Spiral Knights - New Shard Bombs now available for testing! (Closed)

New Shard Bombs now available for testing! (Closed)

14 replies [Last post]

Fri, 07/13/2012 - 16:34

Nick

Developer

7/23/12 - Edits made to reflect changes in this announcement: http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/60548

The shard bomb changes first announced here, http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/58164 will soon be available for testing.

Please read the following carefully before testing:

The new shard bombs available for testing will be available on the Auction House via Featured Auctions at approximately 5:30 PDT tonight. DO NOT take more than you need. We have easy access to auction records and will note any player who needlessly buys out lots of the same bomb. Those players will be banned from the test server. Remember, other players are testing too, do not get in the way of their ability to do so.

The Bombs:
Shard Bomb
Super Shard Bomb
Heavy Shard Bomb
Deadly Shard Bomb

Crystal Bomb
Super Crystal Bomb
Heavy Crystal Bomb
Deadly Crystal Bomb

Dark Matter Bomb
Super Dark Matter Bomb
Heavy Dark Matter Bomb
Deadly Dark Matter Bomb

Splinter Bomb
Super Splinter Bomb
Heavy Splinter Bomb
Deadly Splinter Bomb

Rock Salt Bomb
Heavy Rock Salt Bomb
Ionized Rock Salt Bomb

Sun Shards
Shining Sun Shards
Radiant Sun Shards

Bomb Behavior:
After an initial explosion, the new shard bombs fire out a series of shards that plant into the ground and explode shortly thereafter. If the shards encounter a wall or chasm, they will stop short, making their intended formation irregular. This can serve as a good strategy to clump them up and hit a monster multiple times.

There are two important exceptions to note:

- Shard if the initial blast is too close to a barrier, some shards will not spawn at all, so give them at least 1 tile's worth of space to breathe if you want all shards to spawn.

- With the exception of the initial explosion, only 3 shards may hit a single target from the same bomb. However, the same shard can hit multiple targets at once. This balances the shard bombs from clustering all of them on the same target at once, such as with large, boss monsters.

Feedback
We greatly appreciate your time testing these new bombs and would appreciate your feedback, specifically:
- Do these bombs seem balanced in terms of damage?
- Are these bombs fun to use?
- Does anything stand out that seems broken? Please report any bugs you find in your feedback threads.

PVP?
During this round of testing the Coliseum will be closed. The next round of testing will include these bombs and some Lockdown battling. Stay tuned!

Fri, 07/13/2012 - 16:46

Dukeplatypus

Well, now we get to see the

Well, now we get to see the tentative full extend of the shard bombs. It'll be interesting to test, indeed.

Fri, 07/13/2012 - 16:56

The-Rawrcake

Yay

btw, is there exact times / in a certain amount of hours until we can test them? Or is it right now?

Fri, 07/13/2012 - 17:32

Geordie

Developer

C42 updated

Compound 42 has also been updated based on testing and feedback. Please see the original sticky thread for a list of changes.

Fri, 07/13/2012 - 17:40

Alpha-Stevo

Just a question; These

Just a question; These mechanics would make a very interestin' bomb itself (like a Mini Blast Cube, nudge nudge!). Say that people love the Sunshards the way it is, and the general voice behind the change is negative. Will the dev team reuse these mechanics on another bomb?

I mean, the way people are judgin' this is if it's good for the Shard bombs, not if it's necessarily a good stand-alone bomb. And I, for one, would love more variation in weapons myself, so I thought it'd be nice to ask.

Fri, 07/13/2012 - 19:26

Dhmorgousbord

Since Radiant Sun Shards is

Since Radiant Sun Shards is now becoming 5* does this mean that all existing RSS will turn to 5* or will they all turn into Shining Sun Shards when this patch comes out? Same with Rock Salt bombs

Sat, 07/14/2012 - 21:49

The-Rawrcake

@Cytrixx

They would not answer that, because people would just use that as a get rich quick scheme.

I will firmly tell you no, that they will not. I know that they have done something similar to this in the past, but I doubt they would do this again for the reasons that people would abuse this terribly.

Sat, 07/14/2012 - 22:37

Aquajag

@The-Rawrcake Last time an

@The-Rawrcake

Last time an update changed the star level of a bomb, all bombs switched with it. The major difference was those bombs would not be bound by default. All RSS are going to be bound. The only way to "get rich quick" is to spend 2kce in the hopes someone will pay 3.5kce or so for it. Not sure many people are going to do that...

Sun, 07/15/2012 - 06:17

Merethif

Personal opinion on new bombs

The only thing I really don't like about those new bombs is that they come in all damage types. Is such extreme streamlining of arsenal design really necessary? What will comes next? Elemental, Shadow and Normal thrusting swords? Piercing and Normal alchemers? Elemental and Shadow magnus? Elemental and Shadow autoguns? What I like so far in SK is weapons variety and the fact that not every weapon type has all damage types version. Players have to make decisions about loadouts - either to equip a weapon adequate to monster's vulnerability or rather use neutral weapon with mechanic useful against given monster (for example Polaris against Devilites or Umbra Driver against Wolvers).

