Test Feedback: Weapon Adjustments Round 2

Split damage dvs ftw. Much more fun this way.

No mention of dread captain cutlass, maybe the normal/poison users could switch to that if it is unchanged.

No problem supporting people's wacky playstyles as long as the majority gets what they want first.

I originally thought that dread venom striker was a little to strong with shadow but after trying it more in depth this feels like a good state for it.

Gran Faust charge feels viable now without the high chance of receiving curse for the user.

Orbit/Mixer should be left as they were originally were before the preview server and if they are going to be changed it would probably be better to do after you roll out what we all know is coming in the monster spike world, for a better comparison with other weapons. The real issue is orbit/mixer have been a thing for so long, the games biggest investors have put an immense amount into should be taken into account. Regardless of this change or not the price is dropping or will drop for these with the mandolins namely what I mention earlier that I'm dodging around. If we're not taking these big investors into your game into consideration logically the choice should be to make them like the mandolin with the bonus boomerang shot damage. Not matter what I say or anyone says in here the majority of people will seek this option because the majority of players don't own these weapons so the ballot is skewed.

Again I'll mention if they're left alone no one is effected, if you change em you're stepping on the toes of the people who have invested the most into this game. Yes it this has a p2w vibe but for a niche pve game, the p2w is phasing out with mandolin either way.

Summary:
Dread Venom Striker good
Gran Faust good
Orbit/Mixer bad
-Leave it or
-Give it boomerang bonus or
-Kick the can down the road after spikes are more thoroughly integrated

Random Stuff
-I saw "Mechanism" aka Cronus talking, being very social and talking back and forth with players. To which I literally said thats the community manager we need before I knew it was Cronus(hear me out). It would be nice to have more of that here or more publicly available? Live chat is always going to have benefits over typing up a forum post but it'd be really nice to feel that interaction more in forums. The silence during spike update was deafening, in general the increase game master presence in forums is reassuring to see but has dropped off lately.

Thanks for bringing the preview back for this final pass
Exelius~

I would say keep the changes to the Mixmaster and Orbitgun, they need to be brought in line with the Mandolin and this was never a feature -- it was a bug, and it needs to stay fixed. Not be reverted because of the potential feelings of the game's ""merchants"" being unhappy that their broken gun was fixed, let alone rewarding behavior like Zosu's.

Keep them fixed, it's what was supposed to be done and there isn't a good reason to revert it, better late than never.

In addition: I'd suggest maybe if that's in the cards, to take a look at the Warmaster Rocket Hammer's dash -- the second attack in their 3 hit combo? It's an amazing weapon, but the dash has a nasty tendency to not register ANY of it's hits if the target is too far away, even if you collide with the enemy after the attack should have started.

I would also ask if it's charge attack can have the second overhead removed, or changed into a more powerful 360 swing since the second overhead simply puts you in danger due to it's knockback instead of actually damaging anything.

I really like that the mandolin does more damage when disc shot returns, its a cool unique feature no gun has atm. I was wondering whether this mechanic is intended to stay exclusive to mandolin, or if it will be added to the other non-normal discguns like mixmaster/orbitgun.

It made sense that normal would do more damage since it didn't have a chance for applying a status, similar to how supernova does more neutral damage than its counterparts. After adding stun to mandolin, I was surprised that the other discguns didn't get the same mechanic.

Also, I'm not a huge fan of mixmaster/orbitguns no longer avoiding wolver/mechaknight reactions. I'd personally like to see that "avoiding" mechanic come back as an intended feature, or perhaps have the return-shot damage extended to non-normal discgun lines so they keep something "unique". It goes without saying, it'd be available to craftable and non-craftable discguns (mixmaster/orbitgun, shock/fire discgun etc) so sure unique, but not unobtainable.

Again, after testing, mixmaster's charge attack is still seemingly bugged, does the same damage as regular shots.

Overall I like how mixmaster and orbitgun bullets now behave, where previously I could only break one block with one shot (only 1 disc registered hit), now i can correctly break two blocks with one shot (2 discs registered as hit).

