Spiral Knights - Tweak the Winmillion line

Tweak the Winmillion line

8 replies [Last post]

Sat, 04/06/2013 - 13:35

Qwez

Let's first analyse the Winmillion line regular combo:
Spur: Initial weapon of the line.
Arc Razor: No special changes.
Winmillion: Part of swing damage exchanged projectiles on the regular combo.

So out of nowhere, the Winmillion gets bullets in the regular combo from the reduced damage on the swing. This makes it a completely different weapon which goes against all ideas of general progression and is non-intuitive to the player and thus bad.

How to smooth out the progression:
Instead of giving everything to Winmillion, let's spread out the changes.
Spur: projectile on 3rd strike of the combo (3rd strike does not do extra damage).
Arc Razor: Winmillion's current combo system.
Giving Arc Razor projectiles on the only the 2nd and 3rd strikes instead of the all three doesn't make sense because the bullets of the first two strikes are identical (excluding range).

Now, let's give the upgrade something more:
Winmillion: the 3rd projectile pierces through enemies.
This isn't unreasonable, the 3rd projectile is only about 2 blocks and this would increase survivability in fighting groups of enemies as opposed to having a failure to push an enemy because there's a group of them behind it (which has happened to me quite too many times in FSC >.<).

Are we finished? Nope.
Now let's analyse the charge attack:

"The problem is that the Projectile cannot hit anything up to a particular range, after which it THEN starts dealing damage.
Said range lies just above one square ahead of the user. I tested this many times on the Punching bags of the GTH. At edge of this range, neither the sword's swipe nor the Projectile deal ANY damage to the target. None whatsoever. Any closer, and the swipe will hit, but the projectile will not."

There's an area where enemies can dodge the charge attack without even moving...
Proposed change: A full block radius AOE slash...(currently it's at about half-block radius).
This would remove the blindspot, making it easier to use and more powerful with the doubled range.

So... Recap:
Spur: projectile on 3rd strike of the combo (3rd strike does not do extra damage).
Arc Razor: Winmillion's current combo system.
Winmillion: the 3rd projectile pierces through enemies.
charge attack for all 3: A full block distance AOE slash...

Please don't post out pointless, non-constructive things without saying something constructive. <3

Sat, 04/06/2013 - 13:48

Klipik

It will still cause dodging enemies to dodge every time, and it will still trigger invincibility frames on players and never deal full damage in PvP. Arguably worse for both of those things, since the whole line now does this instead of only the Winmillion. Also, it still stops at 4*.

+0, and OOO still needs to fix the charge attack getting cancelled by shielding.

Sat, 04/06/2013 - 20:25

Qwez

@Klipik

Whoever uses this for damage in PvP? oh T2... The niches of the Arc Razor and the Winmillion are entirely different: Arc Razor is a quick normal damage weapon; Winmillion isn't for damage, but for knockbacks and range. I'm not willing to lose uniqueness in an already non-unique weapon-choice game. Keep the bullet. Don't remove the Winmillion as per your "Arguably worse for both of those things" argument.

Fixing the charge attack getting cancelled by shielding will undoubtedly remove the ability to aim the charge attack and (again) I'm not willing to remove uniqueness. Spur charge is well balanced and clearly well thought out: slower charge attack that is aimable after initialisation, and the fact that it is aimable is balanced by having to be skillful to not cancel it. The charge attack initial slash is an AOE strike to account for variable aiming. The user doesn't move when use the charge attack (unlike all other swords) to account for variable aiming.
Winmillion overall has been well thought out for it's unique ability, but it requires a little tweaking to remove its flaws in game progression and charge-attack usage.

Sun, 04/07/2013 - 00:53

Klipik

The shielding problem could be fixed by adding the finishing part of the swing to the charge animation, so you can't shield after it's done. I can't imagine that shielding and aiming are mutually exclusive.

