would you do then? XD

Mon, 04/23/2012 - 21:42

#25

Pawn

an honest solution

Would anyone be opposed to a ranking system? I mean the people who think they are leet/want to be leet would love having a ladder to argue about. Then the game could use the ranking to make as balanced of teams as possible. And when enough people are online it could stick high ranked players vs high ranked players.

This would unintentionally also group people of similar internet connections (at least more so than the current system). I'd love to not have guys in 3 and 4* gear in my games. And if this was based on rank (not gear) that means noobs in 3-4* gear would get put in weaker matches, and a really good player goofing around in dusker would still be high ranked and get placed against similar opponents.

When playing sc2 it was a blast leveling up and trying to go from gold to platinum league. It would not have been fun if i had the same chance to be dropped in against a master leaguer or a bronze leaguer.

Really the only problem i see is that there are probably not enough active players to pull this off.

Mon, 04/23/2012 - 23:29

#26

Rommil

well. I think both the point and spirit of my original post has been thoroughly missed by most (and caught by but a scant few). I was simply saying that lockdown would be a better experience if weapons were a bit better balanced.

The truth of the matter:
FF+BTB+GF > all other swords.
Swords > all other (this is an issue with all of spiral knights, not just lockdown. well perhaps its not a problem, imo the game would be more fun if bombs = guns = swords in all aspects of gameplay).

Anyways. I'd like Lockdown more (so would a lot of people) if a leviathan was as affective as a Divine avenger as DVS as Final Flourish as Gran Faust as Brandish lines as ..... you guys get the idea.

Its not a question of skill. I'm not as skilled as even the intermediate lockdown players. I don't claim to be as skilled as the intermediate lockdown players. I was simply stating that lockdown would be more interesting if the weapons were more balanced. It would be better if they were more balanced. If you disagree, well, sorry, we will just have to disagree. But don't portend to tell me that there isn't a weapon's imbalance in lockdown. (or the game for that matter). But, of course, i suppose thats why OOO is working on weapon rebalances.

Tue, 04/24/2012 - 00:13

#27

Warlordx

I think the problem with this

I think the problem with this idea is just that it's extremely hard to reach a perfect balance between weapons. The fast sword that interrupts attacks is probably always going to have a big advantage over slower, more powerful swords. But if we either nerf the pierce swords a lot or buff a bunch of other weapons then it's just going to shift to some other weapon being the standard, overused weapon.

There are some minor changes that I think would make lockdown slightly more balanced (reduce range of pierce sword 3rd strike by about 15%, reduce pulsar line clip to 2) but I don't think that these changes would significantly reduce the number of people who use these weapons and any more drastic changes to weapons in PvP would likely just "break" lockdown in favor of some other weapon or play style.

Tue, 04/24/2012 - 01:10

#28

Icycloud

Please continue to ignore LD

Please continue to ignore LD like u stated.

Tue, 04/24/2012 - 01:22

#29

Tenkii

Dirt:
Direct, gear-based PvP will never be good in a game like Spiral Knights. The only PvP that will work even remotely well is mini-game-based PvP, like Blast Network

Theorycraft, unfortunately. People find Lockdown way more engaging. Earlier today, I saw my friend had become the Blast Network Champion or something on my friend's list, for playing 1 match of Blast Network in the past 7 days.

-_-

Rommil:
The truth of the matter:
FF+BTB+GF > all other swords.
Swords > all other (this is an issue with all of spiral knights, not just lockdown. well perhaps its not a problem, imo the game would be more fun if bombs = guns = swords in all aspects of gameplay).

I feel like I had a sneak peek of what would happen after the charge patch in a game the other day. My team had 3 bombers: two of which had a set of mist bombs and RSS, and myself, trolling with Electron Vortex (this + RSS is hilarious). We sat in front of 2/3 of their frostbite entrances.

Dear god. It was like, get@me, strikers.
Combinations of the following happened:
- get shocked/stunned
- get hit by RSS
- get sucked into a vortex
- get sucked into a vortex with an RSS in the middle.

It was immensely satisfying.

