#zyn's feedback (Leveraging game mechanics, design)

59 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

pearl marsh
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Hi,

I'll keep it short: this is what I've done for a living. I'll throw in things I've encountered or glanced at.

Jokers

Weakspot Refund:

Even with perfect weakspot accuracy the ammo restoration is a fraction of what Ammo Supply gives, but uses the same amount of joker slots. I would rather pick 3x glow to reduce friendly fire incidents.

Suggestion: Gray joker it with 50% chance, or a rework to 50% chance to add ammo back into the magazine upon weakspot hits -- kind of like an alternative version of Leveredge's unique joker. Rework in this manner would allow for more build variety and create new niches.

Battlemage

Scales incredibly hard on higher difficulty levels, especially when coupled with Wisp. At minimum feels like it should be legendary tier; perhaps a numbers nerf is well justified on a per difficulty level basis.

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Movement perks, all of them

Speed is too good and powerful in general. With high enough movement speed, and some skill, you have to force yourself into bad situations to keep things interesting. There's practically no trade-off; better positioning allows more damage than what more damage perks would've allowed for, while also keeping you more safe.

Suggestion: This is a tough one because I love the sense of speed so much, but realistically high speed just trivializes the game. Lock the speed more behind impulses, Boing, and bunnyhopping (dashing upon the first frames of hitting ground that lets you build more speed), reduce the overall general movement speed. Make high speed more intentional, requiring inputs, instead of just being fast through clicking a joker in the menus.

Speedster

Worst offender in terms of how much power level is granted for 5 slots in a gun. Movement speed is already king for safety, convenience, and even for power.

Suggestion: Speedster should be the inverse of Camper; apply a damage bonus from the character's current velocity. But even then, reduce the current DPS increase by half. Make the "full power" apply on weakspot hits, which promotes cool and difficult mastery gameplay.

Ricochet

Very powerful joker, among the best. It fully scales with all other damage perks and boosts, but also clears trash in boss fights. How about adding a skill component to it as an indirect nerf; keep ricochet on weakspot hits around 30-35% chance, and reduce non-weakspot chances to 25%?

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Weapons, spells

Wisp

Incredibly powerful with electricity to the point of just clearing everything by itself. Really cool spell, but power level is absurd. But it's so cool that nerfing too much or removing it just feels bad.

Suggestion: Lock it behind Pyro Mastery. The masteries are pretty lame and bland as is. Make wizard builds more intentional, promoting more build diversity. Identify which other spell schools lack an equally powerful spell, boost a candidate, and make them a similar "Mastery spell". Or just create new more powerful ones if the current one's don't fit, or are good as they are.

Dual revolvers

Feels kind of bad to use. Too much spread, no ADS option or function on "Aim". Only the late jokers make them have a real different type of function. Also has a massive amount of upgrade slots for some reason? I suppose it's fine or even good as a bosskiller, but it's boring.

Bow

Suggestion: Add more of an arc to the projectile for a more bow-like feeling. Not only would this add a bit of skill mastery, but it would also make lobbing big bombs to the middle of mob packs more accessible (and even more importantly make it more satisfying).

Quad Cylinder

Perfect accuracy joker is decent. Does every unique joker have to be 5 slots? Even though the perk is an alright option, it doesn't feel worth it. Accuracy through volume of fire (that also works for the homing bullets, which is very much worth it -- it's simply a great damage perk) seems so much better compared to costs.

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Leveredge

No notes, just spot-on amazing design. Simply wanted to highlight how good it is.

Boomerang

Huge amount of downtime. You can currently double boomerang by picking up ammo, but I don't feel like it's intentional. Yet that's usually the only time boomerang feels fun and cool to use.

Suggestion: Leverage the unintentional mechanic and make double boomerangs into a new unique joker.

Sheriff Star

Very mixed bag with how the weapon feels currently. I think I get what it's trying to go for, but I'm not buying it.

Suggestion: Lean into the ninja movement more. Have the jump perk also increase the window for "bunnying" -- make the inertia fall off half as slow as normally upon landing while Sheriff Star is equipped, to make for easier timing on dash impulse. This in turn allows it to build up stupid amounts of speed. Make it truly the skilled ninja weapon it seems to strive for, make it intentional. (It would also combine in a funny way with the Speedster rework suggestion for some ridiculously high damage hits -- perhaps even built-in into the weapon or the bunny/jumping perk).

Fragments

Add some weapon XP gain to the fragments of a weapon you have already acquired. Leveling some of the base weapons is painful due to the unique jokers being so transformative, and how that transformation is tied into their role. 200-400 xp wouldn't be an overwhelming amount, but at least it'd be something to be slightly excited about.

