Has anyone else noticed a bug preventing switch shot with identical alchemers?
Strangely the bug is resolved if one of the alchemers has a UV on it. I haven't tested two alchemers with identical UVs but judging from the way the game appears to handle weapons I doubt that would work either.
Any thoughts?
Can you describe the bug more? It sounds like if two alchemers are identical in every way (type and UV) there is a bug preventing you from rapidswitching, is that it?
I am under the impression that this is an unintended oversight in the code that gained wide acceptance and is implicitly condoned by the devs, because it adds strategy and depth to the game, similar to shield canceling. This sort of stuff happens in games all the time- players often discover that built-in mechanics yield interesting techniques when chained or used in combination, and these techniques add more depth to the game. It may even be possible some of these are secretly encoded on purpose- take Smash Bros and the L-cancel (where pressing shield when striking the ground while out of control allows you to land upright and ready to go); it is not explained in-game, but the mechanic exists for players to discover on their own. And wavedashing, which is a combination of airborne dodge and landing mechanics that was probably not intentionally coded, but discovered by players chaining different techniques together.
Personally I'd be sad to see this go, as it has become a staple of my gameplay style. It is what makes alchemers a viable, deadly alternative to swords.
Props to you for the Smash Bros analogy. I loved that game :D Although I don't think I ever learned wavedashing. I might go look that up now :P
Yes I believe that is the bug although I haven't tested two identical, UVd, alchemers. I was toying around with 3 shadowtech alchemers. Two clean and one with a random undead UV. Switching definitely didn't work between the two clean ones. It's something about the way the game handles identical weapons I guess because the bug seems to apply to any two identical weapons such as twin troikas. I wonder if raising the level of one of the alchemers would force the bug to resolve?
I'd definitely be very sad to see switching go as it definitely adds complexity to the game and makes alchemers viable. I doubt the devs would remove it though since it's so widely used and has been for ages. Then again look at RSS...I guess we'll just have to hope they don't and adapt if they do. :/
As far as I know, this doesn't just apply to alchemers. If you have any two identical weapons in your loadout, the game seems to treat them as one weapon.
Should have tried picking up double-switching instead.
It's a lot more fun, imo. If it weren't for the technical feel of doing that, I probably wouldn't have as much fun as I do with guns right now lol.
While we're slightly leaning off-topic with the non-intended features, I once played Gunz, a game where the most competitive players strived to use animation cancelling and many other seemingly-unrelated mechanics in order to completely play the game in a way the developers didn't expect and eventually embraced.
In that game, there was a technique to speed up the slower revolvers' shot speed by hitting reload and cancelling the reload animation into a weapon-switch to another pair of revolvers and repeating (in fact, its name was "reload shot").
Even though it was a 3D (emphasizing that 3rd dimension, with everyone flying everywhere) third person shooter with finger-killing techniques, there's a nostalgic similarity between that and shield-switch shooting in Spiral Knights lol.
Come to think of it, I learned to lead-shoot (missing on my screen to register a real hit) in that game :P
I'm fairly certain that the devs didn't sit down and say
"The alchemers, by rapidly switching and shielding, the player should be able to shoot out a rapid stream of bullets!"
or
"And whenever you raise a shield, your character should cut off the last bit of the sword animation and shield faster so that they can attack faster again with the first hit"
I just really can't see it.... its sort of like when the founding fathers of America got together-
"I've got it! We'll give congress all the power, make the president a figure head and then create a central banking system! Then, we can hand the nation over to the businesses!"
I freaking loved GunZ, or at least I would have if it had lag compensation (aka no-lead) and didn't have a cash shop and dumb RPG mechanics. It's what I thought of when I first figured out switch-shotting. FYI you can do it just as well using only a single weapon by switching away and switching back, though it takes a bit more dexterity and you'll need to bind your weapon keys intelligently. I wouldn't find gunners fun to play without this, it adds just a little bit of much needed depth and skill.
@Golfdinger:
Yeah, I love double-switching. Feels so good :3
@Fehzor:
Actually, shield-cancelling (or animations becoming interruptible after a certain point) is a fairly common mechanic in a lot of games.
I am mostly sure, however, that the programmers didn't really forsee people using weapon switch to refresh weapon timers. The weapon-switch mechanic also applies to swords, in a less noticeable way: If you just try to spam slash-shield while walking, you will initially be able to do it without moving, but at some point, there's a "cooldown timer" where you're not allowed to slash again, and your character will only walk forward a little bit.
Of course, it's more noticeable for guns because that downtime is much longer (the reload animation).
Nick, Wed, 09/05/2012 - 21:00: We will be issuing a small bugfix patch to address issues with handgun animations and the visibility of the Arsenal in Rank Mission 1-1.
But ya I guess you are right. You remember me Aiden?
Animations are one thing. The mechanic is related to stuff separate from mere animations.
The past few updates have had weird side-effects for guns though, like bullets going invisible on your own screen.
I'm not exactly sure what happened last time though, since I was offline.
I will say though, there was one mechanic that was definitely broken for sure that I was taking advantage of (and has been patched out since one of the shard team-explosion fixes) - Alchemers used to bounce off yourself and teammates. If used with shock's invincibility removal, close range self-bounces back into targets made Alchemers ultra deadly in close range :D
Alchemer shots no longer bounce off self or team? No wonder I've noticed a decrease in efficiency lately. I am mixed about this, as it is technically a bug, but so are dud shots that bounce without damaging; the two of them balanced out for the most part. Now we just have dud shots, and less bounce bonus. Between that and the incessant lag it is getting increasingly difficult to gun... my mouse wearing out may also have something to do with it. v_v
The question we have to ask is: are developers happpy with players taking advanatge of such things?
For all we know this switching for unlimited shooting could be an unintended oversight in the code.
It may be a bug they dont want to fix.