This was suggested a few hours ago. http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/69142

Why not just turn it off for PVP entirely, problem solved

Giving an indicator for AA users is ridiculous, because you're clearly wanting to use it to either shame players or to have a fallback excuse for when someone with AA drops you; "I didn't lose fairly, he had AA turned on!!!11"

If you're thinking it's there for any other reason, you're blind to how the Lockdown community works, of course it's gonna be used for shaming people, regardless of whether or not they're complaining about it or not, so don't pretend it won't be there for something nobler.

So basically you are suggesting this just to prove to the "babies and idiots" that you don't need AA to win. Even with the option to show/hide this AA indicator, the people who use AA will have it hidden to avoid harassment.

I'd have to say this would serve no other purpose than to further increase derogatory attacks upon AA players. You wouldn't even need to get killed by them anymore, you'd just see them and shout them down.

If you get killed by AA it really doesn't change anything; you still died, AA or otherwise, so what's the need for a "marker" to signify whether they had AA or not.
If you're convinced that AA is unfair/OP/gives them an edge, then why don't you use it yourself? Because it's more of a challenge not to? Then ditch your heart trinkets and UVs and play in regular gear.
Or because it makes them nooby and makes attacks worse? In which case you should be ashamed that you died by it, and announcing to the world that someone with a crippling disadvantage managed to kill you is doing nothing against them.
Should we get "lag" markers next, or "ping counters" so that people have a provable excuse why they messed up?

Mainly I'm against this suggestion because it takes the fun out of it for me. I get called an AA noob a lot as a gunner when I kill people, and I love nothing more than explaining why AA gunning makes no sense, and laughing at their sudden silence and embarassement as the entire match realises that said "pro" player is just spouting excuses because a recon gunner in ASI armour killed him.

And because then it'd show the world why I'm such a pro bomber, with all my AA on.

My bombs never miss.

it's not designed (And, in fact, is impractical) for higher tiers. In LD however, it's just downright silly.

For hammers I get it; hammers dash and swing combined with AA make it an unbelievable force for even anyone who's never used it before; my first run ever using a hammer was in LD and I walked out with 15k damage; I understand that.
For other swords, I'm goin' to have to disagree. I suck with swords. It's not a practice thing, I just suck with them; it's not the playstyle I was built for.
But does that mean I should suffer? Should I never get a chance to play with swords, when the fancy takes me? Without AA I just miss, miss and miss over and over, I'm worse than useless. Combine that with any degree of delay or latency (us server specifically here) and I might as well just leave the match, for all the good I'd do the team.
AA accounts for latency, meaning all I have to do is get to the general target area and let the AA "lead the swing" for me. It gives me a chance against experienced swordies who know what I'm about to do. By no means allows me to compare against them, but it allows swords to be a viable option for me. Removing it completely is essentially shutting me down as a swordy.
And "just practice" is unfair, because I don't care about swords that much. It's a past-time, a side-interest. I don't want to "Just practice" and get better at a side-interest when I could be practising what I'm really interested in.

but it's very noticeable when gunners [...] use it

Gunners who use AA have to stand still, and therefore die. Gunners who want to survive more than two seconds on the field have to move and therefore sacrifice AA. AA only activates when you stand still. It works for swords because the second you take a swing, the sword immobilises your movement and allows AA; gunners have the option to move and shoot, but at the cost of AA.
Gunners and bombers do not get an AA advantage at all.

Except me. My bombs never miss.

If you're pinging people from behind a wall (and that situation is fairly rare), you really don't need AA and even if you use it, they can still dodge due to travel time. Gunners just don't benefit it from it in the same sense that swordies do.

