Player 1 frags Player 2. Player 1 is confident in his/her own invincibility.
Player 2 frags Player 1. Player 1 is confident in thinking that Player 2 hacked/possessed better gear and not that Player 2 is perhaps better?

This gamer mentality is as old as one man fragging another in Counter Strike v1.0.

The number one reason I don't PvP is that when two equally skilled players are pitted against each other, the one with the better UVs will win. There's no teamwork involved in that when it comes down to deathmatching. There's no guaranteed, mutually agreed on balance. Sure, teamwork will conquer just about anything, but honestly who actually works as a team in randoms LD and trusts other people?

I'm going back to my TF2 argument. People don't cry foul in that game (after Shortstop was nerfed) because everything as a weapon is usable by both parties. Scout repeatedly killing you with Shortstop? Get your own Shortstop. Constantly aerialed by the Direct Hit? Get one yourself. Unlike TF2, where you can get any weapon you want with the equivalent of 2Kcr, edge-given weapons in this game (i.e. ASI VH toothpicks, Shock Max armor) 1) cost a ton of money, and 2) offer benefits without drawback. In TF2, weapons are plentiful, stripping the game down to pure teamwork.

Or let me go to a Counter Strike example. No one cries foul in that game (not the serious people) because at their heart, every time you were killed was a case where you were beaten in skill, not equipment.

tldr: Yes, it's only partially you.

Lockdown will never be balanced as long as players can bring their own gear. Why? Because not everyone has a full 5* set, let alone multiple full 5* sets to cover various damage types and statuses. In addition, a Gran Faust with ASI med BY DEFINITION is better than a Gran Faust with no ASI.

Although I do think people need to tone down their complaints about balance. I can understand (and sympathize) with the demand for balance between classes (There tends to be about 7 Strikers for every Guardian and Recon). However, nerfing/buffing gear for the sake of LD balance is stupid.

Nerf/buff gear based on PvE, not PvP.

Back when I actually used to play LD, in T2, I always asked for someone to buddy up with me. One of us would go guardian, and the other one of the other two classes. The Guardian would cover the attacker while he attacked everything ahead of us, me shielding him from damage/healing him.

Ir worked less times that I'd like.

I also took the liberty of announcing plans over team chat, either suggesting which CPs we should go to, proposed counter-attack team numbers to which CPs, oncoming enemy threats, guard CPs, possible tactile solutions and things of the like. All I asked for in return was that the team keep the rest of the team updated on which CPs were in danger/fine, i.e. '1 is overrun' or '2 secure'.

I provided enemy numbers and class-type for my own failed defends.

Needless to say, I was ignored about 40% of the time and told to shut up 15% of the time. The other 35% at least one person listened.

It's not the weapons, it's the Striker class. Two bonuses to the same class of weapon? Neither of the other classes do that.

@Aquajag Because clearly a Global CTR med doesn't benefit bombs the same a specific Bomb CTR med does...

No

Because Lockdown is competitive in nature, it all boils down to gear, skill, teamwork and a good computer. It's not always true that better gear always wins out (I've seen a few exceptions) but I'd be mad to say it doesn't help. I've seen Ash Tails dominate and GF ASI High users falter; I've witnessed teamwork prevail; and stared at awe at videos of LD in the world of no lag.

Thing is, if you have amazing UV's, you're more likely to own a great computer, if you have a great computer it is a lot easier to do do whatever and there are a lot less nasty lag related surprises, kinda amplifies whatever skill you have skill. Where teamwork is concerned, there's a more "teamwork" in random LD matches than one might think (I wouldn't call it teamwork though).

It's Forest, you're blue, and you've captured points 1 and 2, where does everyone go? 3. That's the basic idea and the one of the reasons how a complete stomp happens. What does yellow do? a few might try to sneak by and capture 1 or 2, the others may try to take the point closest to base; forces divided.

As far as balance goes, I think it's just about as balanced as most other games.

P.s. I thought this was quite relevant:
http://www.techopedia.com/definition/27041/game-balance

THere is an upper hand... Its the skill to deal with the like of 4 Polaris spammers in a hallway... Which I have done. I have kited 4 skolver strikers with a ISB in my hand.

And Yeah, I'm whining about these things in the same manner you are whining about the whiners like me. SURPRISE! lolol

Also, What ARE these counter measures you speak of? Optimizers stuff? If not, please tell me, I'd like to see what you got.

...

Asuka... You sound much like a grumbly old man... And that amuses me ^-^

You seem to have embraced this system, and don't really want it to change, am I wrong?

If that's so, then I wouldn't expect you to see why things should change.. no biggy :D

Fight fire with fire?

Besides RSS i mean.

Soo... You'd use... Hammer, GF, FF... Polaris... Skolver coat, magic item...

or if bomber... Volcanic, mad, VT, AoA, Stagger, RSS, nitrome

Or if gunner... Nameless or Shadow sun, seerus mask, Valiance, Polaris, Volt driver, Umbra driver, AP

So what about the 71 (!!!) items the COULD be used, but just aren't due to Sucking? Thats FAR more then the Handful here.

