Spiral Knights - SK Becoming Too Offensive

SK Becoming Too Offensive

32 replies [Last post]

Tue, 03/12/2013 - 08:17

Happyapathy

I demand they tone down the rhetoric and inflammatory language!

Joking aside, since the time I started playing SK has become a game that is increasingly focused on how much and how fast players can deal damage, while the importance of been able to withstand and resist taking damage is continuously dropping. For me it's reaching a point of fault as all players eventually end up been equipped with purely offensive oriented gear while defensive gear is mostly relegated for use as aesthetics.

At least in PvE (and IMO PvP too) I do believe the value of defense needs to brought back for the sake of game play variance and gear variety as most players eventually, before they even reach the end stage of game play, end up adopting a setup and strategy heavily focused on offense as they discover little value in playing defensively, evidence of this happening is found in abundance in all sorts of places:

In the Auction House and market in general:

- wolver gear has (and always been) been in high demand for their sword bonuses
- magic cloaks and hoods are been crafted in mass quantities due to the demand for the chaos cowl and hood
- the incredible value of the Black Kat Cowl (And Book of Dark Rituals) a piece of gear that exemplifies offense over defense
- the respective lack of overall value found in shields, even with rare UV's
- high demand for monster bones, and green shards for use in crafting wolver gear

In almost all players gear:

- No endgame players I know of makes use of any sort of plate armor except for costumes
- Almost all players stop using plate armor by the time they reach T3
- No one uses defensive trinkets (except heart pendents), NO ONE
- The increasing usage of the 3* swift strike shield by many players at all stages of game play experience

I attribute this increasingly skewed preference towards offence to the over nerfing of enemies that has made them far too easy to dodge compared to what they use to be like when I started, when wolvers had brains/tracking, retrodes fired death beams, and zombies could pivot like MJ. People may have whined, er I mean complained about how difficult these foes were but they didn't have to be brought down so low that all their attacks could be dodged by a single sidestep to the left or right.

I can understand wanting to make the experience for newer players more enjoyable but that shouldn't come at the expense of making the experience for veteran players boring. I would really like to see future developments for SK make survival more difficult and bring back the value of defense in the later parts of the game.

Perhaps bringing back 'some' of the wolvers tracking abilities in T3 would make them an actual threat rather then the annoying constantly teleporting furball they are right now. Changing it so you can't run through a crowd of zombies completely unscathed would also make FSC an actual challenge verus the #1 grinding destination it is right now. If the devs have anything to say on this I would love to hear it.

Tue, 03/12/2013 - 09:18

Snipm

There isn't enough value in

There isn't enough value in having defensive gear due to diminishing returns (more total,less overall).

Even with full defensive gear currently, it only amounts to 1-2 more hits.

Tue, 03/12/2013 - 09:32

Rpg-Knight

Well then

How many rocket puppy missles can you dodge without getting hit?

Happyapathy wrote "defense needs to brought back"

Hardcore players know how to dodge. And they know the behavior of most if not all mobs. Believe it or not some can even go in full proto if they wanted.

Tue, 03/12/2013 - 09:32

Zephyrgon

I agree

Most gear that have high defences are very underpowered in game because it's all about the damage you can dish out. I really don't see a lot of Plate mail users. I go demo, both in PvE and PvP, and I undertake more of a support role at times. They really shouldn't have nerfed monsters. Honestly, I would like to have harder monsters in game. Not new monsters , just harder monsters.

Tue, 03/12/2013 - 09:40

Dragneel-Wiki

Who said no one uses Plate Armor Lines? Just go watch Zeddy or Hexzyle playing....

And yeah, people don't choose the defensive gears not because they want MOAR damage. They do that because defensive armors are badly underpowered and actually underrated. I am with nerfing offensive armors, but not in a punishing way like some people did, it was really horrible...

So... this is another balancing thread.
Abandoning...

Tue, 03/12/2013 - 09:47

Raisinfist

@Dragneel

Does this link help?

Tue, 03/12/2013 - 10:11

Luguiru

Comparing Wolver line to SDemo and Gunslinger is also suspicious.

Wolver (2*-4*) has freeze resistance and starts at 2*. Gunslinger (3*-4*) has no status resistance and starts at 3*, meaning it is more expensive to get UVs and obtain with less coins in your pants for new players who should be given equal opportunities at equipment which parallels Wolver and SDemo. SDemo (2*-4*) also has no status resistance but all four 5* variants have split normal-element defense while both Gunslinger and Wolver at 5* have at least one of each specialized defense to choose from. I wonder what could possibly be wrong with this.