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Thanks! I might post the other stuff I had in mind later.

sharp briar
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Good suggestions overall

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I think instead of nerfing speed (too much, at least), they should add more enemies

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If you compare the spawn pool with a game like DRG or Vermintide, there are practically only grunts, and four enemies (Snipers, Horsemen and lich birds)
This is a very small pool with excellent space for potential, if drg was only grunts with the occasional oppressor, it would be just as trivial

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All in all, I feel like it's purely an early-release problem that will fade away by itself

pearl marsh
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zyn's Suggestions within the game's spirit

pearl marsh
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zyn's feedback (and suggestions within the game's spirit)

pearl marsh
# sharp briar I think instead of nerfing speed (too much, at least), they should add more enem...

fundamentally the game design in FFW has very open spaces. DRG doesn't have them, and space is the limiting factor constraining speed -- and even then the velocity is significantly less than what you get in FFW for the most part. Vermintide has the exact same issue with speed where it trivializes things, and that is even when the game is extremely melee focused. those are not good examples of how speed isn't the issue, and how mob variety or amount is. instead, they support the point I made

the issue is literally the generic movement speed that you're afforded with very low cost. you can't mob design your way out of the bag with this one. if there's one or two special types that specifically punish you for speed it'll just feel bad. nor will altering horde behaviour change the underlying fundamental

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if the speed is developed through impulse management and gravity manipulation on cooldowns, then there's plenty of costs to the speed. it isn't as prevalent and easy to keep up. it becomes skill expression instead, which is fine. if you're able to hit flying snipers while maintaining sense of geometry and timing with impulses without messing any of it up, then go for it by all means. but being able to dodge the vast majority of the dangers and difficulty the game throws at you by just simply pressing strafe is far less engaging

sharp briar
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mmmm

pearl marsh
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zyn's feedback (Leveraging game mechanics, design)

pearl marsh
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just bumping it once for visibility and then leaving it. Discord is what it is, and this method for collecting feedback falls prey to it

hexed ocean
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i think reducing the potency of movement is the wrong direction, wouldn’t it be better to continue introducing threats that aren’t completely ignored by hopping around? deadeyes fill this role to some extent, but i think something that can punish you for being in the air at the wrong time would solve this issue handily

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even just a variant lich whose pulse is at its head instead of the floor would solve that

hexed ocean
pearl marsh
# hexed ocean i think reducing the potency of movement is the wrong direction, wouldn’t it be ...

the goal wasn't to reduce the potency of movement (or velocity) per se. it is to add to a system of intentional build-up of velocity through mechanics, skill, and resource allocation. it is cool to zip fast, it's even cooler when there's skill involved (Quake, Tribes) -- and FFW has enough systems to make it so

I don't feel like punishing is the way to go here, unless it's not directly related to velocity. something that's harder to handle when getting isolated from team? sure, fine, likely a good direction to take it anyway

hexed ocean
sharp briar
hexed ocean
pearl marsh
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a particular rare mob that would punish for high velocity is incredibly difficult to come up with where it wouldn't feel very bad. you're attacking directly the thing that players get enjoyment out of and feel good about the game. if it's necessary for the game health, then sure, but I'd argue it isn't and that there's a far better way -- just tune the mechanics in a way where the bunnyhopping is gated behind way longer continuous chain of actions

hexed ocean
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not punish for high velocity, punish for being in the air without thought

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same way deadeyes punish for running around without killing things

pearl marsh
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any error or obstacle on the way to that build-up will 'naturally' solve it for the most part when the baseline movement speed isn't insanely high to begin with (and it is insanely high right now if you joker for it)

hexed ocean
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i follow what youre saying but considering that most casual players aren’t even heavily interacting with the existing momentum gain of dash hopping

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i doubt that a full momentum rework of everything requiring buildup would go over well

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it would be fun for sure though

pearl marsh
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it's a complex thing, and I'm not denying it. I think it will soon be (if it already isn't) apparent though that the blazing fast speeds you can get in the game also trivialize it. my thought about FFW is that it's a horde shooter at its core, with tense moments here and there. when you can sidestep the whole horde aspect for it and make the tense moments kind of trivial by a few jokers and holding down a key to move it without digging at the fundamental aspect of the game

if there's other solves for it I'm all for it. my idea was mainly about allowing for what people enjoy about the Tribes-like speed, but at least at some cost. I would hate to see the speed part go completely away, but there's quite a bit of a dissonance between a horde shooter and fast movement where the horde is never a real threat

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a mechanic where, if you do want to be a speedy zippy (cow)boi, it's practically a requirement to keep the speed up in order to dish out the DPS is where I'm imagining would be a good solution. it's easy enough to mess up a bit here or there, or leave your teammates hanging a bit too much. during slow phases the DPS would drop significantly compared to a more 'regular' setup. all of it will require balancing passes of course though

atomic meadow
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I like the idea of Speedster being tied to current velocity a lot. It's currently a definite DPS freebie

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Dual revolvers shine by maxing acc and lifesteal. They become a decently potent self-heal

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I adore your ideas promoting weakspot hits to achieve maximum DPS potential. Aim-based optimization is 😍

atomic meadow
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"I think it will soon be (if it already isn't) apparent though that the blazing fast speeds you can get in the game also trivialize it" Sure doesn't seem like it from a lot of the posts here in Feedback... 😬

spark sable
pearl marsh
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I mean it kind of makes sense, but how would you communicate it through the UI? surely a "clip" upgrade would cost more than one point, because it's essentially doubling the DPS of the boomerang to begin with. do you just have multiple pips doing nothing until X are filled, or does one (large) pip just cost extra?

