Spiral Knights - Bring people back to the clockworks with weapon drops

Bring people back to the clockworks with weapon drops

3 replies [Last post]

Tue, 07/10/2012 - 21:53

Ltmauve

Alright, that title was something of a lie. I wasn't thinking of weapon drops, just weapon recipe drops. I'm going to have to post names, mat lists?, descriptions of the models later

Here's the idea:
-Each series of monster drops a line of weapon recipes rarely when you kill it in the clockworks.
-Bosses don't get these because they already have their own weapons
-Monster series that have status variants have separate lines for the statused versions. The damage drops about 15% in exchange for chance to status. I indicate which parts of the normal combo status, and everything statuses on the charge. The chance of statusing is inversely proportional to the number of hits on which statusing can occur. Freeze versions only status on the last hit but have a higher chance to balance that.
-The lines go from 2* to 5*.
-2* is found in stratum 3, 3* in stratum 4, etc
-Recipes and the crafted weapons are not tradable.
-Everyone in the party gets a copy of the recipe.
-What recipes you can get depend on what other recipes you already have (so you can't get a 3* lumber arm without having the 2*). If you can't the recipes, you get 4 tokens (of the appropriate type to craft that weapon)
-All weapons have normal attacks based on other weapons, but the charges are unique.
-Neutral damage should be in line with other weapons of the same type of normal attack. Charge attacks are given relative to existing weapons.
-Status damage should be in line with other weapons of the same type.
-Crafting a weapon requires 4 spark tokens (in addition to a normal set of mats). 2 depend on the family (grim = fiend /ghost, forge = gremlin/construct, primal = slime/beast) and the other two depend on the status (grim = poison, forge = shock/fire, primal = freeze). If the weapon isn't a status version, it's the same as the family.
-The series of monster must be able to drop all the mats needed to craft it.

--Beast family:
Chromalisk:
Alchemer-type normal attack (except no ricochet on the higher *s) (status on both shots)
Piercing damage
Charge: one bullet that goes up to 14 squares and then deposits a status mist (r = 1.5 for all *s) (neutral version does stun only on charge)
Neutral Damage same as a mist bomb.

Wolver:
Cutter-type normal attack (status only on the last two ghost hits)
Piercing damage
Charge: three powerful lunges, each propelling the wielder forward 3 squares.
Neutral Damage same as a Calibur line charge

Alpha wolver:
Cutter-type normal attack (status only on the last two ghost hits)
Piercing damage
Charge: The wielder stabs forward, the hitbox three squares long, then burrows and pops up six squares ahead, facing backward relative to how they were facing, making an identical strike, then burrows again and pops up three squares forward and three squares right of the start, facing to the left, makes another strike, burrows and pops up three squares forward and three squares left of the start, making a fourth, final strike, before burrowing back to the original location.
TL;DR: The user burrows and pops up in a X with the starting point on one of the corners, making a strike that reaches the center on each location.
Total Neutral Damage 20% higher than a Calibur line charge, due to the difficulty in getting all four strikes to hit due to knockback.

--Construct family:
Gun puppy:
Blaster-type normal attack (status only on the last two shots)
Split elemental-normal damage
Charge: Star number of big bullets (OK, I lied about the cool charges for everything. I just wanted to make the turret weapon lines more normal-ish so people would use the other types of weapons) Total attack time is the same as a blaster charge for all *s
Total Neutral Damage same as Antigua charge total. for 2* I need to do the math for that (check back later)

Lumber:
Troika-type Normal attack (status only on the last hit)
Split elemental-normal damage
Charge: A lunge of two squares and a slam down two squares ahead of that. An AOE r = 3 deals high damage and interrupts everything up to and including turrets. Beyond that, to the radius of the equivalent blast bomb, a quarter the damage is done and the interrupt will not interrupt turrets.
High Neutral damage same as a blast bomb

Mecha Knight:
Calibur-type normal attack (status only on the last hit)
Elemental damage
Charge: Two Cali spins and (2* - 1, 3* - 4, 4* - 8, 5* - 16) evenly spaced bullets are launched. Bullets range = 6, spins are same size as Cali's
Spin Neutral Damage same as Calibur
Bullet Neutral Damage same as BTB spines

Retrode:
Blaster-type normal attack (status on all three shots)
Elemental damage
Charge: Six pulsar type bullets, except the first explodes at range 7 (which is when they all expand) and each consecutive bullet detonates another square along (so the last one detonates at range 12)
Bullet Neutral Damage 25% higher than normal pulsar shots

Rocket puppy:
Magnus-type normal attack (no status)
Elemental damage
Charge: (2 * star number - 1) shots, one shot from the gun, the other shots being fired in a line perpendicular to the shooter at the same time, symmetrical about the shooter, converging 10 squares ahead of the user. May inflict fire
Total Neutral Damage same as blitz needle

Red Rover:
Elemental damage
Charge: Shoots out a shard bomb pattern of flame (range double a same star mist bomb (possibly not that much higher on 4 & 5*))
Neutral Damage same as Shard bomb line (RSS after the line splits)

What? It's too long-ranged to be a sword, but too short ranged to be a gun.