I want to know which developer/admin/janitor is in charge of equipment balance and how long they have been tied to an anchor at the bottom of a lake.

Tue, 03/12/2013 - 10:52

Hexzyle

- No endgame players I know

lol @ me then.

I use platemail because of the rediculous normal defense boost (it is quite impressive when taking melee hits, and the Volcanic Plate Mail is great on vanaduke due to the prevailance of normal damage, fire and stun)
I use status defense trinkets because heart trinks makes you a 44 gallon drum of hearts with a puncture in it. So hard to fill up and so easy to empty.
And you'd be surprise the amount of ways you can defensively use a plateshield (especially ancient plate) to perform various team supporting tasks.

I even use weapons defensively, utilizing the Sudaruska and Pepperbox for area denial and deflecting enemy attacks away from teammates, and Haze bombs for generating threat.

Tue, 03/12/2013 - 10:43

Canine-Vladmir

For me, it seems like defense weapons have no bonus or help with defending. (one example. monsters still crowd you up even with a Triglav equiped and slashing)
Yet most offensive weapons have the perfect bonus for attacking.

Tue, 03/12/2013 - 10:53

Hexzyle

@Canine-Vladmir

"one example. monsters still crowd you up even with a Triglav equiped and slashing"

You're doing it wrong lol. Haven't you seen the knockback on that charge attack? :P

Tue, 03/12/2013 - 10:59

#10

Canine-Vladmir

Its a level 4

I cant charge spam it when im getting mobbed.

Tue, 03/12/2013 - 11:16

#11

Iron-Volvametal

Ok, I'll stop...

Tue, 03/12/2013 - 11:27

#12

Blue-Flood

@Hexyle
Props for using underdog gear. Although.. many people hit end game and play more LD then they do running the same missions repeatedly. Even though LD hasn't really been balanced, it's still players testing wits against other players - making it a great challenge. The best gear for there also doubles and top tier gear for clockworks in most cases. In clockworks, the enemies become so easy to read.. anything will work. Like taking a sentenza/umbra loadout into a fiend mission - hilarious... just takes a while!

If you can take your current plate pepperbox sadaruska haze setup into LD and be successful then I'd back you up on it. Otherwise I'd agree with the OP - you can just run around with proto, heart trinkets and a flourish and still dominate. Those better then me don't even need the trinkets. (both in clockworks and LD)

Tue, 03/12/2013 - 12:36

#13

Shamanalah

my 2 cents

- No endgame players I know of makes use of any sort of plate armor except for costumes

Explain to me why is Plate armor any better than Vog for Vana? ASI VH on sword + resist elemental + resist fire, you get 3-4 seconds of fire

- Almost all players stop using plate armor by the time they reach T3

Why would we use this? I use the Volcanic Plate Shield though...

- No one uses defensive trinkets (except heart pendents), NO ONE

I do, I used freeze resistant pendant on Winterfest and I know plenty of people who uses those Trinket to be resistant to shock, fire and freeze (those who don't have freeze max UV)

- The increasing usage of the 3* swift strike shield by many players at all stages of game play experience

Got it, never properly used it. Doesn't fit my playstyle at all. I like to block stuff

I don't get the "use the plate armor, it's the best defensive armor ever!!!!" because it is not

Edit: many people hit end game and play more LD then they do running the same missions

That's not true at all. They hit 5* then go LD and get wrecked, then go on missions to gather mats and level up gears in order to play LD with those gears. So your statement is obviously false. No one will stick to LD with only one 5* set, 1 5* gun and 1 5* sword.

Many people run FSC, heck that's how most cr are being poured into the game (along with people buying ce and transferring it)

Tue, 03/12/2013 - 12:38

#14

Iron-Volvametal

My 4 Quarters

Ironmight Set's a good Pierce Defensive Loadout for a Pure Bomber.

Tue, 03/12/2013 - 12:58

#15

Krakob

- No endgame players I know of makes use of any sort of plate armor except for costumes
You don't know of Zeddy or Fehzor? Tsk, tsk, tsk.

- Almost all players stop using plate armor by the time they reach T3
Tsk, tsk, tsk.

- No one uses defensive trinkets (except heart pendents), NO ONE
But I do. The status resistance trinkets are genuinely brilliant to mix with Chaos/BKC to make a combo that leaves you at greater bonuses than regular class gear yet without status weakness.