At that moment, other than a max-resist-armored tank, the only things that could have completely broken through could probably have been gunners protected by guardian shield, and the other team had neither.

After that match, we came to the conclusion that with the upcoming charge patch, gunners will probably become a more needed part of the lockdown team.

----------

As far as Polaris chokepoint spam, I can't think of any place in Lockdown where there is permanently only one entrance. As Recon, I tend to take the lesser-populated ways, so it should have been absolutely possible to get around them.

If there was a recon on your team, a single radar ping could have made those Polaris-spamming strikers (I assume, from your story) would likely start scattering and buy a short gap for you to get in there.

Actually, reading the Polaris spam story, where was your guardian? Did you have a guardian shielding you so you could shoot back? Did you have a gunner by your side shooting back?

Diversity is important for fighting diversity lol.

Bombers might not get the damage of gun users (unless RSS lol), but they are amazing at defending/keeping people away from points.
Guns might not get the damage of sword users, but they can deliver important status support/harassment and take down bombers.

Tue, 04/24/2012 - 01:45

#30

Jaroche

Re: Swords lines balance

~~~Warning: wall of text~~~

Current 5* lines in PvP :

* Brandish line (Normal + Elemental / Normal + Shadow): Their primary attack mode is charge. Have you ever walked into a Voltedge Charge? shesh, it takes down guardians with dual penta real quick and shock chance ensures your enemy can't walk away so easily (and yeah, remember charge got buffed a while ago). Of course your timing needs to be right to get the most of it; and walking holding a charge makes you vulnerable (as you can't use shield command). Swings are meh, your aim must be decent (if AA is off).

* Sealed line (Normal + Elemental / Normal + Shadow): Charge is trash, completely worthless even for DA which gets interrupted by walls; but Swing is nice, wide angle means your aim doesn't need to be that good... BUT they are all slow, throwing the full combo can get you killed if you do it wrong.

* Flourish / BTB (Pure Pierce + status chance on some): Fast hitting line, damage / swing isn't that great, but is interrupts a lot you opponent, you can effectively lock him with proper timming, movements and enough ASI/latency (read: no combos ). Of all damage types, pierce is the one you can actually reduce, you can tell the difference between wearing non-pierce resist armor and full skolver; but in the case of elemental/shadow defence is hard to tell how much stops (ask to snarbies how many times they get killed by GF, or vogs getting killed by hammers lol). BTB Charge is kinda ok, but nothing special... FF charge is most likely to fail locking on the target and end up swinging to the air; Wide first swing means a lot, add shield canceling and bingo... Status-chance line has lower damage, as their status should compensate.

* Calibur (Normal): In pve is a mediocre sword, nothing special about it. Charge is supposed to hit multiple times but in the practice opponent is throw away after the first hit. 99% of players have normal resistance, which stops even more the damage taken.

* Cutter line (Pure Normal + status chance): Incredibly fast hitting line, but damage / swing is very low. While you can lock an enemy with all these hits/interrupts, takes too long to kill him. Damage buff required? may be, but not as high as the FF/BTB line because of its speed.

* Troika (Pure normal): Normal damage makes it mediocre, status chance in the second wing (like GF) is meh, you can't rely on it as you would do with Fearless Rigadoon. Swing has a wide angle, but lacks the damage of Sealed line. Charge is just worthless. Is funny that they appear to have a longer range, but as far I can tell all 5* swords have the same range.

* Fang of Vog (Normal + Elemental): The hardest sword to obtain in the game, shines with its awesome charge attack... BUT it also hurts you a lot, even with full vog you're taking damage if she decides to bite your butt. Swing is mediocre, slower than brandish line and also does lower damage... fire change doesn't justify using it.

* Warmaster Rocket Hammer (Pure elemental): This is the pure elemental DA people have been asking for, but comes with a weird handling style; requires practice to dominate it, dash can be both deathly and get you in the middle of the spikes. Charge is worthless.

As you see, most lines are balanced, or so to say, everyone has a weakness/play style.

