I know with the new build coming this may all be irrelevant, but I figured I’d stop putting it off.
I’m kind of down on armor. I realize that for the game to end, damage has to happen, but at present it’s only possible to build a tank with HP (including shields) Armor wise, if I sacrifice both precious shoulders and half my dps for a deflector, I’m still way below many weapon’s unit of damage, and only cover one of five damage types.
Somewhat paradoxically, I’m down on regular damage. I mentally subtract 10 from it’s rated dps, any servo that isn’t doing something specialized has about 10 regular armor. Modifiying DPS isn’t accurate of course - the story can be much worse for pistols since they get a lot from fire rate. I want to be able to see the unit of damage in weapon stats. Range would be nice too.
I’m sure this is an artifact of the current part selection, but the damage types feel really lifeless. Every weapon class has every damage type, and often I don’t know what is coming at me. Yes, in moments of quiet I’ve seen the laser colors and contact effects, but I never notice them in the heat of battle. I’m really hoping that with the full part selection, heat damage will only appear on flamethrowers and other weapons that are obviously causing damage by making the target hot. I’d expect a hot fist or sword to do some regular and some heat damage - the smaller numbers on each leave more room for armor, while two types make it harder to block completely. Having damage types only appear on certain weapon classes would make it easier to see what is coming, and make your choices of weapon types more significant.
Beam fists can be fun, but can also get micro intensive. I tried building a league of magicians once; with 5+ abilities on every servo I rarely had attention to use the fists, so they mostly ended up as subpar weapons. The effects (proc on demand, plus others) are interesting, though it’s often hard to justify the weak weapons - in that sense they may be well balanced. Still the reality based logical side of me wants to have a beam fist holding a weapon. Wouldn’t work UI wise, except for the rifle, and probably not work balance wise.
Maybe make beam heads? Limited to one per servo, and does something interesting with heads. Heads work okay - it’s a simple sideshow, with only one choice in most situations. Bodies seem like they should be a lot more significant - the core piece of the servo that suggests a basic strategy. Legs are showing a bit more variation, although I still want them to be primary source of speed (perhaps with armor-like small variations)
Some parts feel weird - how do sharp legs affect my weapons? Why does strapping a giant box to the back affect range or crit chance? Perhaps the parts will change once more art comes online?
Juggernauts are especially raw, but it seems odd that the giant hulking war machines have some of the weakest weapons (at least in ranged) Of course I’m going off of AI; I tired an offline profile and got the base parts, but at lv 5 have yet to pop a single juggernaut part, so still only have one lackluster arm. I’d expect juggernauts to have the best damage, while the loaders are faster and tricksier for raiding, engineering, and support.
Though the biggest thing bothering me on a regular basis is part filtering/sorting.
