This is a General discussion thread for the Suggestion here: http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/66829

That one is for the Discussion pertaining to, and hopefully improving that Idea. This one is for general chatter about it.

Here is the TL;DR: Increase the Survivability of Weapons and Armor that seems to be labeled "tank". Make tank a Medic. Introduce a More interactive aggro-ing system.

Here is the Post:

It's been a while...

Here's what I'm gonna talk about: my ideas for improving the 'Guardian' archetype. Mostly because I'd play all day as one.

It was pointed out to me that generally, the tradeoff in most games is speed for power. But since speed and power have already been thrown together, that option is taken. So, I have another path for these guardians: to make other team members safe, and save their butts when they fall down.

The question is then: how in the world could this be done? How can a knight keep people safe, and save other knights when they stumble? How are 'ya gonna make a tank-medic?

The first part is easy, the second is not -too- easy... Well, that depends actually.

First off, we accept that guardians are gonna get hit a lot, and not do very much damage at all. Then we make it so that they can still attack even when hit. After that, because we know that they're gonna be hurting badly, we give them a TON of defender. And I mean enough to be taking a half a pip of damage any average source.

Weapons that are defensive oriented should also have a health, or defensive bonus to compensate the low damage or speed.

Then we have to help them to be able to revive anyone that falls down, and give them the endurance to be taking the heat from hoards of zombies after it's team mates. That means health. I'd suggest that the plate armors have a base health bonus of 12, each piece. Ancient having 18 and the same defense as a plate line. That combined with the defense would make a guardian someone that forgoes survival by the blade, for survival by the shield.

Now the problem is that even if you -have- the defenses to survive, eventually you will fall. Not to mention that I said that a guardian would be taking the heat off, and Saving the butts of your team members. This next bit is the simple in thought, possibly hard to code and debug bit.

I suggest introducing a 'threat level' to all weapons, and a 'threat level bonus' to some armors. Think about it: firing off an Antigua is not as flashy or downright scary as an Iron Slug. Putting this into the game would not only aid the Guardian archetype, (I'll tell you why, and explain the basics of the mechanic in a moment.) But would let players choose whether they want to use a high threat nitonome, or a lower threat SSS. You can also have it scale with the stratum like weapon damage.

I think that extra level of gameplay would be simple enough to new players, but complex enough to make a difference for veterans.

Now, as to how it would actually work. Each time a weapon connects with a foe, a counter goes up, and monsters within a certain area of the impact would have their counters go up by half that amount. Each monster would keep track of the Damage dealt by each source-including other monsters. It doesn't have to take up much coding space, infact I don't think it would. Have the monsters either start with a point on their counters for each knight, or with none... For monsters like jelly cubes. I'm sure you could deduce that the knight or monster with the highest number on their counter would be the one to attack.

I would suggest starting with low threat weapons. Let's take one of the sneaky vile strikers, for example. Each hit would raise the target's counter by 2, and the surrounding monster's counters by 1. And a flashy, defense oriented blade like the sudaruska would raise it by 20 per for every for it hits. Where-as the striker can only hit two at best.

Wearing different armors can also give a bonus (I'd suggest a multiplier) to the threat made. A Virulisk suit giving a negative bonus to the threat, while a plate line gives a positive bonus.

There are sure to be consequences to these things... Like zombies getting fed up with trojans and betraying it. But I think that overall, this would be a near thing to have in the game.

~Tsu