I'd just like to see some of the same uniqueness of the mandolin carried over to the other discguns

After the recent patch that happened after the conversation on the Haven

I have unfortunate news to report: Wild Hunting Blade now has incorrect damage on its first ghost swing. (Deals roughly 1/2 less damage than its reskin's counterpart)

Demonstration Clip: https://youtu.be/-NEvSzBkke0

After the last 2 patches, the Mixer charge damage is still bugged (it deals the same damage as normal attack damage)

Demonstration Clip: https://youtu.be/ArftSCGsEnk

i believe DA could use a damage buff for the 2nd hit of its string, like 5% more of its current number. in order to compete with brandish’s and troika’s damage. also reduce the recovery time after the 2nd sword swing, right now its the exact same as troika swords.

WHB is miles better than both BTB and grand flourish right now, like damage wise, especially with the beast dmg bonus high stat, but even without it, at tier 3 with equal amounts of dmg bonuses, against fiends, it still does 30 dmg more per hit in its string compared to flourishes. and there’s 5 hits in WHB’s string. so 90 more dmg already with the first 3 hits, plus however many more with the 4th and 5 hits. with the +3 dmg bonuses, it’s more than 100 dmg difference per hit. i suggest lowering the damage bonus against beast to low to even the playing fields a little bit.

as for the ranges, it seems somewhat inconsistent for WHB. its first hit has the same range as a BTB, but from the 2nd to the last hit of the string, its effective range seems way shorter. like the slash effects would be touching the target, but it does not count as a hit. it only counts as a hit if your character ends up less than 1 tile away from the target before you swing, so basically point blank range. hopefully we can get that fixed in the next version.

Orbitgun and Mixmaster vs Mandolin
Full Breakdown https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hAHl0-rXMmUYyq7RVB1vmDusgZFU5RdLj-g…
INTRODUCTION

The Celestial Orbitgun and Overcharged Mixmaster are some of the rarest and most expensive weapons in Spiral Knights. My concern with the Preview changes is not simply that Mandolin is easier to obtain. It is that Orbitgun and Mixmaster have had much of their unique identity removed while Mandolin still retains a unique mechanic of its own.

ACQUISITION AND COST

The developers do not directly set the final player market price of these weapons, but they do control the systems that determine their scarcity and acquisition.

• Orbitgun: The Equinox Prize Box is available for only about two weeks per year with a 0.40% drop rate. The expected cost is about $893, while reaching a 95% cumulative chance would require about 748 boxes, or $2,671. Its typical market value is around 12m CR, equivalent to about $1,066 or 240 optimized FSC farming hours.
• Mixmaster: Featured Auctions only appear a few times per year, with bid starting at 5-10m CR and final prices regularly exceeding 20m CR, equivalent to about $1,777 or 400 optimized FSC farming hours.
• Mandolin: Around 1m CR on the market, or about $89 / 20 optimized FSC hours.

These prices are determined by the player economy, but the rarity and acquisition methods that create that scarcity are developer-controlled.

WHAT CHANGED

Orbitgun and Mixmaster originally had mechanics that made them distinct weapons. The Preview changes now allow their projectiles to be registered, dodged, and blocked by enemy AI, and their charge attack has lost its wall-clipping utility.

The problem is that after losing these unique effects, their main advantage over Mandolin is now essentially their Elemental damage.

Mandolin already has the same base damage they had when it was introduced, while also having its own unique return-path mechanic that adds additional damage.

DAMAGE

With the same setup, Orbitgun/Mixmaster deal 221 Elemental damage compared with Mandolin's 156 Normal outward and 174 Normal return damage.

The important point is not the exact numbers. Orbitgun and Mixmaster have about a +65 damage advantage per projectile against enemies weak to Elemental. That advantage comes with an enormous economic premium: over $1,000 in additional value for the Orbitgun/Mixmaster range compared with a roughly 1m CR Mandolin.

Against enemies resistant to Elemental, that advantage can disappear, while Mandolin's Normal damage remains consistent.