As for the bullet thing, I like the idea. I think that the Spur line definitely needs a change, and this could be at least part of it if not the whole change. And all these changes should be viewed as positive. It's just that with the current problems the game has, if this was implemented as is it would definitely make the weapons worse for damage output. You want the weapon to be unique, but do you really want it buried deeper in the category of "looks cool and feels cool so it is cool, too bad it's useless 99% of the time" with the catalyzer and the BAB?

Again, it's not this idea that's the problem. It's just that it would make it worse because the game is broken in this case.

Sun, 04/07/2013 - 02:18

Qwez

@Klipik

I'm 100% sure that the charge-attack aiming is due to the attack being after the charge windup animation. The Cutters are my evidence to this. Wild Hunting Blade has the same thing for the giant wolver bite at the end (aimable), but this behavior doesn't happen for any of the other cutters (it's only visual for the other cutters). If you add it to the end of the charge windup animation, it'll be like non-WHB cutters, then you might as well remove the long wind-up animation and make the player move forwards when you use the charge attack and only slash forwards... ...

The weapons that you have listed are not bad in their own respect, it's just that other weapons similar to said weapons are superior in dps or user-friendliness, and I believe that: SK players believe that the easiest to use weapon that deals the most damage is best. Winmillion is already in that "category" because it emphasises knockback.

How is it that the game is broken in this case? "Not sword-like enough"? reduces damage in LD?
On an unrelated note: I had a real blast fighting a pretty good player who played Levi charge attack with me and my Winmillion :D

Sun, 04/07/2013 - 07:15

Klipik

Can you cancel that last Wolver bite by shielding? Also, the game is "broken" in the case of the winmillion because it doesn't work against beasts and fiends, who dodge mostly every bullet you throw at them. That means that you can't get up close and smack them with the sword, because they'll recognize the projectile and dodge away. You also can't hit them with the bullets for knockback, but that's how the enemies are supposed to work. The problem is that they dodge the sword swing.
For LD, the problem is that the Winmillion can never do its full damage, because the low-damage bullet triggers invincibility frames and stops the actual sword hit from doing damage.

And because of the nature of SK's enemies, knockback is actually less important than damage. Because you can kill all the enemies so quickly, knocking them back takes longer, and is arguably even less safe because it keeps the enemies alive for longer. Plus, Winmillion is outshone in every category other than uniqueness: weapons like the Brandish and Pulsar do knockback and damage, while the Cobalt line weapons do around the same damage as Winmillion but much higher knockback on the charge attacks.

Sun, 04/07/2013 - 07:48

Thunder-The-Bright

klip, the last wolver attack on the charge of WHB is canceled if you shield. it just doesn't come out.
for the rest, I agree with ^^

Sun, 04/07/2013 - 09:10

Qwez

@Klipik

How about this, wolvers attempt to sidestep/dodge every slash, bullet, and bomb? Similar to how Alpha Wolvers used to sidestep those bullets q.q nigh impossible to hit. Hmm... when did they patch the wolver side-step-bullet-dodging out? But, now that I'm thinking about it, you aren't really thinking of the real game mechanics as of right now... If you shoot a projectile, wolvers always dig to behind you, so you know exactly where they are... No matter who aggro'd.

I give up on explaining LD, you win.

Winmillion is for a different person's playstyle. For a game that focuses on mixing and matching things to fit various playstyles and costumes, having unique weapons that fill different niches are important. The nature of SK's enemies is that the enemies are too weak right now, and there is no need to focus on survivability when one can obliterate them quite quickly.

Sun, 04/07/2013 - 09:51

Klipik

What is the "niche" of the Winmillion?
-In PvP yes I understand that it's more of a ranged weapon than a straight melee damage one, but why get it instead of a Valiance/Master Blaster?
-In PvE you seem to be saying the Winmillion's specialty is knockback, but many weapons do knockback better and also do more damage.

I'm not against this suggestion, my problem is that it doesn't fix any of the current problems the weapon has. Namely, being outdamaged and out-knockbacked by other weapons.

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Tweak the Winmillion line