- The increasing usage of the 3* swift strike shield by many players at all stages of game play experience
That's quite true. Swordies prefer BTS, however, as that is the only way to reach max DI without using trinkets in addition to class armours. Using Swiftstrike is a no-brainer for gunners. For bombers, it's arguable. Bombers need shields for:
-Progress,
-Defence,
-Bonuses
Having to progress means that a bomber NEEDS a 5* shield. Defence is not quite as useful as it is for swordies due to the fact that you prefer to charge bombs instead of protecting yourself. Dodging is key! As for bonuses, there are only two useful. These are Swiftstrike, which has low effect on bombing, and Scarlet Shield, which is used by very few. Thus, it's preferable to get either many specialised shields or just Volcanic Plate Shield.

Tue, 03/12/2013 - 13:27

#16

Chieurobese

The thing is, WHY SHOULD I BE

The thing is, WHY SHOULD I BE ABLE TO RESIST ?

I'll explain why the attack prevailed over defense

please be patient by reading

REASON 1:

As i started the game, i thought it were almost a PARTY PLAYSTYLE game.

But no one in a party realy care about what is the other doing. Sure, you're always looking at him, to hit the ennemys after him, but there is NO TEAM WORK. Every one wants to make his damage more than playing together

-Swordman's strike spreads monsters everywhere

-Guns don't do knock back, so it doesn't contribute to the party, only by damaging. Polaris and co do, but the blast makes the game unplayable.

-Bombers are the only one who can do it. Mainly with the vortex, or shivermist, maybe staggerstorm to help the all team, the blast bombs? But bombers are rare and almost play without those bombs (except shiver)

So there are not weapons usefull to work together and make combos. Thats why i begann to play solo in a 4 people party.

=> a party isn't a teamwork in SK. Defend makes no meaning for a solo play, so you rather deal damage

REASON 2:

In other games, a party needs a tank = someone able to resist, who takes the damage, to let the others hit better the ennemy.

=>if there is no teamwork, a tank has no meaning to exist

Result :

=> THE BEST WAY TO CONTRIBUTE TO A TEAMWORK IS DEALING DAMAGE AND NOT TAKING DAMAGE

Tue, 03/12/2013 - 14:33

#17

Klipik

I have found the real problem, and the solution.

Tue, 03/12/2013 - 17:31

#18

Soulstaker

Misleading title

Tue, 03/12/2013 - 20:14

#19

Elrom

I give this a thumbs up.

I give this a thumbs up. Because I agree. The design emphasizes use of shields and reliance on armor type. Perhaps the battle sprite patch, and sprites themselves will give armor more value... We are told that the Battle Sprites will help to further define your role in battle, and "class".

Tue, 03/12/2013 - 20:35

#20

Qwez

/yes Soulstaker

I regret making my Grey Owlite Shield, the poor shiny shield is collecting dust. I now have the free Aegis to fill in as the costume shield, and I generally use my APS or my Swiftstrike.

No plate armor? Blasphemy, Ancient Plate set is awesome because the delay in using my Triglav slam is that much more epic in slower motion.

Well... non-end-game players value defense because that is what they rely on in place of experience, that the veterans have. People also have different playstyles... I suggest you play some PUGs... Experience the world outside the sky above the well.

Tue, 03/12/2013 - 22:25

#21

Autofire

You are experiencing a PICNIC ERROR!

The thing is, no one experiencing having a super high normal and piercing resist against T3 jellies. I had a 5* jelly band, a Lvl 10 Azure Guardian Helmet, and a Lvl 10 Murcrial Mail with a Piercing low. I took 2 pips of damage from a jelly spike.

2 pips

(This was D19)

Wed, 03/13/2013 - 01:16

#22

Hexzyle

@Shamanala "Explain to me why

@Shamanala
"Explain to me why is Plate armor any better than Vog for Vana? ASI VH on sword + resist elemental + resist fire, you get 3-4 seconds of fire"

Well if you're not a pure sword user, Vog's ASI bonus won't always help you. And on vanaduke, elemental resist isn't as helpful as you'd think, sure it reduces shadowfire damage, but most things on Vanaduke deal heavy normal and shadow damage. With Volcanic Plate Mail you have the same fire and elemental resist as Vog, while getting a bonus to that killer stun that vanaduke's mace dishes out, and a huge boost to normal defense that makes most attacks on you a laughing matter.

@Ironskullkid
"Ironmight Set's a good Pierce Defensive Loadout for a Pure Bomber."