Mon, 07/16/2012 - 11:32

Acck

Access

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE

Give us access to T3 and heated weapons so that the testing of the weapons can be done in a timely and appropriate manner.

Thu, 07/19/2012 - 11:28

#10

Kitty-Softpaws

The "new" RSS doesn't feel

The "new" RSS doesn't feel like an RSS anymore.. It feels... like... blast bombs just in a different effect appearance.. or a re-skin radius?

http://i1221.photobucket.com/albums/dd475/HectorUribe/WoWScrnShot_031512...

Thu, 07/19/2012 - 15:45

#11

Acck

8))

Thank you, Thank you and Thank you.
Thank you for the heat room.
Thank you for the T3 access.
Thank you for taking the time to consider the community.
It is great to know the the Devs have their ear to the pulse of the community.

Now please listen to the feedback concerning the change to the RSS.

Please Please Please,
Create a fresh family of bombs with these new characteristics and leave the RSS alone.

Thu, 07/19/2012 - 15:55

#12

Kitty-Softpaws

I've never used RSS.

I've never used RSS. Yesterday, on the testing server, I tried the new Sun Shard Bombs & tried today the RSS bomb. I really enjoy RSS more. I also think RSS is be better in PvP than these Sun Shard Bombs.

Thu, 07/19/2012 - 19:32

#13

Bisento

Shard Bomb Review

HI. I'm Bisento and I've been using bombs for most of my Spiral Knights career. I, along with friends and guild mates, consider myself to be a very knowledgeable and skilled bomber. I have done Shadow Lairs in full bombing gear and rarely go into the clockworks without full bombing gear. So I hope my opinion is respected when I talk about these bombs.

First off I would like to say that these bombs work EXACTLY as I expected them to with two exceptions: speed and knockback. The RSS and ISB never had knockback so I expected the new ones to not have any, and these new bombs are also a lot slower than the current versions.

Some of these bombs are redundant. We now have four bombs that do each damage type, and the RSS with piercing and the ISB with shadow. Despite the slightly less damage on the RSS's and ISB's part, their stun/shock/dmg bonuses still make them a more viable choice compared to the non-status counterparts. On top of this, I can't imagine a situation where anyone would use the normal damage bomb. People may like it for the lack of knockback compared to a Nitro, but as someone who has learned to use Nitro effectively in a party I would never choose another normal bomb over Nitro especially when now we have a shard for each damage type. So there goes three of the four new bombs right out the window with any chance of me ever using them.

Now, on to the effectiveness of the remaining bombs. I have no problem with the actual mechanic of how the bombs work, but there are qualities that could be improved. The RSS has always been a reigning weapon for me when it comes to most enemies except Constructs that aren't puppies, slimes, and Beasts. Everyone who's an experienced bomber says it's a must-have for a bomber's arsenal and it's always been at my side in FSC, doing 380 damage per shot with a max damage bonus and being the fastest CTR bomb in the game. Now here I am standing in depth 25 of FSC doing 181 initial explosion damage and 230 shard damage with the Deadly Crystal Bomb (DCB) at the rate of a Nitronome explosion, also with the max damage bonus. The RSS would be doing 376 per shot here. If you're going to weaken the bombs, let them keep their speed. If you're going to slow the bombs, let them keep their damage. Don't kill both aspects at the same time. Now (with only one shard hitting) a single DCB does the damage of a single shard from the current RSS.

The shards also do not hit enemies on their way out to the outer ring. You get the initial explosion and then instantly the shards are in their ring. This has completely removed the skill of getting things to walk on top of the bomb and receive multiple hits at once and as such has SEVERELY removed the RSS's penchant for high damage output or combo-ing RSS with a vortex bomb. We now essentially have a two-stage Nitronome that knocks enemies around like pinballs and that won't do in most parties.

I like the direction they're going in, cluster bombs are fun. And I can deal with the less range, but here are my suggestions for what to keep/fix:
-Remove three of the redundant bombs (DCB/Elemetal, DDMB/Shadow, DSB/Normal), maybe grab other bomb ideas from the suggestions forum (Kentard comes to mind)
-Make the RSS pure elemental and keep the new Deadly Splinter Bomb for its piercing
-Speed up the CTR, fuse and outer-ring explosion rate to the original speed, like watching two shards go off one after another
-Increase the damage by half the difference between Preview and original shard damage ratings
-Let the shards hit enemies that stand in the radius of the initial explosion when it goes off

I hope this has helped. It has been interesting playing around with the new mechanics and I look forward to seeing what you guys do with the bombs come the release.

Bissy~

Thu, 07/19/2012 - 21:39

#14

Akvar

+1 Bisento

Now (with only one shard hitting) a single DCB does the damage of a single shard from the current RSS.

This fact that you pointed out really bums me out because we are comparing a 4* split damage to a 5* pure damage bomb and the 5* is only doing about 15 more damage. This feels like a big nerf, the 5* DCB should be doing near 500 cumulative damage (initial/secondary explosions against slag walkers) to make this not feel like a major nerf. I really hope we see some improvements to these new bombs, R.I.P. RSS.

Search

New Shard Bombs now available for testing! (Closed)