Spiral Knights - New Shard Bombs now available for PvP Testing!

New Shard Bombs now available for PvP Testing!

14 replies [Last post]

Thu, 07/26/2012 - 16:46

Nick

Developer

This round of testing has ended. Thanks for testing!

The Testing Server is now open and Coliseum games are unlocked. Please give the new shard bombs a whirl in Lockdown!

The new bombs are available form the Auction House as a Featured Auction. Please take only what you need.

In addition to the new bombs, the Irontech Bomb, Irontech Destroyer and Big Angry Bomb have received an increased blast radius and chance to stun targets.

Lastly, existing shard bombs now support the new shard bomb behaviors.

Happy testing everyone!

Edit: There's an issue with the Irontech Bomb, Irontech Destroyer and Big Angry Bomb's names showing up properly, but it won't prevent you from using them. Bomb away!

Thu, 07/26/2012 - 18:51

Algerys

where are the bomb

how much are they

Thu, 07/26/2012 - 19:21

Doctorspacebar

SUNSHAAAAAAAAARDS

To quote the above post:

The new bombs are available form the Auction House as a Featured Auction. Please take only what you need.

From this you can infer:

1: You get them at the Auction House.
2: NICK MADE A TYPO! HA HA!

Thu, 07/26/2012 - 19:42

Lettuce-Sauce

OMG I WANT IT!

I thought my Radiant Sun Shard was the last one! FOREVER!!! I WANT TO TEST IT!

Thu, 07/26/2012 - 22:06

Aquajag

Long Live RSS!

Hard to test LD when no one is online to play. :(

Fri, 07/27/2012 - 00:46

Acck

Scintilating

Kinda skipped right over mentioning that RSS is relegated back to 4*.

If this is the release plan, then way to screw over current RSS owners.
Nothing like a good neutering without a bump in star level.

Fri, 07/27/2012 - 10:32

Kitty-Softpaws

Just reskin the current RSS

Just reskin the current RSS line & make a 5 star version for it. It's pretty obvious that no one wants RSS to change.

Fri, 07/27/2012 - 11:45

Pauling

I'd strongly recommend

I'd strongly recommend against re-skinning RSS as a separate line. It would set an atrocious and totally unacceptable precedent to break an item that people paid for, then tell players they could have it back for an additional, separate payment. That's known as bait and switch.

Nick's original announcement of RSS changes did mention that they'll be compensating existing RSS owners; I'll be interested to see what they come up with. Overall, the changes sound positive, and it's nice to think that these other bombs will be getting some attention. Though certainly, the changes would only be meaningful if the well-known problems with the stun status were fixed at the same time.

Fri, 07/27/2012 - 15:10

Aquajag

RIP RSS

@Pauling
I agree. The problems with stun don't show up as much with BAB or Irontech, largely because in my solo runs they either 1) didn't stun that often or 2) flung things so far, that I wasn't near enough to get attacked anymore. But when I've used the new RSS, it's nothing but trouble. The stun generally causes me a whole lot of pain. So probably I won't use the new RSS very much at all until they fix stun. Right now, it's the better choice to go with the piercing splinter shards. If stun gets fixed, or they give RSS a different status, then RSS would be a viable alternative for when you want to use that status.

Fri, 07/27/2012 - 15:41

Serell

wow

I thought they might be fixing stun since they're adding it to these bombs.... welp, going to have to keep bumping my bug report. Every. Single. Day.

Fri, 07/27/2012 - 19:17

#10

Guarder

Make it more reliable... just

Make it more reliable... just enough so I can say to myself hey this striker is out to get me! he better hope I don't charge this bomb before he kills me! rather than OMG striker! I'm gonna die because its so easy to get past this bomb! :/

Pros
- effective in small area
- looks pretty cool
- Status effects are pretty helpful

Cons
- easy to dodge
- longer fuse time would leave me dead whenever i want to place a bomb quickly when fighting fast enemys (greivers, devilites)
- You can literally see people standing in the center after the initial explosion laughing at you while shards expload around them dealing no damage because they are too far away making him look like a badass.
- initial explosion of is too small
- second explosion takes too long to detonate

I mean yea you wanna give people a chance to escape but this is ridiculous people literally just stood in the center of a ring of bombs toying with me... knowing they could kill me at any moment they felt like because its so easy to dodge...

