4-player nightmare is a completely different beast compared to 1-player nightmare, especially during extraction. I'd like to challenge that but as a solo player. Also, higher spawn rate + higher health pool makes farming weapons XP more efficient
I commonly find myself in an awkward situation where after I equip 3 Legendary/Unique jokers on my weapon with 1 joker slot left, there is no Normal joker suitable for my build. Swift Shot (+10% ADS fire rate) is probably the only combat-oriented one but it doesn't fit my play style and there's no variety. Then I realized that there are actually fewer Normal jokers than Fine jokers. It would be better if we have more Normal jokers.
For ideas, we can have Normal jokers that are just a weaker version of the rarer counterpart:
I've spent quite some time on all five main weapons, levelling them up to Prestige II - V. And I feel like Leveredge, the bolt-action marksman rifle, is getting outclassed by others.
Crowd Control: Let's be honest, Leveredge is the least efficient main to kill small enemies. Its bullets do not pierce, so it's one kill per shot at best; the per-shot damage is too high for smalls so the potential DPS is far from realized. The round-reload makes it not ideal for CC; the only other round-reload main, Shotgun, actually reloads faster than Leveredge and kills multiple per shot. Stacked Lever mitigates this, but you're spending 5 joker slots just to get it on par with ... the base Minigun! Alternatively, you can spend 3/6 joker slots on Reload Mastery, but Long Ranger needs only 4 mag upgrade slots reaches the same 10-round-mag and reloads faster.
Heavy Enemies Control: Bulls, Deadeye, and Lich. Leveredge does have high single-shot damage, but it's not high enough to one-shot Bulls and Deadeye even with Crit hits, not without Glass Cannon. (Eagle Lever isn't always reliable.) Long Ranger, on the other hand, can easily one-shot Deadeyes with body hits, and Bulls with crit hits. That leaves the Lich. Here Leveredge out-DPS Long Ranger, but still loses to the Shotgun which simply shreds the Lich at close range.
Boss Fight: This sounds like something Leveredge should be good at, especially with Eagle Lever, but it really is not - again, being crippled by round-reloading. And Stacked Lever can't help here. While active shooting, Leveredge DPS may be better than Quad Cylinder, but the latter is much faster to reload, resulting higher sustaining DPS. And, let's be honest, Minigun and Shotgun do a much better job at melting bosses.
In short, the current (0.1.1.18) Leveredge is in a really awkward position; it's a worse Long Ranger in many ways and best at nothing.
I propose the following buffs to Leveredge:
Just had an incredibly frustrating run, ended by being hit during the diving stage of Thunderstrike.
I was low HP, and had my "Ultimate" ready, so I used it to get in the air and out of a bad situation. Looking at swarms of enemies below. Release! Let's go!! Had Thunderstrike landed, I would have cleared an entire hoard and gained HP (Life Pact) and cool down (Battlemage). It would be my dopamine rush.
But the game decided otherwise. It was either a slinger shot or bomber that hit / damaged me as I was diving, mid air. Just enough to kill me. Round end.
This is incredibly frustrating. As a long time Thunderstrike user, I've always known that I'm not invincible while hovering in the air, which is fair. But I think the diving stage should be invincible. Player can't do anything while diving. The diving stage is very short too, so this spell won't be broken.
Also, I've had times where immediately after Thunderstrike lands, I got bit by the snake. This doesn't make sense since the impact would have killed the snake; the only explanation is that, the snake jumped on me before I land, and survived the impact (maybe because it's not considered in the environment?). So I suggest making the diving stage immune to snake bites too.
Warning: opinionated piece ahead
Joker sharing, as well as friendly fire, has been under a lot of discussion lately. There have been advocates to make jokers client-side (i.e., every player can get a copy), and to remove friendly fire. The developer is set to change how joker instancing works in the next update so that:
> Players individually see their own jokers, and no other player can loot them.
Of course, it comes some balancing changes:
> The joker droprate from enemies now scales based on the number of players: from x1 when playing solo, down to x0.5 in a group of 4.
As of writing, the developer hasn't announced any changes to friendly fire.
Let's me start with Joker sharing. Why do people want to hoard jokers in the first place? Needless to say, jokers with pure upsides make you strictly better off, but would you actively hunt for them and take as many as you can? I can't speak for everyone, but I'll admit it with no shame that I used to be such an active joker hoarder, for a very specific reason: Joker Dealer. In the demo version, it was +2 max HP per active joker; and in the playtest 2, it was +3. This single joker largely negated the downside of a few powerful jokers such as Glass Cannon, West Wizard, and Life Pact. I would drop in with low HP, with the hope of grabbing some jokers, otherwise I couldn't survive long. I would collect even the useless jokers just for more max HP in-game. And obviously I wasn't the only one doing it; the multiplayer scene back then was like everyone making rubber duck sound while walking and shooting out pigs!
