Spiral Knights - Reduce Chance of Grimalkins Appearing

Reduce Chance of Grimalkins Appearing

19 respuestas [Último envío]

Vie, 02/24/2012 - 15:56

Sonicfanlol

I would ike to suggest that the Grimalkins (dark, shadowy kat creatures that disappear when they go towards lit candles) have their chances of appearing in candlestick keep reduced a little.

I was just playing the game. I went through a few maps of Candlestick Keep. They are the MAIN reason I lost half of my energy. I have never had this happen to me before, and if you ask me it's kinda cheap. Half the time you get stuck and can't move fast enough, or the other half there's no light around to protect you.

They are indestructible and hard to avoid at times as well. This ticks me off because 1) you can't avoid attacks with the shield, 2) they ONLY disappear when touched by light or if you make swift movement near them, and 3) they appear every 5 seconds.

I ask that the maps in the Candlestick Keep collection be edited so that Grimalkins can only appear in certain areas OR they appear less often. Since they are invulnerable and you cannot block their attacks, they are quite overpowered...for some Knights, 1/3 of their health will be gone in an instant.

I just don't like the fact that I'm getting close to the next Depth, and before I reach the elevator there's a big group fight and a Grimalkin has to kill me before I win the match. I worked really hard to get to that last level before the next Depth. Now I have to wait a WHOLE DAY for my energy to get back, just because of a stupid enemy in the game that you can't kill. That really gets on my nerves.

Please consider this not only for me, but for the other players as well. I'm sure a few others feel the same way.

Vie, 02/24/2012 - 16:10

Isisdelltion

____

This is what makes CKs hard. Fun? Nope, but its still a nice little challenge, lighting candles ASAP to avoid getting eaten.

Vie, 02/24/2012 - 16:25

Sonicfanlol

@Isis

I didn't say take it out completely. It would still have the Grimalkins inside the maps, but less chances of them appearing every few seconds. I mean seriously: who wants to spend 78 energy (just an example) on Candlestick Keep just because they keep dying from Grimalkins being cheap.

Vie, 02/24/2012 - 16:29

Iron-Volvametal

I'm not sure, but...

I think Candlestick Keeps became the new Graveyards.

Vie, 02/24/2012 - 16:32

Sonicfanlol

@ Ironskullkid

....??? How does that have any relevance to this topic at all?

Vie, 02/24/2012 - 16:43

Isisdelltion

You have a valid point Sonic, but the only thing that makes CKs challenging/kindafun is the fact that nomatter where you are, you always have to be running to get to the light. Reducing this is reducing the Candlestick Keepishness of Candlestick Keep.
I will however completely agree that Grimalkins are cheap. :D

Vie, 02/24/2012 - 16:41

Sonicfanlol

(lol)

Kinda funny, Isis. :D I give you a cookie for that.

And I'm not asking that the Grimalkins reduce their appearance rate to half...maybe like they appear every minute or so, but not every 5 seconds...that's kinda lame.

And if it's that much of a deal, why not make it so instead of reducing it's number of appearances, and change the fact that it's invincible. THATS even worse XD.

Vie, 02/24/2012 - 16:43

Iron-Volvametal

...

It means that Candlestick Keeps are Supposed to be Hard. And please don't use more than 1 Question Mark. It's Annoying.

Vie, 02/24/2012 - 16:47

Isisdelltion

...

Yeah, Iron has a good point (not with the question marks, but I agree with him there too) that they are supposed to be hard, and since Graveyards are just crown farms, they would be the closest replacement.

Vie, 02/24/2012 - 17:00

Severage

Meh..

I think people confuse 'Challenging' with 'downright annoying'. CSKs aren't challenging, or at least when it comes to Grimalkins. What challenge is there in them? Hold the walk key and hope you get past? Shield-bumping them has happened before, but it's extremely hard since they usually chomp at you before they're in shield bump range, unless you're not their target (But since they go after the closest target, you probably would be), and the only other way to push them away is to use Polaris (Yes, THAT gun again).

Not sure how Vortex bombs work on them, if they do, but that'd be kind of neat if they did. But honestly I think there is little challenge to CSKs, the only "challenge" is to keep candles lit...it's just annoying that invincible enemies spawn on you while you're in a corner collecting minerals with no candles.