"I think it does [mean I should suffer for using a] game-equalizer,"

See the irony in that statement? LD imbalance threads scatter the forum as it is, and I'm being looked down upon because I'm trying to offset my disadvantages to equalise the game? To emphasise my point, I'm not a tripmax UVd Skolver with heart pendant and ASI UVs. I use UV-free swords, UV-free Vog and damage trinkies and die in two hits from anything, and on top of that...suck with swords. Even if I was good with swords I'd be at an incredible disadvantage, I don't see why I should feel bad for giving myself any kind of edge; especially when half the time I'm forced into us server where I have a 1sec delay just to make sure that I can't hit anything.
I honestly don't see AA as any worse than using heart pendants; they more than double their health, I increase my odds of landing a hit. Why are they being fair and decent, but I'm not?

And yes, I agree that it's a lazy button, but the game was designed to be versatile and allow mixing of weapons. You don't pick a class at the beginning of the game and are stuck with it; you can switch around at will. Sometimes I fancy playing with swords, but I'm not going to devote my time to becoming a dedicated and talented swordy (esp since I cbf making any other swordy gear than my Vog) when it's just not that interesting to me. I use a lazy button to give me a few plus points without needing to sacrifice so much time, money, effort etc. I mean, if all strikers were like me I may not worry about it as much, but the fact is that I'm up against experienced swordies and decked our striker gear; with no edge, I'm useless.
Would you rather I used tripmax UVs and heart pendants and trolled godmode style without AA? Odds are I'm doing less damage to the LD "fairness" this way.

Although, to be fair you did address that; the pro strikers who use AA are the problem. But then, why shouldn't they? They're already taking advantage of every other OP/unfair aspect of swording in the game, why is AA suddenly so taboo? It's still an existing game mechanic; they should be free to use it if they wish; especially since so many of them insist that AA actually makes you worse as a player.
If they're denying themselves AA "because it's OP/unfair" then why are they using heart pendants?

There's an arbitrary line being drawn between equipment and AA for reasons I can't comprehend. I'd much rather people like me than skolver clones who refuse to use AA, personally, but everyone seems to think AA is the criminal while UVs and heart trinkies are cool.

@Xxdragneel: thankyou so much for using the phrase "Super Duper", it really made my day :)

I actually like to use these words from time to time ;P

I use it when I am really sick of something like this >.>

^

Heart trinkies are more important than all of that. As someone who does not use them, as a sword striker, I can vouch for how ridiculously important they are to the modern striker.

@Marlwoof :

At beginning I thought that comment was for me, but then I noticed @Spookington /fail :P

Anyways. I agree with you about people who think they are the best or woopdey special for not using AA, but.. I don't agree that Lockdown doesn't take skill. Actually you don't need to spend 40$ and use GF with polaris to be skillful, I myself didn't spend a penny on LD ( All CE I bought was for PvE, no UVs were rolled ) and still, I can get in par with a High asi or VH asi user ( Using Vog and asi med ), although sometimes UVs plays a big role in my opinion, it really depends on the one using them. I know a bunch of players who have "Super Duper :P" UVs and they play crap, you only have to use the "right" gear and follow a specific pattern so you can master it later on.

Note: Your pattern may differ than others, everyone have there special style ( Although they look like each other, but it is really difference ). If you don't know which pattern to use, go spectating in LD and check out all the players, then choose which style suits you the best. The only thing that can't be countered and is the main problem for me is the Latency. NO ONE can stop it till now, and apparently there is no available fix for that, which makes me sad :(

Aye Drag, skill certainly is a factor, but the fact is that 90% of the people that get top damage, shift games, survive all match etc are clones with godmode builds and UVs. It's better to think of skill as a multiplier and gear as the base numbers, in the equation of whether or not you're likely to own.

100 x 1 = 100 (great gear; no skill)
10 x 10 = 100 (fail gear, highly skilled)
We see a comparison. A highly skilled player in Fencing Jacket and 4* Avenger should be able to match/defeat an awful swordy in clone gear. Both should be able to perform decently in a match.
However:
100 x 10 = 1000
We know who these players are. The skill is a factor for sure, but remove the gear and they're brought down to a reasonable level in the match.

