Spiral Knights - Regarding Antigua Charges

Regarding Antigua Charges

15 respuestas [Último envío]

Lun, 10/01/2012 - 22:30

Sol-Xii

I've been using Antigua branch guns for quite a while now. They (AP & Sentenza) are pretty good guns regarding normal attacks, but the charges are not only lacklustre (not as in Polaris charge lacklustre), but suicidal as well. (It didn't take months of experience to figure that bit out). The charge attack of this moment is bam bam bam, eagle. And it roots the user in place for too long to make it a viable option. There was never a time when I pulled out my AP, unlike Nova, and said "Gee, I think I could kill this Lumber faster with the charge." It would be rephrased to "Gee, I think I could kill myself faster with the charge."

The charge could change, and I'm all for it. Yeah, sure, there are more important stuff to be done than fixing a barely broken weapon such as GH Updates and other weapons, but I would like some thoughts on it. I've read that the charge could have the six shots in the beginning removed so that only the eagle would shoot (Providing with some much needed knockback). The only problems I have with it is this:

- Will these changes allow them out shine the other weapons of the same type?
It may seem like an exaggeration, but changing the charge may alter the uses of the gun drastically. If I only shot the eagle, Antiguas would have more versatility and areas of specialty. I feel that the Antiguas are somewhat on par with the Drivers, and I'm wondering if a change of that nature would somehow turn the tables in the Antiguas' favour. I'm mainly talking about Sent/Umbra, Sent may be considered better b/c of its usefulness against the enemy types it's very specifically targeting, whereas Umbra may have a bit of trouble landing shots on Gremlins. The AP/Nova relationship is different though, providing chip damage where the Nova could one shot. People usually pick Sent to deal with Gremlins, but with an eagle charge, its usage in Slime killing will increase and Umbra will have sit out and let eagle charge do all the work. (Don't worry Umbra, Biohazard has a seat reserved for you) The reason I use Umbra is because Sent just doesn't kill Slimes fast enough, compared to a blink of the eye insta kill provided by Umbra(And also that I like seeing the purple things bounce, but that's not the point.) The charge eagle can hit an enemy three times consecutively due to its knockback, paired with mobility and overall simple mechanics, it may become OP. With AP, it could as easily take over the Construct side of the elemental specialty spectrum.

I'm asking to get the opinions of others, in no way do I want this as a priority update. Just some food for thought. If anyone has any other ideas regarding the buff or change of the charge attack, feel free to share.

Mar, 10/02/2012 - 17:47

Stormradar

The Antigua chains aren't that bad if you use it correctly......

You just need to know WHEN to use the charge
Most of the time you can't, but when you CAN, it should happen like this:
You have 3 swordsman charging toward a gate and you stay behind because theres A LOT of enemies
Thats when you charge the swordsman will keep the monsters from hurting you
The eagle will help your teammates too
It will knockback the monsters then REPEAT THE STEPS
Hope this helped
I personally never used an Argent Peacemaker or Sentenza before, but I'm pretty experienced with this game now............

Mar, 10/02/2012 - 19:01

Sol-Xii

Those pesky Devilites.

I'm not asking for tips on AP/Sents, I do have them myself. I'm asking for opinions on changes that could be made to the Antiguas to make their charge perform better, without going the OP range. You said that most of the time you can't use the charge, but I would like to turn that situation around, where the charge is used more often, making the charge to normal ratio a bit more balanced. Thanks for your input, though!

Mar, 10/02/2012 - 19:02

Sol-Xii

Those pesky Double posts

Gosh darnit.

Mar, 10/02/2012 - 19:31

Darkbrady

There's a post in the

There's a post in the suggestions board about this, and there's been many posts before that as well. The generally accepted and agreed upon ideal change would be to simply remove the clip-unload and have the charge only shoot the piercing eagle; thus reducing the overall dps factor of the charge, but maintaining the guns' "move and shoot" motif (by removing the root that the clip-unload creates).

Saying that, I do think that the current charge can be used, but usually only against lichens. Gremlins tend to dodge, jump, avoid, shield etc and negate too much of the damage, but the lichens just walk towards it and die.
Polyps, too.

Mar, 10/02/2012 - 20:32

Fehzor

The charge is usable- you must make sure that they aren't going after you first. Then, push them off of your team mates. That, or make sure they'll be in a pushable spot in 10 minutes when the charge's knockback takes effect. The charge is only good for crowd control, and is still rather lackluster, as you said. Overall, the charge is rarely better than other courses of action.

Jue, 10/04/2012 - 17:52

Stormradar

Just use the charge like the Blitz Needle

The Blitz Needle's charge is the same thing as the antigua chains
They should let you shoot the same charge attack but you can move.......

