We chat about videogames and videogame accessories.

oh jeez more people here play spiral than i thought

I like the (updated) quest system that just lets you start mini-missions from a menu. That's nice and streamlined. I don't like how even though I am T3 I am forced to slog through all of the newbie quests to gain access to quests and locations that are gear-appropriate. Also, neither the rank nor prestige missions actually tell you how tough the monsters are (and thus give you an idea of the general level of monetary reward), which is unexplainably stupid considering how central money is to advancement in this game.

Well, the rank missions do go in order from newbie missions to endgame, so there's that... Also, you can always check the gate map and see how far down in the clockworks the levels are, as well as specifically what type of levels you're going into (fire fiends, ice slimes, arena, etc.)
Also I'm pretty sure the prestige missions get harder as your rank goes up. I'm a vanguard now and any prestige mission I start begins at level 24 or so.

Oh, sorry. Hold on here's some helpful pictures:



So there's this main menu button down in the bottom left corner, and when you're in a level, you can find the Gate Map option in it. Click that, and this pops up!



A little window with the map of all the levels in the clockworks set you're going through. For missions, this map will only be a few levels long, and you might have to scroll all the way down to see the ones at the bottom of the clockworks. So yeah, there's a sort of guide to what levels you'll be going through, in which order you'll be going to them and what the levels may contain. I trust you already know how to tell what the level will be by it's level icon, though?

Also seriously

what are claptrap's tells

His robot (lack of) face is a mystery to me.

Eyebrow. He can also slump forward if his dealt hand is bad enough.

psst
I said this already, but I've actually done it before so I can say definitively that all Prestige missions have their levels based entirely on your equipment

it's basically like this:

anything below 3* is T1 by default
anything up to having about 3 5* pieces of equipment on is T2
anything past 3 pieces of 5* is T3

For example, you can't be in T1 with anything higher than 1* gear if you have more than 1 5* weapon equipped, and having a single piece of 5* gear automatically puts you into the T2 range.

however, the Mission level is based SOLELY on the party leader's equipment levels, and WILL NOT CHANGE if they switch their equipment before a mission. a common tactic for event missions is to get either a low level player or a high level player with low level gear to make a mission that is T1, then invite higher leveled players in, and change your armor before exiting the lift (if possible)

You'd think they'd give you a key shortcut to the map in a dungeon crawling game. But that's only in the actual level, I mean before you even accept the quest. It'd be nice to know how many floors a quest is before I commit.

you can do it in the preparation room of a mission

but otherwise, no, you can't. at all.

Yeah, and you don't spend any energy in the prep room of a mission and you can easily leave it, so I don't think that counts as committing.

Still, I know what you mean.

entering a lobby just to look is pretty silly

loading screens: sega's seal of approval

Yeah. I went into a mission with 20 energy and it was three floors. Made me sad.

OOO is just plain dumb about game design honestly.

for example, the new UI. not a fan. all the buttons got moved to weird places, they changed half the keyboard shortcuts, you have to open your inventory to check the energy counter now...

etc etc

The gameplay is in general pretty fun for a dungeon crawler, the art style is cute, it's just that progression and actual interface designs are made terribly. Thanks OOO

I would literally play SK as much as Dark Souls if I didn't have to essentially pay a subscription fee of $10 + w/e 800 ce is in USD a month to get anything significant done (Elevator pass + 2 wep slots + 2 trinket slots)

Actually that brings up a Thing

Trinkets are, for the most part, 10000000% useless

the only good ones, like some of the best weapon recipes in the game, force you to play the stupid pvp games. However you have to craft the damn things too from either 2* to 5* or 4* to 5* so it takes a good deal of mats. but the power differences are immense

pentaheart trinkets give you 5 extra life bars per equipped for up to 10 free extra life, plus 5* armor HP bonus plus vitapods. Its almost unfair really...

actually probably the main reason I still even consider/plan on going back to SK is that I have a ssssliiiiightly unhealthy obsession with owning every weapon and armor in the game that I think looks cool because it weelll.. looks... cool... don't judge me I've played games for less
granted they were flash games

So Ragnarok 2 finally came out. I'm glad the style changed a lot since it used to look like Rose Online.
Which was a bad thing. Now instead of everything looking like Harvest Moon: Magical Melody (The one with six year olds having children, and wii controls. Sickening.) and instead everything is just Totes Anime.
Character customization is anime. There are 9 anime faces, 14 varients of anime eye (including cat, Kitan, yandere), and the rest you'd expect from an rpg with anime. Spiky hair and rainbow coloured eyes. But then there were porings.

