Spiral Knights - Thoughts on LD

Thoughts on LD

12 replies [Last post]

Fri, 07/20/2012 - 18:02

Bigvai

As an end gamer I play a lot of LD, if I'm logged on that is normally what I'm doing. Lately though I have been getting tired of how unbalanced LD is. So here are a few musings on what I think could benefit LD.

#1. Why does the striker class cater to the strongest weapon in game? Swords are heavy, heavier than guns and bombs and hit harder than the other weapon types so why have they been give the fastest moving class in LD, it would make much more sense to make the guardian class cater to the sword users and have the striker class cater to gunners.

Proposal: Remove all negatives to weapon types across classes with the exception of -VH bomb CTR on strikers. Make the striker class give gun ASI med and gun DMG med. Make the guardian give sword ASI med, sword DMG med and a general CTR med. Give the recon general ASI med and general CTR vh.

#2. Why does the recon cloak break when hit? This seems out of place when compared to the striker boost and the guardian shield where neither break on a single hit.

Proposal: Make striker boost and recon cloak like the guardian shield, they take damage but don't instantly break. In the case of fighting a recon, if they are hit just show the life bars dropping to the ground so you have an idea of where they are and have their cloak take damage. Same thing goes for striker make his boost take damage. Mind you, this would only happen if the cloak and boost were in use at the time of taking damage.

#3. Why is there rarely balance between teams? This is ridiculous and hugely frustrating to the outmatched team.

Proposal: Take damage from previous game played and dibby up players based off of that. In the case of new players joining a match keep it random. At least this way there would be some sense of balance.

#4. In the case of an unbalanced game, even with the proposal in #3 there will still be unbalanced games, why is base camping allowed?

Proposal: Set up pylons 5 squares out from the base entrances that if crossed remove all buffs just like the deathmark does. Nobody likes a game where it feels nearly impossible to get out of your base and this would help.

#5. Why were invincibility frames added back in? In the week that they weren't there LD was an awesome fast paced game with less than admirable weapons being used.

Proposal: Ditch invincibility frames on all but the guardian shield. This way weapons deal the damage they were meant to without making the guardian useless. I would love to see people be able to enjoy what they crafted in LD as well as PVE.

These are my thoughts if you like them, great, if not please give constructive criticism. All in all I feel these changes would make LD a much more balanced and enjoyable experience.

Fri, 07/20/2012 - 18:22

Akvar

I like all of it with the exception of the CTR VH for recons, don't you think that is OP?

Fri, 07/20/2012 - 18:32

Bigvai

Not at all

I feel that the recon is meant to get in and get out quickly and even with CRT vh they are exposed for a time. Plus, bombers need a go to class and this is it. If this doesn't suffice we could always go with general CTR med and a bomb CTR med to make up the difference for the bomber thus not buffing all weapons that high, just the bombs.

Fri, 07/20/2012 - 18:38

Trollingyou

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#1 - The reason why striker caters to swords is that it was designed to have a way for swordies to close the gap between them and their target. Without it, gunners would be immensely hard to kill due to the range advantage. Granted, the booster works too well to the point where any range advantage is pretty much negated and the bonuses on it are too strong. Changing the bonuses it gives is a good idea, but I disagree that any class should have a damage bonus. You see, Damage bonuses, unlike CTR or ASI, cannot be gained via UV. Meaning, any damage bonus you get means more use out of your UVs, which is how people can get Max damage and Max ASI with striker without the use of trinkets. You see where this is going now?

I still think striker should cater to swords, just not as much as it does right now. Also it would be nice to be able to get universal damage bonuses via UVs to make the damage bonuses on armor and classes worth less and more in line with the other ones.

#2 - Yes, this would be a good change making recon more viable in combat. Striker one may not make much of a difference since they don't get hit while boosting often, but it'll punish the reckless.

On a side note Guardian shield needs to be able to take more hits. It breaks too easily even with invincibility frames.

#3 - Balancing teams via damage might be a good idea, but keep in mind some of the best players to be with are not damage based. Get a bunch of these guys together and your max damage guy on the other team will get stomped because he cannot take on an army alone

#4 - Deathmark only remove all of your defenses, bu yes this would be a good idea. Base camping + Trollaris = Trolololololol

#5 - This would be a dream come true. Whether or not it will happen is a good question. It may not fix LD as whole, but it is certianly a HUGE step in the right direction.

Also, recon already has CTR VH for bombs.

Fri, 07/20/2012 - 19:00

Bigvai

Thanks for the in depth response.

In consideration of your comments to #1 I had never thought of it that way. What I have proposed would not make the swordie useless as a striker it just wouldn't offer the buffs with it. There would be nothing negative toward them, they just wouldn't have the option to max everything.