=== Still, what changes should we ask for? ===

If you ask me, as someone who have played enough pvp to the point of boredom, I would say:

* Buff Troika line and Rocket Hammer range, they appear to be longer that most 5* swords, so let it be.
* Buff Armor elemental/shadow/pierce defense, currently is hard to tell how much protection Snarbolax gives you against GF; seriously, I kill with the same numbers of hits a Skolver clone or a Snarbolax dude. Note that I'm not asking for a GF damage nerf. Reward specialization.
* Damage balancing, if any, should be based on speed: Slow => most damage, Fast => lesser damage. I actually don't claim damage balance is needed.

* Bonus: Nerf guardian/Recon health bonus. When lockdown was introduced, heart pendants were incredibly rare/expensive, nowadays they are incredibly cheap. By the time you've learned the mechanics of lockdown you'll have enough coins to craft a pair of pentas; there is no reason to have guardian with tons of HP/ASI ultra because they wear dual penta.
* Bonus: Delete the pulsar line (gun) from the game, the dev who introduced this gun line gets punched in the heart. Anyone who has a polaris loses an additional random item in their inventory (excludes mat/trinket/token).

Everything else is good. Normal damage swords are meant to be mediocre, those don't have anything special like split damage ones; and as everyone wears normal defense ... let the noobs use them; reward those who invest on specialized swords.

FF hits too fast/hard you say? Wear pierce defense, even if they have max damage bonus you can stop a bit of it. You know what they say... fight pierce with pierce. You can't because your netbook freezes every time someone fires polaris and also happens you live in asia? I'm sorry to have a modern computer (4 cpu cores, dedicated graphics card, and tons of RAM I never use 'cause I'm to leet for that) plus a decent internet connection. Maybe we should stop the spinning of the earth, to let you guys catch up..

When someone comes and whines FF+BTB+GF > all other swords, asking rebalancing without understanding why normal+elemental hits harder than pure normal, don't blame if people misses your "point".

---

A better matching system/ranking thing would be very welcomed, but I'm afraid the game fails so bad at keeping players before boredom. Alll we get is silly hats and the new content gets behind a pay walls and incredible bad rewards (OCH 4k cr * run / FSC 10k * run). Sorry guys, OOO is busy in the making of the next Parrot wings, everyone is getting one ya heard.

Tue, 04/24/2012 - 01:39

#31

Thrillhaus

I have to agree with Sypsy

I have to agree with Sypsy that you (Rommil) probably need more experience before you can legitimately make a claim of imbalance.

Have you actually practiced and become so skilled at an alternative weapon loadout, that you can unequivocally say that weapon A is always superior to weapon B? Unless you've taken the time to unlock a weapon's potential, you don't have the basis to make an argument that it's inferior.

Also, if you're evaluating weapon effectiveness based on kills or damage then you're doing it wrong. A status bomber can get very low kills/damage in lockdown but contribute immensely to the team's effort, and lockdown is at the end of the day a team game.

Regarding polaris: The weapon's sole use is for strategic area denial. Against skilled opponents, it's almost useless as a combat weapon. Chokepoints are there for a reason. There's also a reason that the game is called lockdown and not team deathmatch.

It seems that a lot of the problems with lockdown could be solved by having a game mode where people who who simply want to kill each other can go do that instead of playing a team oriented game as if it's supposed to be quake 3 arena deathmatch.

If I would change anything though, I'd say give the recon a movement speed increase to improve its ambush and backdoor capabilities, and possibly reduce the number of slots a striker can utilize to two or three, requiring one to make the choice between full combat capability and strategic value (polaris).

Tue, 04/24/2012 - 02:33

#32

Pawn

@ defending rommil

I feel i have to defend my twinny a little bit here.

A quick back story. This was a rude awakening for him to PvP. We live in alaska, and when you play pvE the game virtually plays the same for us as for everyone else. Perhaps a hair more latency, but those slags aren't exactly zipping around with striker packs on.

