Streamlining Stealth Mechanics and other Statuses
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Please add a suggestions category to the forum so I know where to put these. While I'm happy to get the opinions of other players, it's more important that the devs are more likely to see our suggestion posts in a place designated for that.
As a side note, I thought this would be important to separate and explain clearly from my other bugs/suggestions post because it's starting to bother me a lot. Stealth needs to be more consistent in functionality if we're going to have so many fighters with it in this game. I don't mind the hidden features and tiny quirks a game offers, but the various interactions with it are becoming so messy already and there are only 12 fighters. There's also a few things about other status effects I'd like to point out.
Stealth and Revealed as a Status
First of all, create a status symbol for it and add it to a player's bar so that it can be seen next to health, and do the same for any reveal effects with a revealed status symbol. This makes it clear when you are being affected by those things and lets you understand their implications as a universal aspect of Bleeding Edge.I'd also recommend having Burn be a status with a symbol as well. Bleed is a bit weird, because it's basically just a damage over time effect with no particular interactions with it (at least not at the moment...) so I'm not sure if it needs a status symbol.
Clear and Concise Descriptions on Specials
Daemon's Stealth appears to give him more speed and extra damage on his next attack right out of stealth (without mods), but Stalker and Vanish do not. If this is a feature Daemon has but not others, it should be listed on the special itself or as a passive for him. This shouldn't be a secret, it should be stated clearly.You added a clear note that Stalker can heal while stealthed so just do that for Stealth/Sleep. You did the same for Vanish letting us know it grants invulnerability, but you don't mention on Vanish that it grants Unstoppable as well (which almost seems redundant with Invulnerable but I'll mention that below). You also say Vanish makes her "disappear"... Put the word Stealth in Vanish's description please - it's a Stealth.
Oh but for Daemon you can take out the part about "Stealth is broken if hit, attacking or mounting" because duh, we know. What you're describing is a functionality of Stealth that is true for anyone who uses stealth, not just Daemon, so it shouldn't be described on Daemon's special. Breaking stealth because that stuff happens isn't specific to him, but then you leave out the things that are specific to him like the speed and damage - which is the info on his special I actually needed to know.
Reveals and other "Marks"
Some abilities "Mark" a target, and marks act as reveals for Stealth. Miko's Stalker is an obvious one, but Death Mark on Daemon and Curse on Kulev also act as marks that counter Stealth. I love this functionality and think it's great, but it's in the minutia that things get messed up and don't work properly. This is where the lack of a streamlined Stealth status really starts to punch you in the face.Daemon cannot enter stealth if Cursed or revealed by Stalker, but he CAN enter Stealth if he's marked by Death Mark, he's just plainly visible regardless. Reveals should either lock the ability or making him visible while it's active, one or the other.
Stalker cancels Daemon's stealth if it's active, unlike Death Mark which allows him to be stealthed but still makes him visible to enemies. Again, it should be one or the other, because being able to activate stealth even if you're not invisible can have a huge impact on Daemon's play since he gets buffed while in stealth.
Vanish suffers a different problem where it's unclear if it counts as a Stealth at all right now. Vanish can be used regardless of what Reveal is used, but only Death Mark makes her visible to enemies. I think any mark should make her visible but still let her cast Vanish, not just Death Mark. Don't give us different types of Stealth, that's way to confusing and pointless. The invulnerability thing is fine because, again, it's stated in the ability description, so it's fair that her stealth behaves differently from other Stealth abilities.
Invulnerability
Does Invulnerability make you Unstoppable by default? It... KIND OF does. I used Can't Touch Us on Makutu and discovered Buttercup's Oil Slick still applies a Slow when you step on it, but it disappears once you leave which it usually doesn't. Nidhoggr's Boomitar doesn't apply a slow at all - so is that a bugged interaction with Oil Slick? And if Invulnerable is just a better Unstoppable, why does Maeve's Vanish give you both statuses?Burn
I mentioned that it should have a status symbol, but my biggest complaint with it is that it is, again, not streamlined. We have two burn characters, Nidhoggr and Gizmo. Nidhoggr can apply burns in 3 different ways, Gizmo just has the Mini-Mech. Both do percent damage, but that is where the similarities end entirely. They do damage at different rates, and they don't even count as the same type of Burn. Normally burn can't stack, but it can if it's from different sources like from Nidhoggr and Gizmo - I can see why this would be intentional, but I wanted to point it out for clarity to make sure that it was actually intentional. Since burns can be modded, it makes sense that they'd stack from separate sources, since their behavior can be entirely different.But the thing that should be absolutely fixed is that Nidhoggr should be able to heal off of Gizmo's burn. Nidhoggr has a passive, Feedback, which allows his Axe attacks to heal off of burning targets - but it doesn't work if they're burning because of Gizmo's flamethrower. This is where creating completely separate types of "burns" starts to really hurt the game's design, as this type of interaction should be allowed.