So far, the game has come down to specializing, not actual fun. People who want to become specialists will naturally own those people who don't, who instead pick the gear that they want.
When was the last time you saw a Cautery Sword in LD? I haven't yet, but I hope I will soon. It makes a change to dodging Dusker clones with toothpicks while I'm cloaked. The fact is, nobody even owns one, because it sucks.
Only a few of the 71 items are actually used in LD.
At the moment, I use a Crystal Bomb and a semi-random gun (Antigua, Pulsar, Cryotech Alchemer mkII), with a Spiral Demo set.

No competitive game is ever balanced. Ever.

Take for example pokemon. There are OU pokemon (Over-used), BL Pokemon (Border-line), UU pokemon (Under-used) and NN pokemon (Never-used). Despite beliefs that if you train your pokemon hard enough and if you have enough skill you can overcome some tough opponents; that's a lie. Some pokemon perform exceedingly better than most, these pokemon are the OU, such as Gyarados and Garchomp. You can choose to use Under-used Pokemon, in which case in LD would be maybe a troika or cutter line, but no matter how skill you have you'll be wrecked by someone who can skillfully use an Over-used pokemon, which in LD would be the toothpics or the hammer.

It's the same thing as Seiran said with brawl. There are TIERS placed on characters because it is obvious that some fighters are just easier to cause havoc with than others. Take for example Meta-Knight, who had to be banned from tournaments because he's too OP to even be paired with other fighters.

So Damien, I don't know whether you're some idealist or if you're just naive on this subject, but LD is far from balanced.
There is no dominating one weapon that can silence all others, but that doesn't mean LD is balanced.
It just means it isn't broken.

I simply don't play Lockdown. The next time I go on a PvP spree will be when I make my shockbrand line... and that's if no one is playing Blast Network.

Here's a few comments on lockdown:
The benefits are not distributed equally between classes. It may seem like recon has great stats, but they're mostly ctr. ctr is easily obtainable, as every weapon gets ctr med when leveled and you can get ctr uvs. In my bombing set, I get 10-12 ctr levels on all my bombs, when the max is 6. Asi is quite useful, and people like to max that with equips/uvs. But damage? There's a reason the armors with weapon-type damage bonuses had bad resistances. I wouldn't mind if the striker simply gave global asi bonus.

Status effects and weapons are not balanced. Poison is a weak status effect because unless you're killing them anyways, enemies will usually run away wait for it to run out. Fire is also similarly weak because of heal pads. (I'm not sure how fire works on recons.) Also, as people have said, certain weapons are vastly less effective in LD.

ce revives. There's enough threads on this.

Lag compensation. This doesn't affect me much, but I've seen how much high ping makes this game hard to play. If possible, could we have some client-side hit detection? Unfortunately, the only example I can give of that is Gunster, which is an old, old game.

Lockdown is something that can never be fully balanced.
That is the simple truth.
Does that mean you should not try to fill in the gap?
No, certainly not.

This is a game.
Games are not as fun unbalanced.
You can't fully balance it, but you can try your best.
More balance, more fun.

Also, @Seiran :
Really? I never went to a Brawl tournament, but I heard they had to ban the Smash Orb because of Socic's OP smash move.
So really, Sonic is OP.

Teams should never be compiled randomly, they should factor in how much damage each player does every second he/or she is alive, how many caps he gets, how many times he defends, how often he revives.

"Because Lockdown is competitive in nature, it all boils down to gear, skill, teamwork and a good computer"

in my opinion you are a "lockdown pro" if you have the following:

gear,skill and good conditions to play the game like connection and a good computer

those 4 complement each other to form what you guys call a "lockdown pro" but i think that if you have the last two you can pretty much play in skelly jelly and own if you have enough EXPERIENCE not skill. And thats why the game is so unbalanced!!!!!!!

In my own experience ive seen people play with no uvs at all but have a very rapid response to other players movements and awareness of whats going on which brings me to think they have probably a good connection and/or computer aka long range flourish or GF.

also just read this from the one and only performance issues FAQ on the spiral knights wiki

"Spiral Knights is suprisingly sensitive to network response times, more so than many other popular MMOs. Try these suggestions:"

and one of them said

A good site to test the stability of your connection is Pingtest.net. (Use Virginia for people connecting to US East and Ireland for EU West)
Any packet loss is a cause for concern and can affect many internet applications.
High numbered ping is what causes a delay in actions.
Jitter is the fluctuation of ping. If this value is high it is responsible for the "rubber band" effect where a character will lurch forward in sudden spurts. Low jitter (less than ~10ms) is very important to a smooth game play experience.

Well since i am in the west coast and playing on a laptop you guys can tell i am not so much of a good player (for the that guys have seen me around in ld).Ive done everything to ameliorate my lockdown experience but still nothing seems to work when you are playing with the people who lives closest to the server and are playing on a desktop or mac and have all the best gear and experience in the game.