However, when we PvP it is players skill(x latency) vs player skill(x latency). Now Alaska is in the US. Yay. But wait, alaska is on the far side of canada...oh yeah. So now we are a country away. Alaska does not have the same needs in the same quantities as the rest of the modernized world...I.e. we do not have a strong internet infrastructure. The only option in our area is a local as hell, cheesy operation. Think of pegasus bringing you your internet lol.

What this means. @Thrillhaus i can tell you first hand i will never kill you in a straight up fight. It's not possible. On your screen you are always closer to me than u are on my screen. What this means is that you can actually hit me with twice to three times the range of my flourish. I can't run. I can't weave. I can't dance. I can't cloak. The only way i can kill you is if i sneak up on you while you are fighting someone else. I can't stress this enough. You have 3 times the range i do on my screen, you hit me from about 4 character lengths away EVERY time--don't even have to be facing me. I know this is not your fault. It can't really be helped. Your not gonna come up to alaska and fix the internet infrastructure (or maybe it's my 2011 laptop, idk but surely doesn't help). Therefore it is tremendously frustrating. If i get in a match with you, i rage a tiny bit. I can't try and get better, i can't try and analyze harder. My only option is to die over and over and over. Hell, even if i go recon cloak on your screen i'm not yet cloaked on yours so you smack me (on my screen you are well out of range), but since i'm cloaked on my screen BOOM my cloak is broken. It's insanely frustrating. I however know it's part of the game. So i drop out of the match, and wait a minute and queue and hope for more evenly matched latency opponents my next match. Now imagine on top of all this, you are ALSO much more skilled and would mostly steamroll me even if it was a sk pvp lan even, and it gets very dire and hopeless very quickly. @ Jaroche, ur right u can't slow down the worlds internet to make it even, but c'mon you'd be annoyed too.

NOW. Rommil jumped into PvP yesterday for the 1st time seriously. Chose gunning which is difficult. He had no idea just how dominating a good skolver+asi can actually be. Then on top of that he is accustomed to PvE where everything pretty much operates fine, and is completely blindsided that he was going to be playing at a severe latency disadvantage. It's easy to assume (not knowing better) that the game needs some rebalancing.

Where i really think he missed the mark is not realizing that PvP in all MMOs involve a dominant build. All MMO pvp turns into what is negatively called clone wars by those wanting to step out of the box. But min-maxing is inevitable.

TL;DR Rommil mistook our latency disadvantage for additional imbalance, and he didn't quite understand the min max nature of MMO PvP. Honest, understandable mistakes.

Tue, 04/24/2012 - 02:26

#33

Batabii

I think the weapons need to

I think the weapons need to be balanced around EACH OTHER as well as around monsters.

Case in point: Big Angry Bomb, Iron Slug, Winmillion, etc.

Tue, 04/24/2012 - 03:57

#34

Derperer

Whee

That's why I try to balance teams. I don't play skolver but with vog or in skelly jelly, sometimes as gunner. I find that matches are more enjoyable that way because your opponents have a higher chance of killing you quickly than having max pierce, max damage, max asi. It's just boring for me personally to play like that in random matches. It's a different matter though when it comes to GVG.
~Bobxloblaw

Tue, 04/24/2012 - 04:16

#35

Jaroche

@pawn & rommil

lmao, you guys are a joke....

Tue, 04/24/2012 - 04:30

#36

Icycloud

I'm one ocean away and played

I'm one ocean away and played with one red bar everytime . Don't give me the crap of latency . It's all boils down to getting used to it and skilled . Ask others how I fare in one red bar and a recon .

Seriously you guys are better dolling yourself up like a barbie doll and perherps if Sk can introduce make up powder , that would be even better. LD is for manly and skillful players .

Why would we want to listen to people who just doll up like a barbie doll ?

Tue, 04/24/2012 - 05:24

#37

Hadn

+1 Jar

Everyone has their own style of playing. I get outgunned / outbombed (as a "skolver clone") all the time by smart, logical players. AI is a lot different to zombies in PvE ;). You could kill someone with a Slime Slasher if you so chose to become skilled with that weapon, sure it would take 50x longer or the range might not be as great or the speed of the weapon might not be as fast but if you don't get hit by the enemy you'd still win.