As a small note, reword Feedback to say Axe attacks against burning targets have Lifesteal, not that it grants him Lifesteal like some kind of ongoing buff. Only Axe basic attacks will heal him.
Silence
Silence blocks supers and specials, but not any of the basic abilities... except for Kulev's. Lucky Charm stops working when Silence is active. Is this intentional? Are there other basic abilities that have this interaction that are more difficult to test in the dojo? El Bastardo's Life Support works, but I can't tell if Daemon can use her Wall Jump for example. Just make sure to either not block ANY passives, or block everything except basic attacks/evades/etc.I DO like that Cass can still use Rake during Silence though. Rake IS a basic attack, because she is a hybrid fighter, so it should be treated as such. Though unfortunately it's not always treated the same as her basic attack, which is why we have the infinite combo cancelling Rake bug when holding Charge Jump that I mentioned in my bugs post.
Other Status Effects
Bleed, Speed Boosts, Lifesteal, etc. probably don't need any specific symbol or clarity to them right now. But then again right now they work the same across the board, only differing in percentages, so they're probably fine.So yeah...
It's fine to create exceptions to things, but there are starting to be quite a few areas where a lack of universality is creating very unclear interactions and a lack of synergy. There's a lot of opportunity for skilled play and synergy and I'm working really hard to figure out everything that's lying under the surface... but the spaghetti code that redefines every single basic or universal feature of the game for every single fighter is making that difficult. -
Also noticed that when using Katamaori as Makutu and I'm slowed, while the Slow doesn't affect me since I'm Unstoppable it also doesn't remove the status effect. If you're Unstoppable it should basically function like a Cleanse right? I test a lot of this on Buttercup's Oil Slick though which has some weird interactions so that might be part of the problem though.
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"Stalker cancels Daemon's stealth if it's active, unlike Death Mark which allows him to be stealthed but still makes him visible to enemies. Again, it should be one or the other, because being able to activate stealth even if you're not invisible can have a huge impact on Daemon's play since he gets buffed while in stealth."
"Vanish suffers a different problem where it's unclear if it counts as a Stealth at all right now. Vanish can be used regardless of what Reveal is used, but only Death Mark makes her visible to enemies. I think any mark should make her visible but still let her cast Vanish, not just Death Mark. Don't give us different types of Stealth, that's way to confusing and pointless. The invulnerability thing is fine because, again, it's stated in the ability description, so it's fair that her stealth behaves differently from other Stealth abilities."
im not sure i understand you.
i think stalker should reveal all stealth. but daemons death mark should not reveal any stealth, at least imo. this might be what you are saying with one or the other but idk. idk either way i like that it varies. makes it more interesting and skill based not confusing and pointless.
"Does Invulnerability make you Unstoppable by default? It... KIND OF does. I used Can't Touch Us on Makutu and discovered Buttercup's Oil Slick still applies a Slow when you step on it, but it disappears once you leave which it usually doesn't. Nidhoggr's Boomitar doesn't apply a slow at all - so is that a bugged interaction with Oil Slick? And if Invulnerable is just a better Unstoppable, why does Maeve's Vanish give you both statuses?"
this kind of thing sounds correct to me boomtar does damage that stuns you. i dont think her oil slick damages you. i think her oil slick should slow you down but things like daemons shurikens and nidhoggrs boomatar shouldnt slow you down cause they slow on damage.
"They do damage at different rates, and they don't even count as the same type of Burn. Normally burn can't stack, but it can if it's from different sources like from Nidhoggr and Gizmo - I can see why this would be intentional, but I wanted to point it out for clarity to make sure that it was actually intentional. Since burns can be modded, it makes sense that they'd stack from separate sources, since their behavior can be entirely different."
i dont completely get you here either do you think if they are already being burned you shouldnt be able to stack a burn to do more damage. if so i disagree. 2 dif characters. even still not all flames are the same heat. so flames doing different damage sounds fine to me. also different amount of fire hitting you and shit.