-I still think striker should cater to swords, just not as much as it does right now. Also it would be nice to be able to get universal damage bonuses via UVs to make the damage bonuses on armor and classes worth less and more in line with the other ones.

As it stands right now a striker skolver clone with two ASI trinkets or good UV's and Penta trinkets rule LD which shows there is lack of balance.

-On a side note Guardian shield needs to be able to take more hits. It breaks too easily even with invincibility frames.

I can't say I've ever played the guardian but I have seen the complaints about the shield. Perhaps if it were given a 20% buff and if there were more than one guardian with the shield activated with allies under it the damage taken would be spread across all guardian shields.

-#4 - Deathmark only remove all of your defenses, bu yes this would be a good idea. Base camping + Trollaris = Trolololololol

The point is to make the easily taken down if they so choose to come and troll your base.

Thanks again for the thought out response and the food for thought.

Fri, 07/20/2012 - 19:15

Thelhawk

I want a cheeseburger for my thought

I love these ideas but make sure the health just drops right after the recon gets hit so that people won't just follow the health and hit again.
I think gun ASI and damage are a bit much for it how about low speed and med damage?
The frames were added back in because the guardian shield was cardboard and flourishes and hammers got even stronger.
However i did not play LD during that event so I cant say anything from experiance(sorry i spelled experiance wrong)

Fri, 07/20/2012 - 19:48

Bigvai

The dropping health as you

The dropping health as you have stated was the thought. It drops where the recon was hit as an indicator to the attacker. If the general consensus of the populace were opposed to ASI med and DMG med on the striker we could always switch it to ASI med and CTR med or ASI med, CTR low and DMG low. I did not see what you were saying about the hammers and toothpicks but I am not doubting it. What I did see was DVS and his counterpart WHB, Autoguns and more, I loved the fact that derpy weapons were usable.

Fri, 07/20/2012 - 20:41

Atacii

...

I mostly agree with everything you said. The most powerful class, striker, catering to the most powerful weapon, sword. Absolutely ridiculous. So, break up that combination and improve the other two classes. The real question is how to improve the other two classes.

Not sure how this should be done, but my one suggestion would be to give guards some kind of shield bump. If this were implemented properly, it would allow gunners to play guard. Swords and even bombers with the right uv's can play all three classes, but gunners are pretty much restricted to striker and maybe recon.

Fri, 07/20/2012 - 21:00

Trollingyou

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"-I still think striker should cater to swords, just not as much as it does right now. Also it would be nice to be able to get universal damage bonuses via UVs to make the damage bonuses on armor and classes worth less and more in line with the other ones.

As it stands right now a striker skolver clone with two ASI trinkets or good UV's and Penta trinkets rule LD which shows there is lack of balance."

I meant striker should be aimed at swords, but not so much that it causes an imbalance like it does now. I guess the class still would benefit swords if it were changed to cater to guns since they can use the booster to close the gap or use the guardian class to be better overall in close combat but move slower. It would cause a ton of (delicious) rage across SK though.

@Thelhawk Yes, the hammers and toothpicks got stronger, but so did every other weapon that desperately needed buffing, to the point where they had a chance to compete. Charge attacks suddenly became useful, and it was silly to watch a Triglav/Sudaruska one-shot-kill you with it's charge from full health as guardian. I wish it was still like this.

Sat, 07/21/2012 - 11:07

Bigvai

lol

-It would cause a ton of (delicious) rage across SK though.

I have been considering these changes for a while but you statement is the exact reason I haven't posted until now.

-I guess the class still would benefit swords if it were changed to cater to guns since they can use the booster to close the gap or use the guardian class to be better overall in close combat but move slower.

This and the whole rage issue over changes are why I felt it would be best to remove the negatives to weapon types across classes (with the exception of bomb CTR- on the striker class). This way the swords man can still use the striker class but would be rewarded for using the guardian. I really feel that the lack of negatives on LD classes will make game play more diverse. To your last statement there, the week or so of LD that had no invincibility frames was the funnest time I've had in there. Yea I died a lot but so did every one else, it really sped up the game and it was really cool that basically every weapon was now deadly.

Sat, 07/21/2012 - 12:21

#10

Addisond

My own thoughts

1. I agree with the first point. After that I fully disagree. I personally feel that the division of classes based on weapon type was a TERRIBLE idea; it restricts a bomber to two classes, and a gunner to only two that work well at all. If we got rid of all the bonuses that make striker/skolvers OP, the bonuses that make striker/bomber pricey to play (takes VH bombs), the penalties on guns that make gunner/guards even less practical (though having a gun to draw enemies in is okay), the penalties that pointlessly make recon swordies weaker, and the bomb bonuses that drive bombers toward the weakest class mod available, I think we'd see a much more fluid game with more potential for variation in playstyles.

