Spiral Knights - Some Suggestions. Overall based on balance and bug fixes

Some Suggestions. Overall based on balance and bug fixes

20 replies [Last post]

Thu, 05/03/2012 - 19:23

Quotefanboy

Bug Fixes:
-Fix Divine Avenger / Gran Faust / Sentenza / Argent Peacemaker Charge attacks to where they won't collide with the object behind you, or stop on one block. (This includes gates, blocks, walls, minijellies, and enemy shields, and other solid destructables)
Note: Now Valiance's Charge does this.
-Fix Stun to where it takes away the lagtime effect when a monster hits before he swings, and shooting 2 projectile sets with one swing. AKA: Turrets shooting twice when stunned.
(Note from Draycos: "Some enemies' attacks behave differently entirely, like T3 Gun Puppies firing a 5 bullet spread instantly instead of the side-to-side sweep like normal" This is something that also happens during stun.)
-Fix to where Catalyzer will sometimes not put a charge on the target
-Fix mini royal Jelly's hitbox. At the moment they act as walls for the Sealed sword / Antigua lines / Brandish line charge (meaning they hit them and stop), and they also sometimes will not get hit by gun fire and certain bombs. (See Dark Retribution)
-Curse not damaging Trees inflicted with it.
-Getting hit through walls (Done by giant lichens and trees)
-Getting hit when your shield is completely up.
-The Zombie jump attack hitting twice, and hitting before he reaches his destination, and having a larger hitbox then his initial collision box.
-Troika Charge charge not being visually the same to other players and self. (Currently , the 2nd explosion happens inside of the user, instead of the tip at swords to other players.)
-Fix Sight with Vanaduke, due to the fact that slag guards can hit you before they come on screen and use Vanaduke as a visual shield. (Oh man making Vanaduke easier. It's not that it's hard, it's that this circumstance is rather stupid and shouldn't happen anyway. Much like Stun.)
-Fix the Gremlin king area givng so little money and heat due to monsters not dropping any in some battle arenas (Not the respawning ones either. Some just never drop a thing.)
-Fix the Ninja gremlin death animation because when they die they do an odd stretch infinitely upwards.
-Desync with weapons (Weapons seeming faster/slower compared to players around them).
-Fix the Spur line attack collision boxes to where it hits where it shows it hits. (The visual shows it would have a more horizontal slash radius, but it does not, this also occurs with the slash from the charge attack. The charge attack, also, in general has a horrible vertical radius as well.)
-Fix the Spur charge to where you can't cancel it completely by simply guarding before the swing occurs.
-Fix the Valiance's charge. The visual does not match with its blast radius.

Weapon balance (Going to be ignored, but I'll post my ideas anyway.)
-Make Catalyzer charges explode other charges when one is detonated.
-Make Catalyzer charges explode when the monster dies.
-Make the shot that detonated the Catalyzer effect all of the charges with his Gun attack damage.
-Give the Triglav a bit more love in the freeze department (Perhaps make the Triglav and the Sudaruska should obtain the same rate of chances on stun and Freeze, or somehow make it to where the charge can freeze on both its of the charge with a slight chance yet the 2nd hit won't break freeze.)
-Perhaps fix the Gran faust and Fang of Vog due to their inferiority complex in PvE when compared to their new brandish counterparts. (I would like to see this happen, but its probably not going to.)
-Fix the Pepperbox series. Simply taking away its charge pushback would be nice due to it being a horrible sack of [Redacted].
-Bring the Spur back to being a Spur, instead of being a weaker Caliber. (In line with other swords? You mean remove originality? That's all I hear.)
-Make the Wild hunting blade Piercing / Normal split.
-BRING BACK THE SPEED ON THE DARK RETRIBUTION. PLEASE. IT WASN'T THAT BROKEN.

Thu, 05/03/2012 - 19:38

Corrionos

Seems you covered just about everything!

Maybe add back the Suda's Stun on the second swing after Stun is fixed?

Changes to Ionized Salt Bomb?

That's all I can think of for now.

Thu, 05/03/2012 - 19:51

Luguiru

Shiver me timbers

All the bug fixes seem fair, except the ones relevant to Spur; I do not have one to test if it has these issues but if it does fixing them would be helpful.