That's interesting. Noted

@Krakob
"Thus, it's preferable to get either many specialised shields or just Volcanic Plate Shield."

I disagree with the Volcanic Plate Shield being unspecialised. Omega Shell is better for all round ranged damage defense, while the Ancient Plate Shield is better for All round melee damage defense. Pop a UV on either and it makes them epic.

@Chieurobese
"So there are not weapons usefull to work together and make combos. Thats why i begann to play solo in a 4 people party."

I strongly disagree, there are plenty of awesome combos that players can create with weapons. But since players prefer doing their own thing, and hate relying on others, these weapons are never crafted or used.

@Qwez
"No plate armor? Blasphemy, Ancient Plate set is awesome because the delay in using my Triglav slam is that much more epic in slower motion""

A agree, you feel like you're hitting harder :P And it makes your own moves much more easily coordinateable, because you get plenty of time to think your next move and observe your surroundings while your current attack is in progress. (I can even change volume settings while releasing Troika charges)

@Autofire
The thing is, no one experiencing having a super high normal and piercing resist against T3 jellies. I had a 5* jelly band, a Lvl 10 Azure Guardian Helmet, and a Lvl 10 Murcrial Mail with a Piercing low. I took 2 pips of damage from a jelly spike."

You take 2 pips of damage from wheels in full Ancient Plate Mail in depth 24 :P

Wed, 03/13/2013 - 02:47

#23

Thefirstgamer

Defense obsolete for experienced players.

There's a reason WHY people are going full offensive, multiple ones in fact, so I'll lay out my data here.

1. Endgame players will often realize defense is ultimately useless, since you can evade and not take damage in the first place. This in turn will have players focus on simply buffing their offense, and creating sets that utilize the most power for their buck (Often Chaos set + Swifty or Chaos Cloak/Black Kat Cowl/Swiftstrike)

2. Defensive gear doesn't offer much compared to some offensive gear - Where one could easily use the Cobalt line, people would rather use Wolver/Gunslinger for the pirecing defense AND weapon bonuses (Albeit Gunslinger is a tad rare for starter gear nowadays) There are exceptions, where as Skelly and Magic gear work for early on shadow/elemental defense, and they become useful still even at 5 star, but if one's experienced enough, #1 comes into play.

3. Beginning players are trapped into thinking "dmg r best mst do most !!!!1111!!" Where this is an /okay/ concept, the fact is, without experience, you should focus solely on defense until you learn enemy patterns, and how to wield your shield correctly. Only THEN will you both be capable of evading, but also dealing a nice damage output depending on your combat style and gear setup.

4. Heart pendants. It's actually a lot more effective to simply be a gigantic drum of hearts than to use actual defensive trinkets, as the overall health bonus, while tedious to refill your HP back to MAX after a couple hits or so, proves more useful than the aforementioned trinkets. Although there's a use for everything, which brings us to #5...

5. Gear. There's tons of weapons, armor, shields, everything, EVERYTHING available for people to create what they desire, but there's one flaw. People never really /seek/ variety, as they only want what works. This is what creates "clones" (Exception to Chaos as it actually requires a decent amount of evasion to not die in) that we see every day, everywhere we go.

I myself use a Chaos + Swifty set for the base of all sets, and I can safely say, that Evasion > Defense under any scenario, albeit defense always helps, no matter who you are.
I've also gone through the game doing a "Spiral Order challenge" (If you don't know, it involves going through all the missions using only the Spiral Order set; The gear that is given to you, along with the recipes to upgrade it), even beating Vanaduke on my own in it. A good thing to note is how useless defense really becomes, and how evasion, which is player-skill based, plays a gigantic role in everyone's gameplay.

While I do agree that defensive gear needs to be made... Well, defensive, offensive gear shouldn't have normal defense compared to their not-buffed counterparts, as it does NOT create a sense of balance. If need be, ask Tsubasa about balance and gear, he'll give you quite the stories.

Wed, 03/13/2013 - 03:27

#24

Spicegirls

All we need is the good old auto-tracking wolvers. Nothing like a surprise bite in the butt.

Wed, 03/13/2013 - 06:00

#25

Gwenyvier

"Hardcore players know how to

"Hardcore players know how to dodge. And they know the behavior of most if not all mobs. Believe it or not some can even go in full proto if they wanted."

This ^^^ is your answer. We know how all the mobs move, and with the nerfs to Zombies and Wolvers so they don't track it made them even easier. I agreed with giving enemies a second before they could start an attack after spawning. Retrodes spawning in already starting their snot laser attack was kind of BS. I am actually for removing the rest of the nerfs... at least in T3.