2. Why have the recon shield break instantly? It makes it possible to fight against recons. If you couldn't hunt recons with weak guns or toothpick swings, your only window for hitting them would be RIGHT after they dissapeared, since they would rarely become uncloaked. You have to remember that the recon cloak is intended to be the kind of thing that lasts pretty much indefinitely, so there HAS to be a way to eliminate it. However, since this makes breaking your cloak an accepted and likely result of play that the player does not control, a broken recon should not be anywhere as vulnerable as a broken striker, we should let the shield cancel for starters. More buffs would be nice, too. On the other hand, I actually like the idea of making a booster breakable; it makes strikers more tentative and it heavily rewards recons that surprise them, as well as those gunners who are so skillful as to successfully land a hit on a boosting striker.

3. Balancing.. first off, I don't know if you've noticed this yet, but stats are FAR less meaningful than most would lead you to believe. The game as pretty much no way to actually gauge your contributions, and since if team balance were implemented, the games wouldn't be random, so win percentages wouldn't be usable. Next up, it sounds like you aren't playing striker, but one of the main appeals of striker is that they are fast enough to have influence on the entire map, so a truly incredible striker would be able to win a game alone, if assisted by some buddies who would cap for him/her. It's much less frustrating for us. Actually, most of my games are actually relatively balanced anyway. Since there are rewards involved, randomization is what works best since it spreads out rewards by skill, even if the actual difference in rewards between a skillful and skilless player are minimal. The truth is that LD is a TEAM endeavor, and so you are unlikely to have a massive impact one way or the other, so unless you can just enjoy the game, you're pretty much better off playing FFA BN.

4. The area in front of bases is, unfortunately, included in the general traffic in the game in most maps (it's the best route to take, often) so this is kinda unfair to players passing through. There is a distinct difference between camping a base (actually whamming on the base with polaris or haze bombs) and just being there to intercept people. It's the ideal defense point, so players are naturally going to show up. In reality, it's not that hard to get rid of non-camping enemies near the base, since there are convenient heal pads. However, genuine camping (polaris and haze bombs completely surrounding the base) needs to be dealt with in some way. I don't have a fix in mind, but making players take more damage doesn't do much when it's nearly impossible to hit them anyway.

5. I agree with this sentiment in general, but I've had numerous discussions about why you CANNOT remove the invincibilty frames without changing how swords work in LD, since it results in all sword fights end in one hit (not much fun) as a stun-lock fest occurs right after the first hit.

bleh. That's poorly written and unedited, it's probably illogical in some places. Go ahead and nitpick.

Sat, 07/21/2012 - 14:28

#11

Bigvai

1. It wasn't really clear

1. It wasn't really clear what you were saying here but it sounded like you wanted to remove all the negatives on classes and possibly the bonuses as well? I did propose ditching the negatives to classes with the exception of the bomb negative on the striker class because on the testing server when LD first came out OOO and the testers felt that a striker swooping in off the bat and laying mist bombs was way to OP. What I suggested offered bonuses for weapon types on classes but not the negatives thus rewarding players for choosing the class that buffs their weapons but not restricting them to any one class.

2. Wasn't real sure what you were trying to say here either. It sounded like you were contesting the idea I presented for the recon cloak but then it sounded like you were agreeing with it to some extent, I'll just assume you are opposed to it. Most of my time in LD is as a recon but I used to play a lot of striker, as a recon my cloak breaks a lot leaving me a sitting duck, I have yet to see the cloak being something that can go on indefinitely. What I am proposing is that a hit on striker/recon ability would knock off a portion of that remaining ability. My thought was maybe 1/4 or 1/5 of the full ability's strength per hit, hope that makes sense. I do agree there needs to be the option to shield cancel with a broken recon cloak.

3. The reason I suggested this is I have been in so many games lately where the 2-3 people dealing the highest damage are lumped onto the same team and in nearly every one of these games the stacked team starts base camping. I know what I suggested is a far cry from a fix all but it would hopefully lessen the rate of base camping and provide some minute amount of team balance. I don't understand how this would take away the random teams. All it would do is look at the previous games damages and separate teams accordingly. Lets say at the end of the match there were 3 people who did 13-18k and 2 that did 8-10k with the rest under 5k in the next match it would place two of the 13-18k on one team and the other 13-18k on the team with the 8-10k, this is a rough example. With it only looking at the previous game this will always be changing not to mention new people joining in will still be adding to that randomness.

4. What I proposed would act just like the deathmark, if you leave the area then the mark goes away after a few seconds. This isn't much of a penalty for those just passing through but would be a big penalty for say the bomber spamming bombs outside your base or the person waiting with the charged brandish.

5. I personally would love to see this back in LD but I see your point. Perhaps if it were reintroduced along with a no attack interruption patch for LD only.

Sun, 07/22/2012 - 14:32

#12

Bigvai

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