As for weapon balance, here is your drink while we go over this.

Does this mean if multiple enemies are tagged, detonating any of the mines activates all of the others? As a Biohazard owner I would abuse this to tag everything then run off and hit one to make the entire area explode, but that would be silly. Imagine if the Pulsar bullet path could be manually directed.

Yes. Nothing is worse for a Catalyzer user than spending the past few minutes tagging something just for someone else to run in with a Combuster/Divine Avenger/Fang of Vog charge and kill it, wasting all the mines they had to prepare. At least the enemies around whatever you have been tagging will explode.

I am unable to interpret this one. Is the drink getting to you? Do we need to take a break?

Triglav and Sudaruska have their statuses with opposite tradeoffs; Triglav gets a slight chance for strong while Sudaruska gets fair chance for moderate. All this needs is for stun to be fixed and it should be fair.

Fang of Vog has its derpzerker spin charge. Gran Faust on the other hand is supposed to be a faster heavy sword, yet the higher speed is barely noticeable. Keep in mind Faust line has the advantage of curse on its second swing and the charge attack.

Yes. Pepperbox needs something, but taking the knockback may not be the right choice.

I do not use Spur but it seems interesting. If/When I do begin working on one I will be able to develop a proper idea of what ought to be changed.

No. There was a thread for this a while ago.

From personal experience, it lagged horribly with max charge and rapid chaining. I would rather have about half its original damage rate with the current speed than immense lag.

Sat, 05/05/2012 - 00:30

Quotefanboy

My Responses to you

I can see why your "all charges detonating off one explosion" might be a bit powerful, but at the same time that was a lot of set up time. In that time most people could have already killed everything, with any type of weapon. I can understand what you're getting at, but the time I spent to get that set up I could have Graviton obliterated the entire group.

I don't know what you're talking about sir, I'm completely sober. I can go on all night.

Thing is a slight chance on a single hit weapon is so... slight is never happening. I have a friend who uses it, and I never see a freeze. Ever. I can stun one guy in a group quite often, but him? He freeze one guy a dungeon. Maybe, and he mains its charge attack, and has charge time reduction so he's using it quite frequently.

As for the "Derpzerker" charge, the brandish has a flaming explosion gunsword ability with a much better chance to burn for nearly the same damage with 3x the distance for no recoil.
As for the faust, sure it curse on its 2nd swing, but that doesn't meant he charge should be as bad as it is. If you want to keep its "curse self" ability, that's fine, but I just want it to be a reasonable double edged sword. The Fang of Vog is still technically more reasonable because it's more viable in damage, and can burn on EVERY hit. Not just the 3rd swing.
As for the Gran Faust you have to use its 2nd swing, which makes you VERY open. That's my thought on it.

It pushes too fast away from the actual spread so you can never really hit with the main bulk of the charge unless they were touching you, or near to that, and it's a gun. A gun should be ranged. Before you took someone at mid distance, sucked them in, and blew them to bits. Now? it takes them from mid distance and makes you whiff, and at close range it lowers the overall damage. If they can work around it, maybe giving much larger bullets or something, to make it viable I won't complain. I was giving MY personal suggestion.

You can't give a great argument if you never used it before the change. Before the first swing shot you forward, as a great initiator. Now it's just plain faster, but weaker, caliber. You'd have to compare it via footage of how it worked before the "ruining of an original concept."

Good, that means I have supporters. Other people obviously want it to happen if there was a thread on it.

Blast process should have fixed that, shouldn't it?
Besides, what you said to me basically makes no sense because the Nitronome does the same thing to people when I max charge it. They haven't done anything about that. What you told me is you'd rather work with it being nearly useless instead of useful, but at the risk of being optimized to not lag.
Fix the lag, not the bomb. We shouldn't remove a weapon just because it lags.
Besides, damage doesn't cause lag. If the problem was the lag they'd remove the speed, but they removed damage as well. Therefore it was a nerf towards the bomb, not towards optimization. If optimization was the issue then they'd do what they did to the sealed sword line. Rework it to process better.