THE IDENTITY PROBLEM

This is what concerns me most about the changes. Orbitgun and Mixmaster were extremely expensive and rare weapons with mechanics that made them feel different from ordinary weapons. If their stealth and wall-clipping utility are removed, they are left primarily with higher Elemental damage in situations where Elemental is effective.

Mandolin, meanwhile, is much cheaper and still has a unique return-path mechanic.

I do not think the solution needs to be simply making Orbitgun or Mixmaster stronger than Mandolin. They should instead have something that preserves their identity and gives their extreme rarity and cost a meaningful purpose.

Possible solutions could include retaining projectile stealth, restoring charge wall-clipping, improving their return-path behavior, or giving them another distinct utility such as additional interaction with shielded enemies.

CONCLUSION

The concern is not that Mandolin is too strong or too cheap. It is that Orbitgun and Mixmaster have lost the unique characteristics that justified their identity as rare weapons, while Mandolin still has a mechanic that makes it distinct.

If the Preview changes are going to standardize how these projectiles interact with AI, Orbitgun and Mixmaster need some other unique property so that they are not reduced to extremely expensive weapons whose primary distinction is Elemental damage.

My 2 cents:

Mixmaster, Celestial Orbitgun: Happy with the changes - not a fan of unique gameplay mechanics (interaction vs shielded enemies) hidden behind a 'paywall' (theoretically f2p but c'mon). Unique advantage of elemental damage is significant and still provides big value for spenders.

Troika, Kamarin, Grintovec, Khorovod, Sudaruska, Jalovec, and Triglav: Speed increase is fine. I think it slightly loses the appeal of 'big-sword feels heavy' that it used to have. I'd rather the damage be increased across these weapons and potentially the range of the attacks also, instead of a speed increase. Currently even with the attack speed increases it does not come close to 'meta' weapons, which sort of defeat the purpose of these balance changes in my opinion.

Gran Faust: I don't think these changes address the main issue of this weapon (and Divine Avenger) - the normal attacks need a buff as they are just a worse version of Brandish currently (particularly Gran Faust with the Acheron). Increasing the base damage of the weapon or increasing the radius of its attacks would be a meaningful change.
Curse on the charge attack feels better not lasting 50s, but as others have said it is still too consistent for anyone to actually use the charge. Would need a significant reduction in frequency (5% change or so as others have suggested).

Cutter, Striker, Hunting Blade, Wild Hunting Blade, Vile Striker, Dread Venom Striker: Changes are awesome, sword feels significantly better and likely will have some meta use-cases. The attack-range could use a buff though, especially on the charge as most of the charge attack will just not connect on grouped enemies and can only be used on isolated enemies (which it's basically never worth to spend time charging for a single enemy). The secondary swings/shadow swings are also quite inconsistent due to the range issue, particularly when knocking enemies back. If this was increased these weapons would be incredible and will fit well into the meta.

TLDR; happy with the gun changes and cutter-line changes. Heavy sword changes do not feel impactful enough and seem to move away from the feeling of a heavy sword, would prefer damage and range increases on these.

For Gran Faust and Divine Avenger:

I think they'd benefit a lot more from having their Specialized Damage (Shadow and Elemental, respectively) boosted. Maybe even balance the Normal damage down and Specialized damage up for better use vs enemies that are weak to the damage. That way they aren't compared harshly to the Brandish lines. I think it's a fine start to say the least

Until now, I've been testing the Troikas (mainly Triglav) solo, and it has performed decently well. However, recently I played with 3 others across a few missions (King of Ashes, Dreams and Nightmares) on elite difficulty and have changed my mind on the current state of the weapon line.

The main issue with the swords, I think, is the knockback. In solo play this is no big deal because enemies get one-shot by the charge attack. However, in group play the enemies scatter after the charge attack blast which feels counterintuitive. It's not like the blast bombs where you have some control over where enemies get knocked into. The Troika charge attacks have a delay before the strike where enemies can move around as you attempt to land your blow, leading to enemies getting scattered to undesirable positions. An attempted solution was to time the strike around the Electron Vortex bombs, but the knockback was too strong even for the pull/shock application of those bombs.