Scuttlebot:
Troika-type normal attack (no status)
Split Elemental-Neutral damage
Charge: Three jabs, one straight ahead, and the others at 45 degree angles. Each has a reach of 3 squares, but they are narrower than you might expect for a troika-type weapon (about .8 squares)
Neutral Damage the same as a Calibur charge

--Fiend Family
Devilite:
Magnus-type normal attack (status on both)
Shadow damage
Charge: Wielder fires one normal(+ 50% dmg) shot, then dodges devilite fast three squares to the left, fires another ten squares in front of the original location, dodges three squares to the right of where they started, fires a third, and dodges back to the start.

Overtimer:
WRH-type normal attack (slightly less damage but faster) (status only on last hit)
Split Shadow-Normal damage
Charge: A WRH charge attack followed by a throw of the rake.
WRH Normal damage 80% of WRH hit (I need to do math on this one as well)
throw normal damage same as GF projectile

Yesmen and Pit Bosses don't get any weapons because they don't attack

Greaver:
Spur-type normal attack (status only on third attack)
Split Shadow-Normal damage
Charge: A two square lunge followed by three first spur combo swings followed on 4&5* with three projectiles, range = 4
Swing neutral damage same as Spur first hit
Projectile neutral damage same as BTB spines

Trojan:
Troika-type normal attack (no status)
Split Shadow-Normal Damage
Charge: A 6 square lunge followed by an AOE r = 3 with chance of stun 2 squares ahead of the user. May inflict stun.
Neutral Damage same as WRH charge

--Gremlin Family:
Thwacker:
Troika-type normal attack (no status)
Normal Damage
Charge: Two Calibur spins, during a continuous lunge of 4, followed by throwing the hammer. The hammer ghosts through enemies, but does not knockback. Can hit moderately sized enemies twice and large enemies such as giant lichen colonies and battlepods four times. May inflict stun
Spin damage same as Calibur line
Projectile damage same as brandish explosions.

Scorcher:
Split Elemental-Normal Damage
Charge: Radius same as blast bomb line, multiple explosions all with same damage, taking the same time as brandish explosions between each one. Each explosion has radius one more than the previous. Each explosion has little knockback, so it is possible to hit an enemy on all the explosions
Total Neutral Damage 60% higher than blast bomb (but that's only with all hits (not sure how to calculate potential damage like Luguiru does to check that this is balanced))

Demo:
Elemental Damage
Charge: Throws four bombs out, evenly spaced. Bombs will go until they hit a wall, or until the blast radiuses only intersect at where the bomber was standing. Total radius is about 150% of a blast line
Neutral Damage 33% of a blast bomb

Knocker:
Elemental Damage
Charge: Three blasts, right after one another. Radius same as mist line.
Neutral Damage 10% more than a mist line

--Slime Family:
Jelly cube: (has freeze and poison variants only)
Piercing damage
Charge: Sends up a radial array of spikes like the giant lichen colony for .5 seconds. Can hit enemies up to two times. Radius same as mist line
Neutral Damage 110% blast bomb

Blast cube:
Alchemer-type normal attack (except no ricochet on the higher *s)
Normal Damage
Charge: Sends a big bullet range = 14, that when it hits explodes r = 1.5 and releases 8 mini blast cubes, which travel 5 squares in a shard bomb pattern before exploding r = 1
Main bullet damage 80% of blast bomb
Secondary shots damage 20% of blast bomb

Rock Jelly cube
Troika-type normal attack
Normal Damage
Charge: A normal troika charge, except followed by a lunge backward 4 squares
Damage 95% troika charge

Lichen:
Catalyzer-type normal attack
normal damage
Charge: A normal catalyzer charge, except the bullet will stay there at the end of its range = 12 for as long as a normal tagging. Other catalyzer charges can stick onto this first shot.
Damage: 70% catalyzer shot

Lichen Colony / Toxilargo:
Alchemer-type normal attack (no status)
Split Piercing Normal Damage
Charge: Sends a giant bullet up to 10 squares, with massive knockback. no ricochet
Damage same as Alchemer charge