Thu, 05/03/2012 - 20:23

The-Avvesome-Hero

Iron slug

Needs to be reimaged as a pirate cannon and cause random stun

Thu, 05/03/2012 - 20:33

Quotefanboy

Thoughts towards Callahan and Iron slug

I would have given my thoughts on those 2, but they're getting something so I'll wait until they "get" what they were told to get until I complain.

As we can clearly see the Troika line buff worked very nicely, so I want to see what they're going to do.

Thu, 05/03/2012 - 21:28

Draycos

The Cobalt Dragon

Oh hey Quote, hope you don't mind me giving my opinions on this. Great compilation, there are just some things that I feel need to be brought up as well.

General
Divine Avenger/AP/Sent/GF charges may do that on purpose to prevent people from hitting blocks they normally shouldn't be able to hit. Guess it'd be better if the bullets in question didn't 'collide' with the blocks, but they shouldn't interact with any blocks.

Speaking of the DA, it's horribly broken in PVE. Honestly, the projectiles need a slight nerf- either give the projectiles a limit on how many times each one can deal damage or reduce the damage the projectiles deal entirely.

Stun DOES need fixing. Or if it isn't going to get fixed any time soon the weapons that deal it need to have Stun disabled. It disrupts enemy attacks, but not in a good way- some attacks hit multiple times, deal damage in a part of an animation that it normally wouldn't, instantly finish an attack if stunned mid-attack, etc. Some enemies' attacks behave differently entirely, like T3 Gun Puppies firing a 5 bullet spread instantly instead of the side-to-side sweep like normal.

Can't say anything about the Catalyzer, never used it.

Mini jellies' 'wall' functions are ridiculous, yes. It also interrupts Dark Retribution and brandish charges.

Lumbers shouldn't be able to be Cursed in the first place if they're supposed to be immune to it. +1.

I don't know about colonies, but Lumbers can only knock you back through walls, they can't actually hit you. Most they can do is knock you into some other hazard.

Getting hit while your shield is up is related to lag. This needs a change- instead of making damage 'checked' in server time, make it so the server sends the client a 'you got hit' message and then the client then 'replies' with 'shield up/shield not up'. Of course, this should only apply in PvE to prevent even more Lockdown antics.

Skelly jump attacks don't deal that much damage; I think their purpose is just to keep you pinned down if you try to block. Even so, without proper status resistance, they deal a lot of shield-damage regardless of direct defense.

Haven't seen anyone use a Troika. Ever. .____.

Vanaduke's blindspot abuse needs to stop, for sure. The entire fight needs to have the camera zoomed out enough so players don't get hit out of nowhere, or at least have some option to zoom out or zoom in the camera as necessary (from the options menu or hitting +/-?).

Crimson Hammer does give mediocre payout. If anything, it should be 1:1 with FSC; I don't like having profits cut because I want to do something other than the same five levels over and over.

Confirming the scarf-stretch-on-death bug, that consistently happens to me.

No comment on desync/Spur besides +1.

Weapon Balance
Never used a Catalyzer or Triglav.

The only thing Gran Faust is good for compared to Acheron is knockback and a chance for Curse, but what's the point when you can spam an overpowered 5-explosion rail shot over and over? As for Fang of Vog, its speed is what kills it. It's unnecessarily slow for the hardest sword to get in the game; the fire damage on normal hits is nice but it already has lowered damage compared to Combuster anyways. The charge is fine, even in the midst of a spammable bomb-gun charge attack.

+1 to no knockback on Pepperboxes. Even the pre-'fix' Pepperboxes were better than the ones we have now.

I don't even use Spur weapons and hearing that they removed its wide range [REDACTED] me off, too. I mean, what the heck, it can't even have a 5* version or a special damage type, now they have to pour salt in the wound and make it a flashier Calibur? Sheesh. I was even planning to get one before it was changed, despite its incomplete alchemy line and normal damage.

Yes to making WHB piercing/normal. I mean, we don't even have a piercing/normal weapon in the game... and it's ridiculous that a weapon that's supposed to deal massive damage to beasts is outshined by other weapons that don't have said bonus and just have pure Pierce.

DR needs its rotation speed back. The damage can stay the same, maybe give it a slight boost, but it really just needs its rotation speed back to be a viable weapon again.

Thu, 05/03/2012 - 22:35

Quotefanboy

NO I MIND HNNGNSDHFISKLDFJL

No I'm kidding.