Heart trinkies, I feel, are the key element. The whole essence of strikers is that they're glass cannons that die in two hits, but clone strikers out-tank most guardians (who aren't, funnily enough, also in clone gear). A skolver striker with UVs and no trinkets will still perform just as well, but they won't be able to take on entire teams while getting chipped away with only 9 hp.

Nah, there's definitely some very skilled players out there. It's subtle, but you can see the differences between the clones that are skilled and the ones that are just relying on their gear.

I, personally, would say they're the key element. UVs are generally always ASI and are only worthwhile specifically to maintain max:max while getting hearts. Remove heart pendants and you essentially nullify UVs as well; they're no better than my vog/slash mod loadout, except that they have the option to toss on some def/resistance trinkies.
Strikers without heart trinkies die in about two hits, UVs or otherwise and ohkos are possible. Heart pendants give them a good 4/5 hits (3 with slow swords). That's a pretty enormous difference. Other than that hp doubling though, they're still the same weapon stats: max:max.
Whereas denying UVs but allowing heart trinkets won't do much to solve the problem, as there are currently still very successful clones who don't have high UVs, but still dominate because they can tank so many hits. They may swing a lot slower, but they can out-tank you to make up for that, and all they need to do is land a hit or two on you to end it, ASI or not.

Set loadouts would feel too restrictive in a game that's designed around being able to pick and choose, mix and match. Having so many varied gears and loadouts is the whole essence of SK; to limit that so severely in LD would do little other than to guarantee "clones", even if it does help to bring balance. I like seeing people run around in varied gear, and watch people succeed with unusual loadouts.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying there aren't any, but I'm saying that they're such a minority that I wouldn't count them as an exception to things. Now, I don't JUST wanna remove UVs. I'm fairly radical, I wanna do away with trinkets + UVs in Lockdown altogether.

Loadouts are kind of a last resort, I for one enjoy class-based warfare, but I'd like it if, maybe, Lockdown either had weapon stats CHANGED for PVP, or 3rings comes up with a totally new set of weapons to use for PVP, ones that're actually fair to use.

@Darksaodw

I totally agree, but the fact that you have a wolver avatar made me smile

Hmm... Nice equation there Darky :P

I 100% agree that Heart Trinkets are the key. I remember doing crap with Striker ( The only class I know to handle ) when I didn't have trinkets. My range was between 3k-barely 6k in a match, So I decided to leave LD for ever. But after I got the Heart Trinkies + Training on Striker's techniques my average skyrocketed to 14k-18k ( With lag ) 18k-30k ( Without lag ). So yeah, as Brady said, Trinkets make the Striker able to take 4 or 5 more hits than usual which makes it powerful. But how to nerf a Striker class, that is another story. And for skilled players, for really really skilled ones, I've met maybe 2 or 3 who really doesn't care about UVs nor gear. They use non-uved weapons and dominate easily even with 3 star Heart Trinkets.

Latency plays the biggest role in my opinion, if you don't have good latency then you will be owned 50 %. If you just give me dat 3 bars....

@xx

But then how would you nerf the class? Less health? Yea right, they already had that. Less boost? Then clones can just spam with trollaris(no disrespect to trollaris users). Can you think of a good way to nerf the striker class?

Again people! Strikers were meant to have the low health!!!!!!

If you remove all of the things that unbalance things such as health or attack, chances are the base stats might ACTUALLY be good. I can't tell, just because I've never seen them before.

I don't think there's anything more important than blocking heart pendants. Blocking UVs and Heart Pendants won't solve much that just blocking Heart Pendants won't solve on its own. Remember, people only want UVs so that they can replace asi/dmg trinkies with hearts; the UVs themselves aren't remotely OP. Even strikers with no UVs can still dominate with heart pendants while strikers with UVs but no heart pendants suffer greatly.