So you guys have to realize that the flourish hitbox is not broken or that hammers have too much range, its not about that, its about you having the right things and being in the right place to play lockdown so theres no need for balancing anything you just have to adapt to the conditions because nothing its broken in the game its mostly an issue that you possibly dont even know of thats causing you to lag/stutter/get hit by miles away.

@Timbalero:
Thanks for bringing up the latency thing. Seriously, I'm pretty sure people blame autotarget and flourishes so much because they don't understand that they don't see themselves where the server does @_@

@Serell:
Well, the community comes up with rules/decisions to make games "competitive" [favoring skill over luck], which is why items are usually banned in most tournaments (they're essentially random chance to completely turn the game around). Smash balls would probably have been banned, as they are technically items. :P

----

I'm still waiting for a wave of skilled recon players to help expand the playfield. They break the rules so much (like really, actually hurting people with normal damage weapons?!)

...but they're sooo rare D;

Would you ever use swiftstrike in PVE?

Lockdown is imbalanced, but I think it's more the classes than the actual arguments such as gear/CE rezzing/Auto-Target, etc. Take the following factors into account.

Generic Skolver Loadout (skolver cap/coat, Gran Faust ASI Med, Final Flourish ASI Med, Polaris)
As a Striker: Sword ASI VHigh, Sword Damage Max, Health -3 (negated by heart trinkets), Bomb CTR -VH
As a Recon: Sword ASI Low, Sword Damage Vhigh, Health +7, Gun ASI +Med, Bomb CTR +Med, All CTR +Med
As a Guard: Sword ASI High, Sword Damage High, Health +9, Gun ASI -Low, Bomb CTR -Low

The above breakdown explains why most people will go striker above other classes. Given the above UVs, the fact that swords most often outdamage guns/bombs in DPS, and that the majority of people in Lockdown use pierce weaponry (thus the skolver defense), most players would settle for ASI to match others, damage to match others, and speed to match others.

As a recon, I do guild lockdown against teams that almost always do not have a recon. The fact is, recon isn't that useful when compared to healing-machine Guardian, or a damage-kill-machine Striker. Recons are pretty much this: Two/three good swings, oh look a recon, DEAD. The majority of recons will die in a 1v(insertnumberhere) situation, because unless someone has ASI VH on a sword, an ASI Med trinket, and a Vog piece, or something like that, people are always going to outswing a recon, even guardians.

As a guardian, which I played around with in Random lockdown, guardians outperform recons and can even take down skilled strikers. Shieldcanceling and healing, two of a guardian's most valued assets, as well as the shield itself, are at only a slight disadvantage to strikers, and any decent guardian should be able to take down a recon without sustaining fatal damage.

As a Striker, if you're a skilled Striker, consider yourself god of the playing field. Unless you meet someone who Polaris spams, run into a bomb that statuses you to death, or has higher ASI than you, there's really nothing much that should stop you. Especially if you use the swing>boost>swing>boost technique. That said...

tl;dr Lockdown is imbalanced, but it's the classes that do it, not the Autoaim/CE rez/UV arguments

I may be wrong, but I think we have 3 groups of opinions here:
1. LD is balanced in the sense that everything can be countered in some way, even if it means fighting fire with fire.
2. LD is imbalanced in the sense that some equips are just plain better/used more than the other equips.
3. LD is imbalanced when it comes to drafting team.

I personally think all of above is right, and one reason we kept discussing this and never gotten nowhere is because we kept using 1 to argue against 2 or using 2 to argue against 1, even though these two points are from completely different angles and, in my opinion, both correct.

So I believe LD is both balanced and imbalanced... Though I would say it's slightly on the imbalanced side, as long as they don't even attempt to fix the team drafting.

Yeah, that's a very astute (Whatever the word is) recognition! :D

"I personally think all of above is right, and one reason we kept discussing this and never gotten nowhere is because we kept using 1 to argue against 2 or using 2 to argue against 1, even though these two points are from completely different angles and, in my opinion, both correct."
I feel that this, above, is correct.

"Last night, i went against someone who managed 40k on a cutter only, and the clock ran out. Tell me what that tells you..."

That's definitely impressive (as far as lockdown goes, anyway) but those are rare exceptions.

I can hold my own with a leviathan and a grey feather set, but i don't pretend that it's superior to the typical clone setup. I would almost never recommend it to other players. It's taken me the entirety of my SK career to "master" the leviathan blade (nearly a year). But in order for me to get 15,000 damage, i have to be exceptional in my execution. A clone set up can get that same 15,000 without so much as batting an eyelash. The amount of effort it takes to be equally effective with different gear is just too disproportionate, those rare exceptions only highlight that. We're impressed by "40k [damage] on a cutter only" because it is such an odd, offbeat achievement, something that doesn't happen frequently, whereas high damage with a typical clone setup doesn't impress many, because it's such a blase, yawn inducing achievement.