[edit]

I just saw the full heat station after getting the shards up to full heat i decided to do a test of damage

i only tested Deadly splinter bomb

heat 10

Super effective = first blast 168 damage second blast 221 per shard

normal 68 - 121

I even found a effective way to use it against trojans and greivers...

my only concern is the initial blast, it dosnt seem to be that effective... it hardley hits and barley pushes the enemy into the second ring...

my suggestion would be to make the first explosion bigger and add a little more knock back just so the enemy ends up a little outside the second ring because they are gonna come back to attack you anyway its in there AI...

despite all this the bomb has its uses and is a good replacement for RSS but something erks me about it... i just dont think it can be that effective in LD strikers wont have any trouble escaping it and attacking you... maybe you can i dunno make the middle blast last longer? just enough we can set a new bomb down in time that they will have to risk getting damage/status effected to attack us... so far its like i charge a bomb it does the initial explosion then the second as soon as the second explosion starts i drop a new bomb! in that time the strikers charges me attacks then quickly leaves the damage zone and just repeats this until im dead...

Fri, 07/27/2012 - 20:35

#11

Jpisbeast

Thanks alot! And your welcome aw well

Hey Nick! Those Lock Down matches were awesome! You know what I mean, but you sure do them again!

Sat, 07/28/2012 - 00:11

#12

Jumping-Monkey

Short On Testers After 11pm Mst

Its hard to test when theres 5 players waiting to test bombs.
Is There away to set the amount of players lower at night?

I went in a mission to see what the Bombs are like I got to say its wild.

Sat, 07/28/2012 - 10:42

#13

Capt-Chopper

Ima stun you!

+1 Guarder

My experience is very similar, due to the way the shard bombs works it very difficult to use them against anyone who knows you can just sit in the center while slashing at your face. These shard bombs not only cant be used offensively(well, not effectively) like the old RSS, defensively they still aren't good compared to using a blast bomb.

Another thing is the shard bombs do pretty low damage, at least to me. I think the first "explosion" should have a larger range to make up for the lower damage compared to the old RSS or even blast bombs. I also think there should be less delay between the first and second explosion, even in crowds it felt like it took longer than it should to kill them. (arenas, danger rooms, danger missions.) That, or a 5%-10% damage increase, but I prefer if they were made faster.

About the Big Angry bomb, I really really like the changes! the new range makes it more viable now, Im glad I made one beforehand. This is really needed to make it useful to bombers. Irontech needs an advantage over Big angry bomb though, maybe make it slightly faster or make it do a different status, maybe poison?

Sun, 07/29/2012 - 11:13

#14

Obsidious

Huzzah!

My previously stated points about the original shard variants still stands with these, as I don't see any statement showing what kind of tweaks there might have been; and the bombs still seem to be the same. Fuse time is probably going to the most important for these, to be honest, especially if they are gonna be weaker than the blast-style with only the occasional double hit on mobile monsters. All considering that the meat of the explosion occurs on the ring, you might as well make the fuse time for both bomb and shard equal to 2 (Blast bomb length) seconds combined. I.E. Fuse time 1 second and shard 1 second, or a bit less to compensate for enemy movement.

As it appears to be suggested with the text in all shard bombs now, it seems that every color of these bombs will probably be coming into the game; sort of like the alchemer series, but more in terms of damage than anything else. That's nice, as, assuming they can make this work, it'll probably give bombers a more PURE damage option of bombs to work with while still being largely party friendly; sorta like shredders. What I'm trying to say here is that these bombs have the potential of filling in something that bombers have been wanting for a while; I just hope they make it work.

But enough jabbering on that end. I definitely agree about BAB and ITD, BAB especially, though a buff in the stun strength feels appropriate. As stated in another topic, ITD needs to feel more like the 'middle' bomb of the series and one those buffs could be in the speed walk department, but that's just me.

On a final note, like a few others, I've been unable to use LD simply because there's a lack of people. The only solution I can think for this is to have the Devs pop in during a schedule once in a while to help fill things up.

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New Shard Bombs now available for PvP Testing!