Like I said; no Heart Pendants results in Strikers with max:max (same as my 2-hit Vog loadout) and two empty trinket slots. What else are they gunna put there? Def trinkies? Status trinkies? S'all fine, nothing OP there.
Removing UVs will likely infuriate players that all their expensive gear has been nerfed to uselessness.
Armour UVs for status immunities are an issue, but there's other ways to solve that that don't involve completely negating UVs.

AA doesn't change much, since that's free an optional; everyone can opt in or out. Pendants and UVs are limited by wealth class. You can get UVd, heart pendant players dominating while other (even skilled) players simply can't afford it. AA is there for everyone. All it takes now is for these pro strikers to agree on whether or not AA is an unfair advantage or a crippling disadvantage; none of them can seem to decide which it is, and you often get conflicting answers from the same people, leading me to the conclusion that they're just using AA as an excuse.
Furthered by the fact that I get called AA noob as a gunner when they let me kill them repeatedly.

I think we COULD cap benefits at medium though, so if you have ASI High, in Lockdown, the biggest benefit it'd have would be at medium status. Disallowing Heart Pendants + Nerfing UVs would probably lead to Lockdown games EVERYONE can have fun in, and not just those with trinkets.

I am very bad at finding other posts and post them here, so I will just write the main idea of the "Total Nerf"

****************

So, this Nerfing system is the best one I saw till now, I forgot who posted it but whatever >.>

It states that LD will be divided into 3 classes that we have :

• Striker
• Guardian
• Recon

Each class will have the same weapons. For example, there will be no longer any weapon we use in PvE. There will be a "Standard" weapons which all will use without exceptions. I will give some examples for now :

• Flourish Line

This weapon will deal normal damage and for example ~ 1.5 pips of health for damage.

• Troika Line

This weapon will deal also normal damage and ~ 4 pips of health for damage

• Cobalt Line

This weapon will deal normal damage and 2 pips of health for damage

Also the armor will be the same for everyone and it will be normal defense. No UVs will be found here, no trinkets, everyone uses the same thing just different class and weapon.

I will write more later, but I am busy a bit right now....

No, really. The hearts are a big problem, and they should go, first thing, but I don't wanna stop there. Yeah, the UV thing is gonna aggravate players, but no more than the hearts will. I think they both need to go, but I'm with you, hearts go first.

I did not say I wanted to remove AA entirely. I said remove it in the context of Lockdown. There is no reason to remove it from PVE and I made no reasoning why I should do so, so stop making a strawman argument out of it.

First of all, stop playing the victim, too. Just because we disagree with your ideas doesn't mean we hate you. If you wanna be a drama queen, perhaps forum discussions aren't your thing. I did not accuse anyone of things directly, but I DID say what things would deteriorate into. If you wanna pretend that marking someone who use AA is NOT going to cause trouble, then you're deluding yourself. Whether or not this includes you is up to you, and you alone. If you include yourself in this camp of persons, then don't become angry when I agree with you. If you want to defeat the hypocrisy of players arguing against AA when using it themselves, great. We have common ground. But there's better ways to conduct this. I said that if we label players, they will be shamed. Maybe not by you, but I'm sure we've all played with the LOL i'M SO PRO, ONLY AA-NOOBS CAN EVEN ATTEMPT TO LAND A HIT ON ME players. Knowing how the Lockdown community operates, it is a sure fire thing. Secondly, labeling what players do NOT use AA will only inflate an already nuclear-meltdown sized ego of players. If you play Lockdown enough, you will notice both scenarios quite avidly. You cannot simply brush off things as 'your fault for using AA'. The problem is not people using a gameplay mechanic. The problem is people shaming others for using the same mechanic, and to think otherwise is just callous.

Also, your mockery of an attempt at being respectful came off as the exact opposite of that, and it's incredibly rude to conduct yourself like that. If you misunderstood my intentions, that's fine, but I'd like an apology either way. I feel we're both adult enough to have a debate that doesn't require mudslinging.