Therefore, my suggestion is to reduce the knockback of the Troika charge attacks. I don't think the charge attack damage needs to be touched (though the basic swings could use some extra damage but I digress). This will help the Troikas complement other weapons by not knocking enemies far away from allies.

The Orbitgun and Mixmaster were reskins of something that never truly came out. People assume it's because of the greed of the production back then. We may never know.

But the identity of these two weapons are exactly that: Reskins.

A lot of the time when changes to the old discguns are mentioned, it seems people resort to arguing their extreme player-market prices should play a role in how they are balanced. I really don't think that's a good idea.
The thought of paying 800+ USD for an item in a videogame is something that should be opposed at every turn. It is madness. I feel bad for those who have paid such a price as I think it demonstrates an unhealthy fixation on the game, and irresponsible use of money.

Fixing the bugs associated with old discguns won't actually make them substantially worse from a gameplay standpoint, so I need to say I don't actually think this alone will tank their market prices all that much. However, if it does? That's good for the health of the player market.
More importantly, though, I feel the modernization of discguns is a potential step to further availability. I can't claim such a thing as a fact, of course, but I think there are reasons to suspect these guns' limited availability is partially due to the powerful bugs that have been plaguing them for years.
The discguns as we know them are probably going to remain rare, but new reskins using the stats of the old discguns (and other damage types & statuses) seem much more likely to be released now that they are working as intended.

The point being, players will probably be spared from butchering their wallet for eachother on the market in order to get meta discguns. This is good.

===Mixmaster, Orbitgun===

The changes are mostly good. I appreciated the developer taking their time to fix the game-breaking bug with Mixmaster / Orbitgun. It finally doesn't have a game-breaking advantage over other guns anymore.

My general experience when using the game is still mostly the same, besides a few adjustments, but it is not an issue and is game-intended.

===Gran Faust and Divine Avenger ===

I think what this sword needs might be more damage and a bigger area of coverage for the last basic attack swings to make it feel like a "Heavy" sword.

The reduction of self-curse and its potency is fantastic.

===Dread Venom Striker=== (and Wild hunting Blade)

Reverting the damage to round 1 is the right move. The sword now feels decent when dealing with enemies with shadow weakness. The sword can flinch strong melee mobs consistently without worrying about the flinch threshold. Tested with 4 players party this time, and it held up pretty well with an effective target. I really enjoy this weapon. This also applies to the Wild Hunting Blade and reskins.

The knockback from the basic attack could be slightly reduced, though.

===Troika===

The change is decent. The weapon feel hit harder and can hold up pretty well with party scaling.

The only change I wished to see on this weapon is charge attack animation speed. Making the slam attack wind-up faster would be a great addition.

A small request box
Next items I wish to see reworked or buffed

• Turbillion: buff its damage or add suction ability to its charged projectile
• Torto fists (gun)
• Heavy Deconstructor: Add the 5-star upgrade version with Elemental Damage.

You really went out of your way to calculate damage per USD spent. Remember weapons have no value outside of SK. If you decide to throw a thousand dollars to buy a gatekept item, that's your problem honestly.

These weapons have only been rare because there were no alternatives and their drop rate was low. Their gimmicks played a role in their prices too, but they were not intended, standardizing the way diskgun pellets work makes a lot of sense.

I think they should be a mandolin reskin just like Caladbolg is a combuster reskin with the same behavior. Problem with giving them unique perks is that you still lock mechanics behind a paywall.

Gran Faust
It should be very important QoL improvement. Self-cursed player may loose his HP, it's ok. But we need limit, HP goes down until 1 HP, after that point player will get visual effect and no real damage. 1 HP is already serious challenge, what a reason to kill player for two cursed sword swings.
Heavy swords
I'm glad to see that some of players have shared their thoughts about heavy swords weak parts of core mechanics. As you can see, it's more than damage numbers and ASI.
Cutters
Normal attacks are fine, but charge is a mess. As i said before, knockback for the backside is simple and effective imrovement, not so hard to add. Charge is very risky, knockback will protect player against attacks from behind.