Gunning as a first time ever in LD is no doubt going to end up giving you a sore face. The only way to get better is to practice / learn techniques to outsmart people. A well skilled gunner can have 3+ "toothpickers" chasing him for ages around 1 node, now tell me that isn't useful / balanced in a team based game.

100 hours of pve = 0 hours of pvp.

Tue, 04/24/2012 - 06:11

#38

Vescrit

Vescrit also wishes for some

Vescrit also wishes for some mini-game like PvP! Blast network is fun and all. minus the few games when you lose your powerups and struggle to repower up when the other team is rushing around grabbing them.

LD was extremely fun when it first came out. Y u no fun no more LD?

Tue, 04/24/2012 - 06:21

#39

Asukalan

One does not simply balance

One does not simply balance lockdown.

Whinners gonna complain, always. There will be always something that would make people think LD is not balanced:

- Heart trinkets
- Trinkets overall
- UVs
- Ping/Latency
- Better players killing weaker players ( yes i saw when someone complained that he died just because someone was better than him....><)
- Cheats

Tue, 04/24/2012 - 06:42

#40

Dragonicblaze

BS Thread.. No offense to OP, just puttn my 2 cents worth.

Ok, I read the first half of this thread and quit.. so.. It is true that almost all people who ask for rebalancing are people who are not good in LD, this might be just another way of "crying" (as they say) when they get beat by more skilled players (no excuses). The Polaris spam that is being talked about here can be easily avoided, u just need enough brains to form a decent strategy. It is true that polaris walls r kinda annoying but once u see a wall, it is easy to go around it. I have not seen any polaris walls in GVG so I cant comment on that, but Polaris spam, in-general can be annoying, but only new (put it nicely) peeps in LD who don't know how to play at all spam it, and they r preetttyyy easy to counter. If something is hard to beat, that doesn't mean it has to be rebalanced, you just need to learn a way to counter it, which I have found can be done with ANY "OP" weapons. And as Hadn said, Brandy and Leviathan can get OP sometimes, but thats because of the way the user uses it, not the weapon itself, there is no weapon that can monopolize LD, if ur skilled enough u can use a "bad", considered, weapon and kick ass with it.

Tue, 04/24/2012 - 07:12

#41

Exerpa

Backwards reconciliation AKA

Backwards reconciliation AKA Unlagged (probably other names too)
Revise the timeline of events in order to accomodate all players timestreams

If in any network game latency divides players into 2 categories of high offense/defense reaction time and low offense/defense reaction time, the 2 groups are quite literally playing 2 different games. If a method like Unlagged is used, then the highly latent players visually-correct attacks will count - at the expense of visual confusion for low latent players. Each player now gets good offensive reaction but less-than-good defensive reaction. This is fair trade from a networks point of view as every peer is equal - however each individual will have strongly mixed views depending on what they stand to gain or lose..

Tue, 04/24/2012 - 07:47

#42

Good-Spirit

I'd be cool with polaris

I'd be cool with polaris deletion if there is toothpick deletion :).

I hope that gunner you were talking about was me. I use a speed shock loadout usually when our team is weak as a whole in attempt to push back. As you grow in gunning, i hope you realize that your goal is to make the enemy move where you want them to to run into your bullets. Polaris fired one direction means they have no choice but to move anywhere but that area (or get hit), which limits their options and gives you the opportunity to retreat into your own bullets.

Learn how to deal with polaris spammers with a sentenza/AP. Vailance might work too, but i have yet to make one.

There is one dominant loadout right now unfortunately. The best you can do is turn a poor theme into an above average one, but not one that will excel repeatedly due to the latency issues you mentioned above. Gunning is the great equalizer from what i've seen. Watching the "pro" clones turn to gunning eliminates the lack of latency an asi max toothpick would give them. Makes it more fun to play them imho :).

Tue, 04/24/2012 - 07:55

#43

Ilikiki

I think more weapons could

I think more weapons could stand to be improved in PvP, but I think it isn't a case of "we need to rebalance this" as much as it is "we need to have realistic expectations".