"I must let you know that my liver and kidneys can expand to 10 times their initial size, meaning I can piss longer and harder than most sane people"
kidney/liver size have no bearing on the amount or velocity at which you can pee...
although you say we all missed the point, it's clear to see that...
we didn't,
we told you why it was bad,
and you missed our point.

fin~

AA is more often than not likened to an aimbot, but in my experience, less people use it as a crutch than just forget to turn it off when they go to play Lockdown

I honestly don't see AA as any worse than using heart pendants; they more than double their health, I increase my odds of landing a hit. Why are they being fair and decent, but I'm not?

If it's any consolation to you, I don't use heart trinkets nor UVs on any of my swords. My only UV is ASI on my Argent Peacemaker which, in relative terms, is borderline useless in LD.

As a note, I do, in all seriousness, want heart trinkets (Not all Trinkets, just heart ones) removed from LD before UVs or AA. AA is just a minor problem compared to the other two.

People can still use their ASI Meds or whatever, just not heart trinkets. UVs I don't mind so much - yes, I have fought ASI Max! users and they're extremely difficult to kill because their GF is faster than your toothpick, but they did pay for that. A lot for that. Heart trinks are much cheaper and easier to get, and the fact that you almost need to use them (Like I said I don't, but I'm not pro - to be competitive you need them or you need to be pro) to be competitive is stupid, frankly.

I digress though, on the topic of AA I still say that it should only be used in T1 LD if any LD (A game equalizer is probably better here, where you have either total newbs or pros from T3 playing in T1 gear), and the Clockworks.

On the issue of latency, that may be its intended purpose, but most the people who I've seen use it (Alongside a hammer most often), are just exploiting its presence. Establishing an Australian and Asian server would probably clean this up just fine.

This may sound elitist or blunt or whatever, but to those of you who live near a server and have intense lag, you *are* playing an MMO. Just because you have latency doesn't mean the company should cater to those players to the point where lag-less players can exploit the system. You should know before-hand, that in PvP especially, an MMO is internet-intensive. Play on Dial-Up at your own risk.

~Sev

@Sev:
EU server isn't always up, forcing me to play US if I want to LD, where I do have a delay and all but require AA to do anything. Saying that, I keep AA on even when in EU. Partly out of laziness/no reason to turn it off, partly because (as described earlier) I could use the help in swinging. Latency isn't as much as issue there as me just being plum bad, I wiln't deny it :>

To me, a game-equaliser here isnae a bad thing, especially because, as you say yourself; all the "pros" use Heart Trinkies anyways and I don't. Why shouldnae I equalise things a bit? Denying myself an advantage out of ego or any other reason is just stupid; they have every advantage on their side and I'm incredibly dainty and feart of pain, so I'mma crank up any advantage I can get. People can call me an AA Hammer Noob Polaris Spamming Haze Bombing cheating fool, but if it lets me be productive and competitive in a game where everyone's rollin' max UVs and heart trinkies, I'm perfectly okay with that~

@Spook:
I use AA openly and admittedly. But why would I turn on a big marker that announce it? I mean, I'll happily tell anyone who asks, but why should I opt to turn on a big marker that follows me around tagging me as such? Is there any point other than making sure that when I do kill someone they don't have to feel so bad "because I'm AA noob"?

You're asking people to willingly tag themselves for degradation and verbal assault by such players; I'd rather not bring that upon myself, personally.
It really does just seem as though this thread is more about announcing to the world "I killed you w/o AA; proof!" with no consideration for the fact that the people who abuse AA players will absolutely leap all over such an update and torment anyone with said marker.

No one would bother opting in, leaving things exactly the way they are, and forcing it to be there would do nothing but open abuse on players, whether they be pros or noobs with AA. It would create an even greater stigma around AA and "shame" players out of using it. It's simply not an ethical path to encouraging players to "Play pro w/o AA" by opening them to abuse.