The only way I'd say Grimalkins are actually 'challenging' is because they're the most powerful level hazard while fighting other enemies, but on their own, they're just annoyances.

PS: A minute?! That's way too long. You'd never see a Grimalkin, lol..

@Ironskullkid: So is your utterly random letter capitalization...give a little room.

EDIT: Also, according to the Wiki "The Grimalkin appears within 3 seconds after a knight enters a dark area.", and "A maximum of 4 Grimalkins can appear at any given time." Looks like a wee bit faster than 5 seconds.

~Sev

Vie, 02/24/2012 - 17:26

#10

Isisdelltion

@Sev

Sev is always right (seriously, I've never seen Sev wrong in anything), and it gets annoying when you see how much an invalid point you were hopelessly trying to defend. For that reason I'll agree with Sev, I just avoid CSKs as much as possible. Maybe a 5 second wait (heh, this is ironic) could be put into place? It would be pretty cool if Vortex bombs worked.
Anyways, I get a cookie. :D

Vie, 02/24/2012 - 17:42

#11

Severage

@Isisdelltion:

rofl...I'm speechless. I've been wrong plenty before, I'm just glad you weren't there to see it.

I think the following things should happen:

Grimalkin Spawn time increased to anywhere from 5-7 seconds (Yeah, as isis said..ironic),

Grimalkins can't spawn in candles. Because right now, they'll start to spawn near a candle, you throw fire and the candle lights, but they're still spawning since they take a few seconds to actually 'appear'. Newbies like to run away from the candle thinking the Grimalkin is going to attack them, and tend to spawn more Grimalkins. Not a huge issue, since they go back into the light to get away from the other Grimalkins, but it's distracting.

Grimalkin spawns scale with # of players, not sure if it already does this. Wiki says there's a Maximum of 4 Grimalkins, so that might be 1 per player, but the Wiki doesn't specify. If it doesn't scale with players, it should. I usually solo CSKs, but I've never paid attention to that.

And maybe, just maybe add very small-range candles where the minerals spawn. I know a lot of people take damage here and this kind of makes it too easy to not get hurt, but you still have to walk through (usually) like 10 seconds of hallway to get back where you were. Minerals aren't hardly worth anything, so why make the poor newbies have to ressurect after being killed by Grimalkins just for 12 Cr for minerals? Mind you, a very short range candle on the northern-most part of the platform, that has to be lit with fire which would spawn probably on the right or left sides. Anyone could still die here because they have to pick up and throw the fire, and after 10 seconds of walking in the darkness, a few Grimalkins could already be upon them.

Another idea that could add more fun/challenge to it is to always have Kats spawn near the minerals, so that even though there is a candle on the small mineral platform, it would be a little harder to get it.

Hopefully Asukalan doesn't reply to this thread.

~Sev

Vie, 02/24/2012 - 18:32

#12

Hexzyle

Grimalkins I'm pretty sure DO

Grimalkins I'm pretty sure DO scale with the party. Well, I'm going to go double check that, at least.

Vie, 02/24/2012 - 18:38

#13

Iron-Volvametal

...

"So is your utterly random letter capitalization...give a little room."

Your Signature's annoying, too. Your Move.
(That was Meant as a Joke. Don't take it Serious.)

Sáb, 02/25/2012 - 04:37

#14

Severage

@Ironskullkid:

lol, I don't honestly mind if you find my signature annoying, I was only saying that because you made a sort of grammatical critique on someone else's post, when you don't use it. Having a signature isn't grammatically incorrect.. But back on-topic.

@Hexzyle: I think you're right, when I solo'd it, I'm fairly sure I didn't see more than 1...but I really don't recall.

~Sev

Sáb, 02/25/2012 - 05:46

#15

Psychodestroyer

...

Grimlakins scale. Definitely.

Experience with accidentally landing up in one of those accursed areas. I THINK there's a MAX of 2 Grimlakins in a solo run. Otherwise, there's one per player in a party.

Not to say that each targets a specific knight...if one is at the back of a group of four and can't keep up for some reason...ohboy.