Jue, 10/04/2012 - 20:45

Horizonknight

Narf

@Stormradar.
No. The Needle lines are basically sub-machine guns. The Antigua lines are revolvers. They should not mimic each other.

Jue, 10/04/2012 - 21:03

Darkbrady

Storm, in what sense is the

Storm, in what sense is the Blitz charge any way similar to the Antigua?

Antigua:
Multiple regular shots that do nothing special, followed by a piercing KB shot that has a narrow range and light KB

Needles:
Largely increased damage bullets, at a far greater number, a wide range and large KB effect.

The needle charges work because each individual bullet has the potential to KB, has increased damage, and the shots are fired in a wide range to catch monsters in a wider range and there's far more bullets fired than usual. The antiguas can't catch anything that isn't directly in front of you; forcing the charge to only really be useful in corridor fighting or incredibly clustered rooms that don't hold high aggro towards you.

Jue, 10/04/2012 - 21:50

Exerpa

Primary problem with the

Primary problem with the antigua charge: the initial shots before the bird are the same strength as regular shots. As far as I'm aware, the bird itself has similar strength to each single charged needle shot. If each pre-bird charge shot got a damage buff that would make it far more worthwhile.

Of course with out any official words on this, its plausable the needle and the antigua were designed to complement each other. Or perhaps weapons with significant disparity between a regular and charged attack is part of designing balanced gear, with the needle and antigua being 2 excellent examples of such design.

Jue, 10/04/2012 - 21:55

#10

Derpules

But that would be terrible design.

No weapon should have a charge that's just bad. Why implement a feature there's no reason to use?

I can understand having weapons with sub-par normals and a powerful charge, because charging takes more time and can be risky. Therefore, you'd still use the normals when you have no choice (no time to charge), or when facing weakened enemies which don't require the charge. But with a sub-par charge, there's almost never a reason to use it.

Jue, 10/04/2012 - 21:57

#11

Darkbrady

No, the problem with the

No, the problem with the antigua charges are that the shots (range, strength, speed, clip size, lack of KB) were designed with the notion that you could move while you fire. Step, pop, step, pop. There's no huge damage or KB because you could keep on the move. The charge retains the downsides of the antigua bullets, but locks the player in place, putting you in a lose:lose situation, and the eagle charge isn't strong enough to off-balance the negative effects of the charge.

As I said earlier, that's why the primary suggestion for the antigua charges is to simply remove the clip unload and have it purely as the eagle shot, which would maintain a "low damage, fast shot, move-and-shoot" style of gunning, which the current charge denies.

Jue, 10/04/2012 - 22:01

#12

Derpules

^Exactly.

Although the alternative mentioned by others--allow movement and aiming during the charge attack itself--could work too.

Jue, 10/04/2012 - 23:48

#13

Exerpa

No weapon should have

No weapon should have projectiles that crash up on the wall behind you, why implement such poor physics in a game considering games have been made for over 30 years? Sure, it stops map exploits, but end users can not know for certain everytime what is bug and what is design.

With out the official word on why things are the way they are, we can only speculate on why they are. A speculation *could* be that a weapon with a poor charge can trade some of that potential in for good regular attacks - much like a non-normal damage weapon trades above normal strength against some enemies at the disadvantage of sub-normal damage to others. If we can see that 'damage type' can be traded, why not 'usage type'? In my mind the autoguns are 'charge use' type guns and the antiguas are 'regular use' type. Whether or not this is the design, we can't know for sure, only OOO can tell us.

Vie, 10/05/2012 - 15:18

#14

Derpules

Because then the charge might as well not exist.

Like I said, with weapons that have a crappy regular attack, you still find yourself in situations where you can't help using the normal attacks. But charging always takes more trouble than not charging, and therefore a crappy charge simply never gets used.

Vie, 10/05/2012 - 11:41

#15

Darkbrady

I'd have to agree with

I'd have to agree with Derpules here. It's apples and oranges; you can't ignore normal attacks and will eventually be forced to find a use for them, but you can very easily ignore the charge and simply never use it, which questions flaw in design. If they didn't want you using it, they might as well not even have the charge.

The suggested changes to the charge wouldn't make it better, stronger etc (in fact, the "remove the clip unload" suggestion would technically make it weaker), so the gun would become equal on a charge:normal ratio, which would allow the player to choose when to use which. The issue is that right now the charge is actually counterprouctive and underused because it can and will get you killed. It's incredibly easy to simply "miss" with the charge (even a few degrees to the side and every bullet will fly past the target) and with no KB, even if you do hit they'll still come at you.
The autogun lines are a "risk", but they offbalance it: they root you, but have high damage and KB so can save you, too. The antiguas just get you killed unless you're in an extremely prepared and safe situation, in which case you're not really any worse off just shooting normally, in case you do aggro something.

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Regarding Antigua Charges