For your first bit, the bullets spawn in front of you. They shouldn't even have any sort of collision behind you anyway. It should work no differently the Spur line's projectile.

If you think the DA's OP the brandish breaks the mold ten fold. Quicker and safer charge with status ailments. That thing doesn't need to be as nerfed as it should because now it has complete and utter competition. I can kill monsters as effective with my Sudaruska, so I'm not really complaining.

Yeah, I've notice the turrets shooting like slime turrets too. It's funny.

Colonies have killed Grenze on more then 1 occasion through a wall so I can tell you right now it does happen, and it does suck.

They deal as much as a swipe, so that's bad enough for me, and their jump hits my shield twice. That's 1 zombie hitting me two times in one swing. That's pretty bad, seeing how shields got lowered is power it seems.

I can completely agree with your Fang of Vog idea. I, too, thought the attack speed would be a nice way to work with it. Make it swing as fast as it should.

Fri, 05/04/2012 - 01:29

Asukalan

+1 Quotefanboy Besides of

+1 Quotefanboy

Besides of Divine Avenger/AP/Sent/GF also Polaris, FSC Water Drops and Winmillion is affected by "standing next to wall - loosing charge" bug

Also Its hilarios when people suggest DA charge nerf, or insist that the "wall bug" is in purpose to prevent charge spamming while we have brandishes users rampaging around with fast and safe giant dealing status charge.,

The list of fixes from 1st post is great.

Asukalan approves.

Fri, 05/04/2012 - 04:27

Draycos

HURRR

Oh dagnabbit I forgot to rant on the brandish charge... >_>
Yes, the brandish lines are ridiculous. And if you think I'm lying, you should have read my post a bit more carefully; I made some references to it here and there.

The charge was already powerful when the 5*s had a maximum of 3 explosions, and I don't think giving it a flat-out damage nerf would fix it... because it'd still deal statuses, it'd still have high knockback, and it'd still be spammed with no repercussion because nothing in the game can stop you. Maybe if players have lowered movement speed while charging it, it'd be less viable beca- oh wait, the explosions send most enemies flying and practically always give them a status... and the time it takes to actually attack is miniscule.

So in a nutshell, make it so it can't be SC'd, lower your movement speed, less knockback, lower chance to inflict a status...

Or, well, just make it have 2/3 explosions again. I don't know.

________________________

DA: The problem is that it deals way too much damage for how easy it is to use (lolbrandishes). I mean, with hammer/troika charge attacks, you leave yourself open.

Colonies: That's... really dumb. I don't think any other enemy can deal direct damage to you through walls (excluding IMF gates).

Turrets: The worst part is that it's a bad idea to stun them. The only thing Stun is good for right now is knockback, maybe; stun vials send things flying.

Skellies: Huh, I could have sworn Skelly jump attacks did less damage... if they really don't, then yes, they shouldn't attack twice.

Fri, 05/04/2012 - 08:22

#10

Sirenblue

About those royal minis

"At the moment they act as walls for the Sealed sword / Antigua lines charge (meaning they hit them and stop)"

Also applies to Brandish-line charge attacks.

Fri, 05/04/2012 - 19:34

#11

Corrionos

Don't Die!

Fri, 05/04/2012 - 23:21

#12

Quotefanboy

I fixed it being applied to the Brandish line.

I didn't state that because it's not as important, and besides if they fixed the issue with the other weapons I'm sure it'd be fixed for the blow-back mountain blades anyway; however, it does still apply to it therefore I did add it.

Also to Draycos: I think at this point Three rings is too afraid to nerf the Brandish line. This game is universally accepting of its overpoweredness, and is very aware at how "overpowered" it is. I doubt there's any intelligent individuals who would argue on that weapon line being balanced in any way, shape, or form. However, people have spent lots of money on their shiny new brandishes because Three rings made the weapon so good. If they took that away there would be an uproar beyond comprehension, and I doubt the company would do that.

The only nerf I could actually see is damage on explosions being lowered, like making each explosion as it goes farther away doing less and less damage.
(Example: 5 explosions. Damage go to 66, 60, 52, 41, 29 from closest to farthest away.)

Either that or make it to where it does 3-5 explosions, instead of 5 all the time.