Sáb, 02/25/2012 - 06:36

#16

Asukalan

Yeah, do it like with

Yeah, do it like with phantoms in graveyard, 2 grimalkins per player in party or so

Sáb, 02/25/2012 - 08:59

#17

Unstream

The annoying I find about

The annoying I find about Grimalkins is that they do so much damage. I've been cornered before by four of them just because I was a little bit behind the rest of my teammates, and then they make it to the candle all of the Grimalkins turn towards me. And the annoying thing is that in T3, they can easily take away about half your health in one hit. At least allow the shield to do something.

I don't think CKs are comparable to Graveyards. At least in Graveyards, you can fight back against the phantoms.

And I do think they should change the spawning mechanic: one player will only spawn one Grimalkin. If I'm in a full party, and the rest of the party is in candlelight while I'm trying to get some treasure or something, all four Grimalkins spawn by me. And reducing the spawn time would definitely be helpful.

I've also had Grimalkins spawn right on top of me. Say it's just as I unleashed a DA charge and I don't have enough time to move away. I've had it happen a few times while I was fighting. I definitely think there should be a sort of "no spawn zone" radius around each player.

Sáb, 02/25/2012 - 22:21

#18

Sonicfanlol

some things

@Unstream Thanks for agreeing with one or two of my points. Grimalkins are just really annoying if you accidentally corner yourself or your teammates.

@Severage I know that the spawn time is really fast for Grimalkins...when I said a minute, I wasn't meaning to be literal. I'd be happy with a 20-25 second wait on Grimalkin spawns. They just appear TOO MUCH.

@Isis lol at what you keep saying about the topic and Seve. Kinda funny.

Dom, 02/26/2012 - 01:16

#19

Ulmyr

I definitely think that Candlestick Keep is one of the hardest areas in the game, so I can sympathize with your frustration, especially since it's rather hard to avoid the levels due to how Gates work. However, let me play devil's advocate and say a few things to the contrary first...

Reducing the spawn chance or even the time until they spawned on Grimalkins when in the dark would not end up solving their difficulty, it'd just make running into one while traveling through unlit areas a matter of luck and wouldn't actually end up solving any of the issues inherent with them.

Another argument in favor of keeping them as-is is that they are challenging, but not unfairly so. If challenge is how hard it is to avoid making mistakes and whether mistakes can be traced back to the player, then - looking at the actions of four players - usually being cornered by Grimalkins or getting stuck in the dark can be traced back to mistakes from one member or the other, like pre-emptively running into a dark area too far without the other members of the group.

I may be a bit colored in my opinions since I usually solo, but in my mind Candlestick Keep levels for myself are exhilirating, in a fun yet rather terrifying way, due to the incredibly evil level design forcing you be patient and yet be decisive and make split-second decisions to avoid the Grimalkins and stay in the light. Many but not all of the cornering issues you speak of are due to poor teamwork coordination resulting in one member running off into the dark without support and getting trapped, or other minor blunders, anyways. With practice that can be avoided much more easily.

Since I don't have a huge amount of issues facing the stage when solo and have not heard a huge amount of complaints about it on that front, I'd personally back an alternative nerf balanced on group play: perhaps each player could get a "personal" Grimalkin that would only end up spawning when they were in the dark, and would only chase them unless another player got in the way? This way it wouldn't be possible for one player to run from the group and be forced to get into a struggle with four Grimalkins, and it also would get rid of the strategy of having three members of the group run around in an unlit circle to distract the Grimalkins when the fourth member runs off and does something else.

I'm not in favor of nerfing their biting strength or increasing the time till spawn, though - their purpose for being included in Candlestick Keep is to "punish" players for dawdling in unlit areas, and they do that admirably, barring the times you're speaking of when they go a bit further than just that purpose.

I'm pretty sure that Candlestick Keep is one of those awkward levels easier when soloed than in a group, anyways. This may even the odds a little bit, because when soloing it's nightmarish and intense, but in a fairly exciting and fun way. Nerfing Grimalkins would take some of the edge away, but on the other hand they shouldn't be punishing players who've made no mistakes in groups and this should take strides to solving that.

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Reduce Chance of Grimalkins Appearing