There are some odd decisions, that said; Skolver adds a significant damage boost that makes really fast weapons that don't need +attack speed boosts insanely good, such as the Flourish (which does excellent damage on a shield-cancelled swing in a surprisingly wide arc). Some weapons could stand to have their hitbox area increased, such as the Calibur line (which is a little mediocre, maybe, but would be heavily helped by having an improved hitbox; it is awful now, especially in PvP). At the end of the day, though, there's always going to be a certain strategy that is "best" in PvP regardless of what changes are made.

The Polaris is good primarily because of the great hitbox, great charge... and the fact that Shock is an amazing status effect. What's odd is that I don't see more people using the Freeze gun; is it that much worse? Freeze is a great status effect too (slowing someone down is always useful), and I don't see it used anywhere as much. Look at Freeze and Stun bombs: those things are absurdly good at controlling space.

I think a good way to see PvP isn't in the nature of "what the good loadouts are" insomuch as you should focus on "gameplay style" -- are you a bomber, gunslinger or swordsman? Are you defensive, very aggressive or do you prefer to sneak around? There are three classes and you can use any combination of class + style of play. If you're going to be a swordsman, primarily, then I suggest you pick up a Flourish and a Brandish, because they are the two best weapons for PvP (Brandish charge attack and the outright silly speed of a Flourish for stick-and-move / slice-and-block), and you'll want Skolver gear and a melee damage trinket + a heart trinket (or two heart trinkets if you just want to be more survivable).

"But I want to use my Calibur!" you're saying right now.

Well, tough. It will always, always happen in a game that someone finds a strategy that is best optimized for the style of play that the game is naturally designed towards. The way things are right now, PvP for melee is heavily slanted towards quick mobility and the ability to hit once and move out of the way. The best weapon for such a style will always be a weapon with quick startup that can be quickly canceled out of, and the Flourish line and related weapons (like the Rigadoon, which procs Stun, which is kind of insanely good).

The irony comes out here: when everything is fast, you want to be just as fast, so slow classes like the Guardian will want them because they benefit from having their shield up as much as possible and from being able to pick the right time to drop an attack to retaliate, and classes like the Recon will want them because they can pop out of hiding and capitalize with big damage and drop right back into hiding very quickly because the weapon's active frames are minuscule.

So yes, the Flourish is the best weapon for PvP. It may not have been outright intended to be this way, but the Flourish was designed the way it was on purpose: a quick-hitting weapon that deals only Piercing damage. The bigger irony is that, because this weapon is so outright good, carrying a secondary weapon that's also fast that primarily deals its damage in another form (Elemental, for instance -- which is why the Rocket Hammer is so good as long as you know how to use it) is a great secondary for any kind of swordsman: a lot of people are going to be wearing Piercing Resist (Skolver). See a Skolver running up to you? Pull out the Hammer, adjust your strategy to take a "wait and see" approach...

Okay, anyways, tl;dr: it's not actually unbalanced, you're just not actively trying to maximize your chances at success by having a 'proper' PvP loadout. There will always be items that are better for PvP than others, and complaining because your choice for PvP is poor is ridiculous. Deal with it.

Tue, 04/24/2012 - 08:04

#44

Asukalan

@Jaroche Buahaha, Polaris

@Jaroche Buahaha, Polaris deletion? I loled. You are insane.

And probably cant play well if all you can think of from being killed in LD is to delete Polaris. From all options, including improving your skills, training, playing more and better you just suggest deleting a weapon xD Its just pathetic.

@But Lockdown is pretty lame. Everyone is a skolver with Barbarous thorn blade/final flourish, Gran faust, and spams polaris at chokes. The whole thing is boring, homogenous, and lame.

So? There will be ALWAYS a more efficent weapon that most of players will choose. LD is lame because of btb,ff, gf and polaris? Even if it will be changed, it will be still same. Applying a solution to make people use other stuff than those listed above will make them use in mass other next good and easy to use weapon. Then what? There will be another topic "after LD being lame because of btb,ff,gf and polaris, now its lame because of XXX weapon".