Giant Lichen Colony:
Calibur-type normal attack
Split Piercing Normal Damage
Charge: A lunge of 1, with a swing, followed by spikes going out from the wielder like brandish line explosions (dependent on * number)
Swing Neutral Damage same as Brandish/Nightblade charge swing
Spike Neutral Damage same as Brandish/Nightblade explosion

Oiler:
Calibur-type normal attack (no status)
Split Piercing Normal Damage
Charge: Two Calibur spins, followed by a fire mist deployed r = 3
Spin Neutral damage same as Calibur spin.
Mist does not inflict direct damage. Fire does twice the number of hits

Quicksilver:
Alchemer-type normal attack (shock on both shots)
Split Elemental Piercing Damage
Charge: A single bullet that ricochets a dozen times, for full damage.
Neutral Damage 80% alchemer

Polyp:
See Gun Puppy Entry, simply replace elemental with piercing

--Undead Family:
Howltizer:
See Gun Puppy Entry, simply replace elemental with shadow

Kat:
Spur-type normal attack (status on third attack)
Shadow Damage
Charge: User teleports 8 squares ahead and does one big slash.
Neutral Damage 80% full Calibur charge

I hesitate to seriously consider this one because the SK dev team will have to entirely rework the maps in order to prevent people from abusing this horribly by say, jumping back to the health pads during DFV or jumping onto the roofs that were put in for cosmetic effects and then sniping everything in sight or just plain skipping sections.

Zombie:
Flourish-type normal attack. (status on second and third hits)
Split Shadow Normal Damage
Charge: A WRH dash of 6, followed by a swing and laying down a mist r = 2
Swing Neutral Damage same as brandish/nightblade charge swing
mist inflicts no direct damage

I will now open the floor to your soul-crushing criticism :) Did I miss anything?

Tue, 07/10/2012 - 22:41

Fehzor

I could go on to tell you about how half of the weapons in the game don't work, and that the devs have a hard enough time at balancing things, but instead I'm going to get to a bigger point- This would slow things down.

I want to see a new enemy. Look at how much effort it takes to make an enemy, and compare that to making a new boss. Shadow lairs doubled the amount of time it took to make bosses- it now requires 2 sets of the levels, a reskin of the boss to fit a theme, etcetera. If this happened, it would mean that there would potentially be less enemies coming out- and there are almost no enemies that come out ever as it is, so I'm against them coming from enemies directly. What I'd rather see instead, is them being found in "special levels" in the clockworks, where players would have to control the clockworks to form said levels… although being that that is a rather intense idea, it might be nice to instead see them from treasure boxes in the non-missions.

As far as the weapons, they sound pretty awesome. I absolutely love the shadow spur from the kat, that sounds awesome… mostly because I love teleportation as an idea. All are decent ideas for weapons, all could be balanced, and all could fit into the game somewhat well.

Tue, 07/10/2012 - 23:04

Luguiru

Hurp

Most enemies already have a very low chance to drop equipment.

What you are trying to do is create weapons which are only available through enemies in the Clockworks but are completely untradable. That sounds like nearly all of my responses to stupid equipment threads where someone wants overpowered-giant-vomit-laser-walrus-cannon-with-glitter for personal gain.

The lizard based weapon is recycling the same, decaying, smelly, old mule which has been used five times. It was shot down every time someone tried it in the past, there is no reason to beat it down when it has already been beaten down enough times; it is not one of the more common stupid subjects, but it has been repeated enough times for me to urinate in your ears.

The Wolver based weapon is just Cutter combined with a jumping attack as the charge but with pierce damage. No.

The other Wolver based weapon is Cutter combined with a significantly risky mechanic here with the burrowing ability of Snarbolax which would be very easily overpowered. It gives the user instant mobility.

The turret based weapon seems to be a gun version of shard bombs, firing multiple bullets in a general direction; we have something which works this way but forces you to aim.

The Lumber based weapon is Troika. Not similar, is; but overpowered in area of effect.

The Mecha Knight based weapon is Calibur with specialized damage and bullets.

The Retrode based weapons is a longer range and more powerful version of Pulsar, further promoting volley tactics while hiding behind others. No.

The rocket turret based weapon combines the damage of Blitz with the attack of Magnus with homing bullets. Absolutely not.

The fire turret based weapon is taking Radiant Sun shards and giving it fire. Do you even know what balance is?

The Scuttlebot based weapon is the Troika basic attack combined with the Flourish charge attack. That is not how it works.

The Devilite based weapon is Magnus with a horribly overpowered charge attack.

The Overtimer based weapon combines the rocket hammers with the Avenger/Faust line charge attack. I lost several brain cells from reading that.

The Greaver based weapon is Spur line with its original lunging ability returned and more powerful projectiles.