This scene - everyone rushing for the white jokers - is now gone, due to the current Joker Dealer awarding only +1 max HP per joker. It just doesn't justify 4 valuable hero joker slots for what it provides. Better yet, there's an alternative: Cheapskate, which gives +1 max HP for every 20 gold in mission inventory. I think this is a great addition to the game. Mission gold is shared, so Cheapskate runners work with each other (and the team!) - as opposed to against in the Joker Dealer case.
Another joker has entered the scene: Speedster, which increases damage and fire rate the faster you are. This makes jokers that award movement speed highly desirable to people who run this build. But it has a cap at 90% move speed buff (which I really wish is in the description), and it is not as ubiquitous as the OG Joker Dealer, so this is a lesser problem.
But I digress. The point I'm trying to make is: to solve the joker hoarding problem, we need to understand why people do it in the first place. Is it because they need it (as in the low hp + Joker Dealer case), or because they want it (to feel more powerful), or in the worst case, grief - prevent others getting it? The solution space doesn't have to be confined in changing how joker instancing works; sometimes, it is solved by tweaking existing jokers or adding new ones!
I've been playing a lot of multiplayer since Early Access, both in the public and with friends, and I have never run into a problem with joker sharing. With friends, I would let then know when I see a joker that benefits their build and not mine (e.g., specific type of spell CD reduction), and they'd do the same for me. With jokers we all want, well we take turns :) With public, there's little communication, but people naturally take what want, and more importantly, leave what they don't want.
And that's it. I believe a better solution to the joker hoarding problem is: increase the variety of builds. This way, it becomes less likely that everyone fights for the same joker.
The current shared joker system isn't perfect, but it isn't too bad either. On the other hand, friendly fire seems to be a pure negative, right?
Well, just as the shared joker system, friendly fire offers one thing that is integral to co-op multiplayer experience: presence of others. Other players' action have consequences to the map (joker taken away, enemies taken down, POIs cleared), and to you (revive, friendly fire, collision). You can interact with them. You feel like there are here. You feel like a team. The more ways you can interact with other players, the more immersion. Removing friendly fire takes away one interaction, which hurts this aspect. Some friendly fire were frustrated, sure, but some others are accidents that make a good laugh. All of this contributes to engaging co-op experience. I do, however, agree that the current friendly fire damage is a bit too much, especially compared to player's HP pool. The friendly fire rate needs to be lower, but friendly fire itself should be kept in the game.
On the ability to interact with players, I propose an addition to the game: The ability to drop mission jokers on the ground. Sometimes I pick up a joker by accident, and sometimes another player really want it but I didn't know. Other times, I can bring 4 jokers from far away back to the team and share the extras. This may even give rise to joker trading.
Thanks for reading.
The Destroyer joker, applicable to all guns (all Main weapons, Revolver, and Dual Revolver), is a Prime joker that works as follows:
> The first 25% of your clip deals +15% damage
It is not bad; if you see it on the floor mid-game, sure it's nice to pick up. But it is not something you want to spend 3 slots on as your build. The overall DPS improvement is a mere 3.75% (25% * 15%), given you unload an entire clip. In contrast, Lucky Strike of the same rarity provides +10% damage increase on average, regardless of playstyle.
And that's another issue with Destroyer; maximizing this Joker requires early reload, which works against other jokers such as Reload Mastery and Consumer. It is probably only best on Minigun; even then, it incentivizes picking up ammo bags to keep your ammo at 75%+. Too much effort for too little award.
One more thing: "The first 25% of your clip" is rounded down. For example, with 7 rounds in the sniper clip, only the 1st round has the +15% damage.
The old (Playtest 2) Destroyer joker, on the other hand, worked as follows (not exact wording):
> Grants +30% weapon damage, but each shot consumes 2 rounds of ammo
This is a very fun design. It sacrifices ammo efficiency for DPS, and it actually can work well with all guns and all playstyles, not just Minigun. It incentivizes good aim, as opposed to mechanically reloading early. And it has great synergy with Reload Mastery and Consumer.
I can understand why it was changed: the OG Camper, which is infinite ammo when standing still. It completely negates the downside of Destroyer. Pairing OG Camper with OG Destroyer literally destroys everything. But now that Camper is no longer available in shop, and it is nerfed to only 50% chance to not spend ammo, I think bringing the old Destroyer back won't break the game.
So I was trying to figure out how Speedster works because the game doesn't provide numbers for it. I found out a few things, and the TLDR is: Speedsters is weirdly inefficient between 20-30%.
Here's the full story:
I set out to figure out how damage works in general, and found the above.
For example:
Glass Cannon jokers gives you 80% damage buff (x1.8), not 96% (1.4 x 1.4)Head Cannon (+20% on weak points) and Consumer (+20% damage) gives you 44% damage buff (1.2 x 1.2)Glass Cannon gives you 96% (1.4 x 1.4)The damage formula is:
Damage = BaseDamage * (1 + Upgrade) * CritMultiplier * (Joker1Multiplier * Joker2Multiplier * ...)