But I digress, this isn't a "Brandish balance" thread. This is an overall bugfix thread with some underpowered weapon up-bringing tweaks.

Sat, 05/05/2012 - 20:29

#13

Quotefanboy

Confirmed for Universe

Just died by a Colony again today. Also: I can't truly confirm this but I think jellys re-broke because I'm almost sure I killed one and they still put up spikes.

Tue, 05/08/2012 - 21:05

#14

Quotefanboy

I'm going to bump this.

Because I really think these should be fixed.

Tue, 05/08/2012 - 23:05

#15

Fehzor

-Give the Triglav a bit more

-Give the Triglav a bit more love in the freeze department (perhaps give it the same rate of freeze as the Sudaruska's stun, or make it to where both hits can freeze.)

ENOPE

Methods for fixing triglav:
-Always freezes on charge ; never freezes on second hit
Allows the weapon to pin enemies down and continually deal damage, similarly to glacius's charge. Will still break ice a split second, and will still be hard to hit enough to get them all.

-Always freezes on second hit ; always freezes on charge ; decrease damage of second hit by about 20%
The best option IMO, this makes it a decent weapon in lockdown as opposed to a piece of trash there. How is it not OP in lockdown? The second hit leaves you vulnerable, while the first one is canceled by swords like final flourish. Also keep in mind that a GF can almost always OHKO a striker as it is. In PVE this would allow for the player to freeze groups of enemies, but would take away from its damaging potential greatly- not to mention that it would be almost unusable for enemies assaulting you from the front, except for the first swing, which is what you're limited to as it is. It does not cancel attacks most of the time, so the second hit would only be 'good' against groups of enemies that were not focused on you or were already attacking.

Right now, it just turns enemeis into roulette machines that bite your face of pending on if the freeze kicks in. Making it predictable allows us to plan for it.

How to fix Biohazard/Neutralizer:
-Focus on Precision; raise the bullet speed of normal shots by about 100% (double the speed); make charges start at where they hit an enemy; increase charge damage by about 30%; charge circling speed increased about 30%; separate toxic charges from normal typed ones (EG: I hit a biohazarded enemy with a normal neutralizer shot, no explosion); reverse direction of bullets per type (toxic bullets go clockwise; normal counterclockwise or so)

This makes it an incredibly good weapon against things, and almost overpowers it. However, it makes the normal hits able to actually detonate things easily, and the charges a lot more predictable. It should help it to be better in parties quite a bit. The separation of normal and poison would allow for further manipulation of movement if both weapon types were used. Focuses on pure unadulterated skill.

-Focus on Massive Explosions: Increase charge circling duration by about 50%; decrease charge time by about 20%; decrease charge detonation damage by about 30%; Allow explosions to detonate charges on others; increase blast size by about 10% gradually as the weapon levels up;

This focuses on just exploding things, and setting up massive explosions. It does what you said basically, but it carries it out better. Making blast sizes larger would help to detonate things better, and having decreased damage would greatly compensate for such a buff. This would be better for just killing a crowd, but not for making this a deadly weapon requiring pure skill.

Wed, 05/09/2012 - 21:57

#16

Quotefanboy

2 new bugs with this patch

Added them to the list. Both related to Valiance.

Wed, 05/09/2012 - 22:45

#17

Tsubasa-No-Me

-.-(\

The Sudaruska AND the Triglav ALREADY have the status to damage in the SPEED of the second hit. ... Taking it out would be silly, And it needs a BUFF, Not a trade...

totiredfor~Sig

Wed, 05/09/2012 - 23:31

#18

Quotefanboy

Can you translate that?

"The Sudaruska AND the Triglav ALREADY have the status to damage in the SPEED of the second hit"

I don't quite understand what you mean. Did you post this in the wrong thread?

Thu, 05/10/2012 - 12:24

#19

Quotefanboy

Removed Cata bug

Hopefully going to be buffed next, or maybe it doesn't need one anymore. Need to test.

Fri, 05/11/2012 - 15:58

#20

Quotefanboy

Curious If I should remove Cata buff Ideas

This new 20% damage to their attack, as well as the 10% needed to detonate, really does do a number on enemies.

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Some Suggestions. Overall based on balance and bug fixes