Some more fixes were deployed yesterday related to an issue causing the strikers and skins to not match up. The end results are small changes to damage from the Hunting Blade, Wild Hunting Blade, Vile Striker, and Dread Venom Striker, but now all these blades and their reskins should be consistent.

Here to report that as of this latest preview patch, Wild Hunting Blade's damage is inconsistent, even compared with Dread Venom Striker.
The first swing of the Wild Hunting Blade does lower damage than the rest of the combo. The first swing of DVS does consistent damage with the rest of the combo. The finishers of each combo seem perfectly fine, though.
I've been told that the Claw Gauntlet reskins of Wild Hunting Blade do not have this inconsistency issue. I have no way of verifying this myself as I do not own the Claw Gauntlets, nor are they available for testing.

https://i.imgur.com/XlwTriV.png

I'll just start this off by saying I support the changes we have seen in the preview server regarding bringing orbit/mixer in-line with the new Mandolin mechanics. I'll highlight a few reasons why as quickly as I can, because some of us might struggle with attention spans:

- Gating "unique mechanics" behind a paywall is a big no-no. The grind to obtain these weapons outside of the paywall is unreasonable for 99% of people.

- These changes by no means make diskguns obsolete; they are still wildly powerful, just not game-dominating. Maybe it will prompt people to use weapons outside of the standard ~5 weapons we see people use today.

- The "unique mechanics" were a bug. Due to the projectile for diskguns originally "orbiting" around an actor that acted as the "bullet", the actor itself was never detected by enemies as a bullet. It's not the projectiles being "sneaky", it was a bug that originally had no clear solution at the time.

- Extremely high-value items are a gateway to RMT. Even in some of the statements against these changes, I consistently see a comparison being used with an orbit/mixer's USD equivalent, which is a little sad. I don't think its any secret to say that orbitguns and mixmasters are some of the most widely RMT'd items in the game. If this drops their value, (and eventually could prompt box reruns), that's one less headache for GM's to worry about.

- Let a "reskin" actually become a reskin. It's widely known that static/fiery diskguns could've been/were intended to be a thing in the past. Orbit/Mixer were always intended to be reskins, but our timeline got a little funky with developers leaving and the game going on life-support.

TLDR: Craftable diskguns long overdue, diskguns still good with the changes, less RMT, make a reskin a reskin

Maybe with these changes, y'all can have some extra money in your pocket and time to do other things

The current Mixmaster charge damage is bugged, it does the same damage as regular attacks. Orbitgun does not have this problem.

I'm seconding Dawnleaf regarding WHB's first swing. It does 226/69 compared to DVS dealing 226/120 against a neutral ennemy, this first swing bug also applies to weak/resistant ennemies.

I give up defending DVS. If we're nuking an entire gameplay mechanic so be it.

I do wanna add though, the Curse status right now is broken and inconsistent across several enemies:
- Lumbers take no damage from Curse inflicted by Gran Faust
- Howlitzers DO catch on Curse and take damage, being the only Undead to do so, Polyps might also be Curse-immune but I'm probably misremembering, wouldn't hurt to take a look at it though.
- Silkwings catch on Curse and take damage as well, being the only Fiend to do so.

Current WHB and DVS are absolutely perfect. High risk high reward gameplay is the way it should be. Even with 5% poison chance, it's damage compensates for it and especially so if the poison procs.

Current Troika is amazing, I will be using this a lot. Something to compete with the AoE capabilities of brandish charge has been needed for a while and for that role to go to Troika charge will be a nice change of things.

Despite the curse changes on Gran Faust, I still think it's first swing damage should not be equal to Acheron; it should be more. In fact, give sealed sword line a general damage buff so they're not always overlooked by brandish. If brandish can be mass crafted for UVs where sealed sword has to be farmed with jelly gems, it shouldn't be so obsolete.

Other than that, amazing changes! Big props to everyone who voiced their opinions, good or bad.

Looks like it's pretty much wrapped up for this round. Finals thoughts here -

Cutters - DVS back to shadow normal is great. Looks like they also got a additional dmg buff at the end when applying the changes to reskins so they are stronger then the first changes. Excited to use these

Troikas - In a good spot now, they definitely feel like a viable weapon to use now which was much needed.