I think this comes down to the fact that as a weapon upgrade point it would be way too powerful, and doesn't speak the same language as rest of the upgrades in the game. as an expensive joker it's more in line with what other weapons offer

placid sphinx
# pearl marsh the goal wasn't to reduce the potency of movement (or velocity) per se. it is to...

Adding skill to movement I can understand but specifically Bhopping is something that always turns me away from games I absolutely despise whent he best way to move around is to constantly do frame perfect inputs while handling everything else, IMO all making bhopping mandatory for speed would do is create a huge gap between no lifers and casual players who either dont want to bhop perfectly or dont want to practice bhopping perfectly, im sure not everyone feels the same and lots of people like it cus its what everyone is used to from other movement games, but this games movement is my favorite by far in similar games specifically because the movement isnt dependent on a small tech like bhopping and im sure im not alone cus my friends all feel the same

pearl marsh
placid sphinx
# pearl marsh well how do you move around now?

i constantly dash into jumps which i can see youre just going to say is bhopping but thats not at all what my point it was that jumping while moving is fun but adding specific tight timings to it would do nothing but detract from its fun, IMO if the devs want to add movement skill they should expand on the dash system cus its super unique or look to something like warframe

pearl marsh
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if you dash into jumps then nothing is going away

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quite the opposite, my suggestion was to increase the window of doing successful bunnyhops through various ways to make it more accessible. for people who are already good enough to do it right now there's no need to grab any extras

I'm not sure where the seeming opposition to this is coming from, because nothing you've mentioned so far would change

placid sphinx
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I also just don't think anybody would really like movement speed being nerfed, cus players just have more fun when theyre moving at higher speeds, nerfing strafe speed, which is what would happen would just increase the contrast between when youre traversing the map and when youre trying to shoot (unless youre a god at using dash jumps while aiming) and that wouldnt feel good

pearl marsh
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doesn't matter how the disparity between monster and player speed is solved, but it of course wouldn't make sense to make the baseline speed of monsters so high that movement perks are de facto mandatory to evade anything

for traversal the mount exists and could just get an additional boost. it just doesn't seem like it exists now, because the +30% movement speed perk foregoes it and movement is king

subtle dome
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holy moly

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im not trynna be rude but you missed on at least half of these IMO

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Leveredge
No notes, just spot-on amazing design. Simply wanted to highlight how good it is.

Might be the worst take here. Almost makes me think its bait 😭. Lever is currently stuck in an identity crisis between a decent mobbing and single target damage, with at least one (for me both) of its uniques being subpar at best.

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Movement perks, all of them
Speed is too good and powerful in general. With high enough movement speed, and some skill, you have to force yourself into bad situations to keep things interesting. There's practically no trade-off; better positioning allows more damage than what more damage perks would've allowed for, while also keeping you more safe.

Suggestion: This is a tough one because I love the sense of speed so much, but realistically high speed just trivializes the game. Lock the speed more behind impulses, Boing, and bunnyhopping (dashing upon the first frames of hitting ground that lets you build more speed), reduce the overall general movement speed. Make high speed more intentional, requiring inputs, instead of just being fast through clicking a joker in the menus

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I think this would be one of the worst balancing mistakes they could make. I’ll 100% agree that mobility is very strong and the best build type right now, but thats also because most jokers focus on movement. As we are in early access, more jokers will be added and I’d rather they work towards making other playstyles bettee than nerfing the good one atm.

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I don’t want to bring in another game when talking about the balance of this one, but we’ve seen the end result of game devs nerfing anything whenever the player base discovers an effective strategy.

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cough hd2

pearl marsh
subtle dome
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Seems to me you do not understand, based off of the fact you haven’t given an actual argument as to why nerfing everything would result in a better player experience.

pearl marsh
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you must understand that it's a game, and there's a company behind it making a game. whoever is their guy with a vision and the excel sheets for balance passes has an idea where the balance should lie at. if you'd do actually something as silly as only buff things you increase the workload by 100x. suddenly instead of nerfing an outlier mechanic (which can be a simple oversight in itself), you'll have to touch 20 other weapons, and then buff the monsters too to get to the intended game experience -- and for what? everything is at their respective relative power level regardless

the only reason to do it in such a convoluted manner (which would have side effects and more work, while throwing spells out of balance too and fixing them) would be to protect some kids on the internet that think "nerfing is bad, buff everything" and it would upset them

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it's a low tier poorly formulated argument to begin with, and it's not worth spending any time or effort engaging with it. but there it is