It will be neverending loop of nerfing/buffing and deleting weapons just because after deleting old ones people naturally started using other ones.

Tue, 04/24/2012 - 08:51

#45

Dragonicblaze

Cease Fire! Before anyone really gets hurt.

FF is the only decent sword that can be used against gunners when they still have boost, now go ahead play into their hands, debuff/eliminate FF and let Gunners rule LD. Most of us Skolvers play to win, not play petty mind games/down right TROLLING that Gunners do. Gunner strikers are the OP bunch, they run and heal as soon as they get hit once or twice by FF (and most of the time EASILY get away) while the skolvers do the hard work, with their hard earned gear/built up skill through time. LD is more than fine right now, any tweaking will only ruin it, so just stop.. (but I bet most of the "Rebalancing" support team wont care because they were never interested in LD in the first place being New to LD/Trolls as they were, and even if they were rebalanced they would find new flaws to point out, and still not play as much as the real LD lovers would have had, (I say "had" because I for one would quit this game completely if LD was messed up, as many have stated LD is the only reason many end-gamers stay in SK[Including me])
PS- This was aimed at Blueflood who proposed such a ridiculous trade.
To add more to that.. pulsars are definately not the preferred weapon/good weapon in a gunners arsenal. there r plenty of knockback weapons that they can/do use, so again Pls dont play into these troll/Gunner hands.

Tue, 04/24/2012 - 08:57

#46

Dragonicblaze

Edit: I r blind.

Tue, 04/24/2012 - 08:57

#47

Good-Spirit

rofl at the guy saying

rofl at the guy saying skolvers do all the hard work.

where on earth do you get gunner strikers being op? are you that bad of a clone yourself?

if you are no good at mind-games and out thinking your opponent, def go with the lack-of-latency-dash-and-hit-them-fast-before-it-shows-up-on-their-screen routine. why think in a game where you can just click?

great post dragonicblaze, you're an amazing player and person with well thought out ideas.

Tue, 04/24/2012 - 09:07

#48

Dragonicblaze

Just because you say

Just because you say something about me with no proof, does not make you right in any way, I have seen gunners attract New(nice word) strikers like bees and toyed with them for a ton of time (keeping in mind how long LD games r) I just hate how some of the "pro" gunners manipulate lil New striker minds and they won't know wat hit them.
Gunners are not OP? I have seen many just easily run, spam knockback and heal, then come back, and repeat, the whole game.
also I am not a clone and @bad clone, I am sure I have wiped the floor with twa along with many other gunners. I am sure I would hate specific sword strikers as well if they ran without finishing a fight, but Gunners.. most do it all the time, I am getting better at not letting any one of u get away, but looking at fellow strikers getting "played" is very annoying.

Tue, 04/24/2012 - 09:22

#49

Hadn

Welp.

@Asukalan - Just defending Jar here, he is one of the better players of LD so you couldn't be more incorrect.

@Dragonic - You seem to have confused tactics with the word "manipulate". Obviously a gunner is going to keep as much distance as they can from a swordsman.

"Gunner strikers are OP" - The only thing you're basing this off of is them running back to heal, ANYONE can run back to heal.

If anything bombers and gunners are doing the most hard work, its far harder to defend / not take damage while gunning / bombing than being agressive with a sword. Many great gunners can get half the opposing team to chase them down at 1 side of the map while the rest of the team works to recap the other points and its the same with bombers.

Tue, 04/24/2012 - 09:23

#50

Dragonicblaze

ohhhh ur trying to manipulate

ohhhh ur trying to manipulate me yet again D:< ok.. so I am not asking for any weapon balancing, I am fine with gunners/strikers/bombers as they are, relating to LD. I think Gunners r OP, but that is my opinion, I am not trying to share my opinion with others, this is all getting confusing because of Blueflood..
I am not here to argue who is better and who is not, I think Gunners are OP, so I will deal with them myself with my arsenal, quit the attacks Blueflood, it is making me say something I didnt mean to say....

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