God I love those little pink blobs.
But the game has terrible frames per second, the other players just stack all over your quest givers and enemies and you no longer start of as a generic novice and have to pick a class. And a job.

I'm walking around in a girly pink and white chef costume. And I'm sold.

uhhhhhh

what? SF that's false, because I can instantly bring my shield up fast enough to block most attacks - hell, with how slow some of the tells are I can usually do it before they finish the wind up...
maybe you're just lagging?

but yes this game is a lot of kiting because more often than not, shielding doesn't really save you from that much damage. Shields are better used for the many forms of cancels, shield bumping, and last second defense.

additionally, with how effin slow you move while shielded, staying shielded is usually MORE dangerous. Personally I find it better to treat the game like a bullet hell and the shield like the focus button...

btw, about the "equipment determines your tier" thing - I'll use that earlier inspect image of super's character as an example whiiich actually indicates I'm wrong by a little bit.

see that pair of bars at the bottom that say "PvE" and "PvP"? those indicate how "strong" the game considers your current equipment. In SF's case, full 4* is considered "entry level T3" so all missions would start near the first few floors of T3 (depth 21 or so). For me, with full 5*, it considers me to be high-end T3, so it puts me at Depth 24 minimum; but if I put on proto armor, it would put me in T1 missions... unless I had a 5* weapon which would probably kick me up to low-end T2.
this only applies to Prestige missions tho. actual Story missions have the floors pretedetermined. :/
also by the end they give you the recipes for all the parts of the Azure line and base weapons up to 5* for free...which is a shame because the armor and weapons, while cool, aren't the best... except Nitronome because that's da bomb (get it?)

Are you on the web or Steam version? I find that latency issues go down somewhat on Steam.

yeah no that's massive latency issues. Ive had them in the past, so I can tell you those are all symptoms of major lag.

considering most tells last a lot longer than half a second, it's still sufficient imo. the hitboxes can be pretty huge bullshit sometimes, but its usually a latency problem, as I've discovered in the past. Greavers - those moth things - are the worst offenders, because their hitbox is seemingly designed to be dubious: despite how the animation looks, it actually reaches about three steps ahead of their model. for wolvers, the yellow teeth animation actually extends their range by a bit...
actually in general, lunging attacks of any kind - including those of the player - have a longer range than they appear to. the florish and thorn blade lines actually reach a bit farther than they appear to with their lunging attacks.

personally I've never had crashing issues; my lag is solely from my internet connection.

At this rate I say we stop polluting Gamechat and just make a seperate Spiral Knights thread. Make it a community hub or something. Actually hell, I'll make it right now.

firstly, that's not true if you have a 5* shield, Super. yeah you can't take a direct hit from a trojan, but that applies to ALL shields... my grey owlite has no shadow defense, but it can still block about five hits from slags (lava skeletons, they do shadow damage) in Firestorm Citadel.

second, SK thread is up, so let's take this stuff outra gamechat so people who don't care don't get swamped in SK.

For some reason I can only ever read SK as Skeleton King (and I can only ever read the word Skeleton King in Skeleton King's voice) and then I get disappointed that you aren't talking about the king of skeletons

DOTA has TMFA amirite

They could also have been talking about Sand King but Skeleton King is far more charismatic

I randomed Skelly King the other day and i found the best community guide/build ever, i wish i could remember the name but it's one of the top ones, check it out next time you play him. One of the suggestions was to quote Schwarzenegger over the mic every time you reincarnate.

I can't stop laughin abou t the fact that it sounds literally exactly like one of those dumb infomercials o r cooking shows

I haven't played anything by Double Fine but every time i see Tim talking i feel like i really want to play their games. I think i'm gonna get that bundle.

E: Should i bother getting Brutal Legend?

I liked it, but others didn't? I say get it and feel good about having given extra money to charity either way

I haven’t played it, but what I’ve heard that it’s mediocre-to-okay at what it is, and most of the bad press came in because the marketing basically completely buried any indication there were those... awesome RTS mechanics <pained, unconvincing laughter>.

Man, i dunno, i like heavy metal imagery and all but it looks pretty dull. Charity is cool too but i'm also poor so i think i'll pass.

well let's keep in mind it's also Double fine's first "not an adventure"