"Silence blocks supers and specials, but not any of the basic abilities"
what do you mean supers and specials. is that refering to the same thing the supers? or is specials a different thing? and it doesnt silence basic abilities? i thought it did.
"but I can't tell if Daemon can use her Wall Jump for example."
why would silence stop daemon from using his wall jump? its just a jump, not an ability, it uses stamina.
but yea i think silence should cancel allll abilities. like elbastardos life support. unless they end up making a character that has reason to counter silence.
the status effect ideas sound good.
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i think stalker should reveal all stealth. but daemons death mark should not reveal any stealth, at least imo. this might be what you are saying with one or the other but idk. idk either way i like that it varies. makes it more interesting and skill based not confusing and pointless.
Death Mark currently reveals Stealthed targets. That's not a suggestion, that's what it does. My suggestion is that if it's going to do that, it should behave the same way as other Reveal effects. I like that things vary to a degree, but it's sloppy to call two things the same thing or give them the same features but execute them in totally different ways. It creates no baseline for the mechanics.
this kind of thing sounds correct to me boomtar does damage that stuns you. i dont think her oil slick damages you. i think her oil slick should slow you down but things like daemons shurikens and nidhoggrs boomatar shouldnt slow you down cause they slow on damage.
Oil Slick actually does do damage on the initial cast, most people just don't notice because if you Yank->Oil Slick then you miss the hitbox while your target is airborne. I'm not sure why you're making a distinction between slows that do damage and those that don't though, cause if you're immune to CC while Invulnerable, then no you shouldn't be affected by Oil Slick that's a bug.
i dont completely get you here either do you think if they are already being burned you shouldnt be able to stack a burn to do more damage. if so i disagree. 2 dif characters. even still not all flames are the same heat. so flames doing different damage sounds fine to me. also different amount of fire hitting you and shit.
I actually agree in my post that that's fine, as long as it was intentional. You can stack burn, it just has to be from different sources. My biggest problem is the Gizmo's burn doesn't count as a burn for Nidhoggr. Their burns don't just behave differently they might as well be called entirely different things. So if you see a burn animation on an enemy as Nidhoggr, you can't tell if it's from you or Gizmo.
what do you mean supers and specials. is that refering to the same thing the supers? or is specials a different thing? and it doesnt silence basic abilities? i thought it did.
Basic Abilities are you basic attacks, evade/parry, passives, and effects that work on your combo or jump. If you go to the description page for any character, it's the left column. Specials are your 3 main abilities with CDs, mapped to B, Y, and RB for controller, AKA the middle column. Supers are your ultimates from the right column.
Saying that you think Wall Jump shouldn't be silenced but that Silence should work on basic abilities is contradictory. If you think Life Support should be blocked by Silence, then so should Wall Jump. I'm not saying Silence should work on Wall Jump, I'm saying it should be consistent with how it works for all characters. The fact that it blocks Lucky Charm but not Life Support is the problem.
90% of what I'm talking about isn't a suggestion, it's an observation. An observation that the underlying mechanics of several basic features of the game are inconsistent and messy, or poorly described. On the surface, most of this stuff works well and it's not an issue, but at some point the community will want to dig deep and figure this stuff out if there's going to be a competitive scene. I'm not saying it's the highest priority right this second, with everything going on, but this is the kind of thing that's better to fix now than later.
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"Basic Abilities are you basic attacks, evade/parry, passives, and effects that work on your combo or jump. If you go to the description page for any character, it's the left column. Specials are your 3 main abilities with CDs, mapped to B, Y, and RB for controller, AKA the middle column. Supers are your ultimates from the right column.
ahhh so basica bilities are literally just attacking and evading.
Saying that you think Wall Jump shouldn't be silenced but that Silence should work on basic abilities is contradictory. If you think Life Support should be blocked by Silence, then so should Wall Jump. I'm not saying Silence should work on Wall Jump, I'm saying it should be consistent with how it works for all characters. The fact that it blocks Lucky Charm but not Life Support is the problem.
i dont think silence should work on basic abilities. lol thought you were talking about specials when you were saying basic abilities. had the lingo fucked up.
and i also got elbastardos life support confused with empower.
no basic abilities should be silenced. or all the passive kinda extra basic abilities should be for each character.