JokerMultiplier = (1 + NumberOfJokers * UnitJokerbuff)
Also, Damage numbers are displayed as rounded-down integers, not rounded-to-closest; my previous post is inaccurate.
I did the experiment using Sniper:
| Dmg Upgrade % | Consumer | Headbang | Glass Cannon | Dmg | Crit Dmg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 50 | 75 |
| 40 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 70 | 105 |
| 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 60 | 90 |
| 40 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 84 | 126 |
| 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 50 | 90 |
| 40 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 70 | 126 |
| 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 60 | 108 |
| 40 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 84 | 151 |
| 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 70 | 105 |
| 40 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 98 | 147 |
| 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 84 | 126 |
| 40 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 117 | 176 |
| 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 70 | 126 |
| 40 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 98 | 176 |
| 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 84 | 151 |
| 40 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 117 | 211 |
| 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 90 | 135 |
| 40 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 126 | 189 |
| 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 108 | 162 |
| 40 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 151 | 226 |
| 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 90 | 162 |
| 40 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 126 | 226 |
| 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 108 | 194 |
| 40 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 151 | 272 |
The proposed formula fits all the data.
Next, I want to figure out the relationship between the Speedster damage multiplier and move speed buff. This is where things get weird.
In the first experiment, I use a base Sniper - remove all upgrades and jokers, only keeping the Speedster joker:
| Move Speed Buff (%) | Dmg | Crit Dmg |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | 50 | 75 |
| 10 | 52 | 79 |
| 20 | 55 | 82 |
| 30 | 56 | 84 |
| 40 | 58 | 87 |
| 50 | 61 | 91 |
| 60 | 64 | 96 |
| 70 | 66 | 100 |
| 80 | 69 | 104 |
| 90 | 72 | 108 |
| 100 | 72 | 108 |
| 110 | 72 | 108 |
Immediately, we can see that the Speedster has a cap at 90% move speed buff. This agrees with what other people have found.
But the relationship is not linear. This:
10% move speed increase = X% damage increase
just doesn't hold. There is no value of X that can fit all the data.
Then it occurs to me: could it be that speed buffs from different sources are not equivalent? Some of them additive, others multiplicative?
The answer is: All move speed buffs are equivalent and additive:
(Using Sniper with 40% damage upgrade, Headbang, Consumer, Speedster)
| Hero Speed Upgrades (%) | Speedy Gunzales | Healthy Boi | Disgrace | Total Move Speed Buff (%) | Dmg | Crit Dmg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 84 | 151 |
| 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 88 | 159 |
| 20 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 20 | 92 | 167 |
| 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 20 | 92 | 167 |
| 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 20 | 92 | 167 |
| 20 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 30 | 95 | 171 |
| 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 30 | 95 | 171 |
| 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 30 | 95 | 171 |
| 20 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 40 | 98 | 176 |
| 20 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 40 | 98 | 176 |
| 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 40 | 98 | 176 |
| 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 40 | 98 | 176 |
| 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 40 | 98 | 176 |
As we can see, all 4 sources of move speed buffs are interchangeable, and the total buff is just the sum of all buffs.
With the movement variable in mind, I did another experiment using a Sniper with higher damage (40% damage upgrade, Headcannon, Consumer, Glass Cannon on hero):
| Move Speed Buff (%) | Crit Dmg | Speedster Buff lower bound (%) | Speedster Buff upper bound (%) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 211 | 0 | 0 |
| 10 | 223 | 5.347694633 | 5.82010582 |
| 20 | 233 | 10.07180651 | 10.54421769 |
| 30 | 239 | 12.90627362 | 13.37868481 |
| 40 | 247 | 16.68556311 | 17.15797431 |
| 50 | 259 | 22.35449735 | 22.82690854 |
| 60 | 270 | 27.55102041 | 28.02343159 |
| 70 | 282 | 33.21995465 | 33.69236584 |
| 80 | 294 | 38.88888889 | 39.36130008 |
| 90 | 305 | 44.08541194 | 44.55782313 |
lower bound and upper bound are to account for rounding, since we only see the rounded-down numbers211.68 is used in the bound computation. The number is derived from the damage formulaFrom the above, I made a simple reference table:
| Move Speed Buff (%) | Estimated Speedster Buff (%) |
|---|---|
| 0 | 0 |
| 10 | 5.5 |
| 20 | 10.5 |
| 30 | 13 |
| 40 | 17 |
| 50 | 22.5 |
| 60 | 28 |
| 70 | 33.5 |
| 80 | 39 |
| 90 | 44.5 |
This fits the data from experiment 1, but I didn't repeat for other combinations or weapons, because I wanted to actually play the game.
Some observations:
The "10% move speed = 5% damage" is good enough as a rule of thumb, while the full picture is a bit more nuanced.
As always, I hope this can be helpful to someone.