~Gwen

Wed, 03/13/2013 - 09:19

#26

Zaffy-Laffy

Why is there a lack of diversity of armor in this game... and this is why. Skip to TL;DR

Of course the only problem is with its whole gameplay system, balance and et cetera.

Have to agree that the game is off-balance, making some weapons and some armors "better" than others. Also the very basis of this core system is the ability to dodge enemy attacks. That one function, that one ability for us to utilize is the very flaw of the whole system towards how the defense attributes of the armor we are wearing affects gameplay. That singular, most important yet ridiculously overrated power is one thing that puts the defense off and the offense on.

There's a bold statement I'm making. Shields + Dodging skills + Attacks that interrupt enemy attacks = Profit

Basically you are an indestructible tank on your first hit, then you can spam all day button mashing and you still won't get hurt, whilst running around the AI like a little cockroach. Armor, totally neglected. People just want their bonus powers so they can kill stuff faster. Puts on Chaos Set and SwiftStrike Buckler, bonus 100% of the time, gets hit 10% of the time.

Problem #1 Established : Overrated Battle System.
Problem #2 Established : Too Much Bonuses
Problem #3 Established : Poor Enemy AI
Problem #3 Abolished
Problem #4 Established : Energy System

TL;DR which I am sure some people will be coming here. 4 (3) Problems I listed (you can counter-argue to my points) all determines the inequality of the preference of the armor people are choosing. My point is still directed to why there is a lack of diversity in armor, so please understand why I declare problem #3 (Enemy AI) as an invalid reason.

Disclaimer : Sorry, can't proof read this whole thing alone, not to mention my viewpoints keep changing during the writing of this long script.

Wed, 03/13/2013 - 09:46

#27

Hexzyle

@Zaffy-Laffy

I've got a solution. Make it harder to interrupt enemies, or change how interruption works (Perhaps by only giving certain weapons/armors interrupt)
Then players will get hit more, making defensive armors more viable.
Then, players who are still so great that they can dodge anything are too good for the game anyway, and deserve to be able to choose offensive armors over defensive.
This should fix the skill threshold problem: Offensive armors are rewarding for people with a certain level of skill, but at the moment, that level is too low.

Wed, 03/13/2013 - 09:58

#28

Heavy-Dragon

Could also:

Just increase the drop rates of the less-popular armors from treasure boxes so that they're ACTUALLY LOOTABLE instead of pleasant surpri- oh wait never mind my teammate got it.

Or just lower the crafting cost as previously stated. I'll still buy elevator passes, three rings.

Wed, 03/13/2013 - 13:28

#29

Klipik

@Zaffy

Improved AI would force people to use defensive armors if the thought of maybe being hit sometime was forced into their brains. That's assuming, of course, that the defensive armors are buffed enough to actually be different from the offensive ones.

Wed, 03/13/2013 - 17:37

#30

Fehzor

I use plate armor on occasion...

Volcanic plate mail + Volcanic demo helm is a great combination. If you're fighting firey things that are resisted. Same goes for ironmight and slimes. Beasts are more akin to treasure boxes though. Also chaos + volcanic plate helmet is quite impressive as well for deploying sword and handgun charges. The real trouble is that unless you're playing to those specific strategies, plate armor isn't worth it.

It also comes down to whether or not you're fighting bullet-shooting enemies- those, with the exception of devilites, dish out no normal damage.

But if you pair it up with chaos or demo gear, you get a ridiculous amount of normal defense and a large amount of specialized damage to boot. This means that you can afford to get hit quite a few more times while bombing or sword/gun-charging while close to enemies- at only the cost of 2 damage or 2 ctr- which can either be compensated for with trinkets/UVs in the case of CTR or otherwise do not matter much of the time (that is, haze bombs make damage buffs worth less than before).

Thu, 03/14/2013 - 16:57

#31

Redblades

every.. single..mission is way too easy.
I can solo every normal mission (including fiend missions) in full proto using nothing but a leviathan blade and valiance (given that I have a swiftstrike buckler).
Danger missions are just full of more old monsters that you can run past unscathed. Only the newer monsters seem to give a bit of a challenge.

Thu, 03/14/2013 - 20:21

#32

Autofire

Beasts are more akin to treasure boxes though.

Dat. I'm going to call Beasts treasure boxes with legs from now on.

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SK Becoming Too Offensive