Mixmasters, Orbits - good changes, sucks they came so late which upsets players but fixing them now especially with the release of f2p diskguns seemed needed

Divine Avenger/ Gran Faust - good change and fix to the charge projectile speed but it's not enough. Currently DVS does way more damage than Gran Faust per hit if you include it's first swing + follow up swing. Logically speaking and from playing other games, this shouldn't be the case where a fast swinging weapon would deal more damage than a heavy weapon. Currently using them feels like swinging a wet noodle and they are in need of desperate buffs. While I appreciate the buffs to cutters this just makes DA/GF feel further behind. TLDR: Heavy slow weapon should feel like it does heavy damage

Thanks again for listening to our feedback and looking forward to seeing what's next.

Looks like it's pretty much wrapped up for this round. Finals thoughts here -

Cutters - DVS back to shadow normal is great. Looks like they also got a additional dmg buff at the end when applying the changes to reskins so they are stronger then the first changes. Excited to use these

Troikas - In a good spot now, they definitely feel like a viable weapon to use now which was much needed.

Mixmasters, Orbits - good changes, sucks they came so late which upsets players but fixing them now especially with the release of f2p diskguns seemed needed

Divine Avenger/ Gran Faust - good change and fix to the charge projectile speed but it's not enough. Currently DVS does way more damage than Gran Faust per hit if you include it's first swing + follow up swing. Logically speaking and from playing other games, this shouldn't be the case where a fast swinging weapon would deal more damage than a heavy weapon. Currently using them feels like swinging a wet noodle and they are in need of desperate buffs. While I appreciate the buffs to cutters this just makes DA/GF feel further behind. TLDR: Heavy slow weapon should feel like it does heavy damage

Thanks again for listening to our feedback and looking forward to seeing what's next.

+1 to everything Rex said. Mixer and Orbit should either keep their unique mechanics or have the bonus damage on return added. The Schadenfreude from people wanting to see Mixer and Orbit owners angry is absurd. Mixer and Orbit owners are disproportionally the people that kept SK alive, through whaling and grinding, for the last 10 years while GH did little.

Other weapon changes are all good minus the bugs. Glad to see DVS is where it should be.

I dont own neither, but i think making changes to items costing as much as they do after over 10 years is not smart and unfair for people who either spent hundreds of hours grinding or spent a ton of money to own one. I agree with all of what rex said and think they should remain how they have been.

.

I'm very happy the changes went through regarding the modernized discgun projectiles. I don't want to see anyone angry, I just want the game to be fair and working as intended. In the end, the classic discguns got a new special benefit in exchange for it.
It's sad to see a comment like Carbon-Jm speaking of the devs in this way and presenting whaling as if it's the way to go. We need a game that is welcoming to newer players, too, who would feel positively about spending money of their own to support the game. I also think the previously-mentioned risk of RMT for these old & rare weapons is worth considering as it is a circumstance that wouldn't benefit GH- which is to say, sometimes "whaling" and expensive items don't even do any good for the game.

I think the game will be healthier moving forward. I've been very happy with what GH has been working on in recent times, and I saw it as plenty reason to purchase some energy lately. Looking forward to more!

@Carbon-Jm

It does suck when something you bought changes how it operates later down the line, but at least you got to experience the 'Early Access' glitched version of the gun for years. That's what you paid for, and now it's over.

Your status as a whale means nothing, that's all on you. You didn't "save the game."

The loophole you got used to has been fixed. Just move on.

.

either that or hatchets were also buffed...? regardless, they are still 10-15% slower than gf/da.

t3 gf/da (neutral): 361+470=831
t3 triglav/suda: 382+457=839

hammers intriguingly actually have the fastest 2-swing with shield cancel, despite the displayed speed stat being the same as troikas.

https://youtu.be/yeHi-LQJ_Ug

BTW just asking

If you're going to buff the Troika and Cutter lines shouldn't the Hatchet, Heavy Hatchet, Thwack Hammer, and Red Saber also receive an equivalent buff?