The Trojan based weapon is the Trojan attack of charging then smashing.

The Thwacker based weapon is the basic attack with Troika combined with the charge attack of Calibur combined with a very powerful projectile.

The Scorcher based weapon is the Seerus bombs with more speed than before they were nerfed and approximately the same damage before it was nerfed and is the Brandish charge attack. Without even crunching numbers I can tell it would make the original Seerus bombs look like garbage.

The Demo based weapon is potentially twice as powerful as Nitronome and covers far more area. Yes, I did some math off screen.

I am going to stop here because these have all been horrible recycling and combinations of completely incompatible mechanics to make something absurdly overpowered. Normally I can suck it up so others can avoid the abomination, but there is more stupidity here than I am willing to endure.

Wed, 07/11/2012 - 00:25

Ltmauve

Guess I wasn't kidding about the soul crushing negitivity

There may not have been clear communication of my intention, despite my using my hands instead of face/forehead to type, which was to give the players weapons that mimiced enemy attacks / principles. I wanted them to only be obtainable through the clockworks so that anyone who wanted them to show them off/wanted all the weapons would be forced to play the game more. I did not want them to be overpowered, because no challenge is no fun. Also, part of the reason I posted this here was for critism. With that in mind:
Chromalisk: Oh. I didn't realize that. In that case, I'd need to think of something else for this.

Wolver: I was trying to give a cutter weapon some practicallity.

Alpha Wolver: The burrowing wouldn't be as overpowered if you took damage from burrowing outside the map or into blocks, or maybe it just wouldn't work and you'd lose that hit and spend it back at the start, immobile, ready to get hit. That would force players to be careful about it.

Turret gun: The bullets would be in a straight line, like the antigua charge. Perhaps that wasn't clear. So that way, the players would have to aim.

Lumber: Balence via recovery time, also what would you say a reasonable damage level for this is?

Mecha Knight: Yes, I know. But unless a couple bullets hit, it's not going to be as much as a Calibur charge.

Retrode: The normal attack isn't Pulsar, it's a blaster. I thought pulsar had a longer range, which is why I gave it a range of 12. I forgot to check. When are you going to schedule my execution?

Rocket Puppy: The bullets are fired at angles so that the paths intersect. The paths don't curve. And I didn't specify the speed of the charge bullets.

Red Rover: Yes, I have heard of it in passing. It's not RSS with fire, the range is much shorter (2* r = 3, 3* r = 4, 4* = 5, 5* r = 6 (I said double the range of a mist bomb for radius, except maybe not on the 4 & 5*)) so basically slightly more range than a mist bomb, but more damage to BALENCE the reduced hit area. I'll specify now that the hitboxes for the flames should be the same width as shard bomb projectiles.

Scuttlebot: Did I mention recovery time? And did I mention lunges? No. Presumably the recovery time is resonable for a trokia and for the damage the charge does.

Devilite: I will grant you that even if two bullets hit, 300% of one shot is a bit too much. does having 75% damage per shot seem more reasonable?

Overtimer: Did I really write this? Yes I did, I do recall typing some of the rest of it. I should bring the swing down to Brandish / DA levels, and I'm not sure what to do for the normal attack.

Grever: And is this overpowered how?

Trojan: Again, how is this overpowered / bad?

Thwacker: Only two swings, and the projectile only does brandish explosion level damage, instead of GF/DA levels. Also no knockback, so most enemies will only get hit once. Calibur does three swings, and this, like the mecha knight weapon, only does two.

Scorcher: Let me make this clearer. First, the bomb lets off a small explosion (r = 1 or 1.5) with low damage and very low knockback. Then, a third of a second later, the bomb sets off an explosion with the same damage and knockback, only with the radius 1 higher. And it repeats this until it reaches maximum radius. So only the center gets full damage. Also it's damm slow, taking a second to get to a radius of three. ALSO DID I MENTION THAT I WASN"T SURE THAT AMOUNT OF DAMAGE WAS BALENCED? YES I THINK I DID.

Demo: The only was to get a full blast bomb's worth of damage out of this is to get your enemy to get hit by three of the bombs. This makes it deadlier in corriders and against walls. For most of the area, it deals below blast bomb line damage. Yes, this mechanic seems open to abuse, but only with practice (i.e. any good bomber could pull it off. I'm not sure there are that many good bombers.) Also, the only way this could deal twice the damage of a blast bomb is with "weak against" defence doing 66% extra damage. Which I'm pretty sure it does not. And that's only with an intersection of all four bombs.

Now, if these statements have restored your faith in humanity, would you mind looking at the rest? Or if they haven't would you mind explaining why?

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Bring people back to the clockworks with weapon drops