Shadow Strike is imbalanced!

[Destroid]

Yes, the hull takes 25 damage but a well equipped interceptor can take down 3-4 fighters before uncloaking! I was able to finish the game (opening the DNA sequencing) in my 3rd session (13 deaths, probably put in like 6-7 hours in total). Although, I guess I had a bit of luck in RNG receiving this enhancement.

[Giraffasaur]

Okay, do you have any suggestions?

Think it just needs a numbers adjustment, or something else?

[Ishbane]

First i'd like to know what difficulty OP played on.

[Destroid]

Originally posted by Ishbane:

First i'd like to know what difficulty OP played on.

Normal

[Galewyn]

On hard you need to be overpowered to win as I noticed the game can't really be won on hard without almost all perks being maxed and this is coming from someone who is almost at 200 hours and did I believe 60ish runs so far on hard and only hard since it was 1st added and even then you need a good enhancement for combat.

[Giraffasaur]

Originally posted by Galewyn:

On hard you need to be overpowered to win as I noticed the game can't really be won on hard without almost all perks being maxed and this is coming from someone who is almost at 200 hours and did I believe 60ish runs so far on hard and only hard since it was 1st added and even then you need a good enhancement for combat.

Hard mode can be won without a single Perk or Enhancement. It's difficult, but very possible; this was stress-tested before 1.0 dropped, to ensure it could be done.

That said, I still haven't seen a suggestion regarding Shadow Strike's balance. Perhaps, when attacking while the Enhancement is in use, it slowly depletes the player's hull? (This way, it eats more of your health the more you fire, say about 10 hull per second.) Or maybe instead of hull damage, it guarantees a component damage every use?

[Galewyn]

Originally posted by Giraffasaur:

Originally posted by Galewyn:

On hard you need to be overpowered to win as I noticed the game can't really be won on hard without almost all perks being maxed and this is coming from someone who is almost at 200 hours and did I believe 60ish runs so far on hard and only hard since it was 1st added and even then you need a good enhancement for combat.

Hard mode can be won without a single Perk or Enhancement. It's difficult, but very possible; this was stress-tested before 1.0 dropped, to ensure it could be done.

That said, I still haven't seen a suggestion regarding Shadow Strike's balance. Perhaps, when attacking while the Enhancement is in use, it slowly depletes the player's hull? (This way, it eats more of your health the more you fire, say about 10 hull per second.) Or maybe instead of hull damage, it guarantees a component damage every use?

Must have been my luck since I always seem to get nothing that I can get to work like being stuck with bad weapons in my opinion or my playstyle of fighting like everything or lack of my adaptability of having nothing again.

Now for the enhancement to avoid derailing the thread, honestly I would like it to mimic the ancient weapon but maybe at a stronger penalty (since you do have to be cloaked) than its 4 damage per shot I don't know how it would work with all weapons though.

As for the component damage that would be perfect since we are talking about basically being invicible since the enemies ignore you during it so people would be like "Do I really want to risk breaking X system and use X resources to deal with this situation?"

[Suzaku]

Originally posted by Giraffasaur:

Perhaps, when attacking while the Enhancement is in use, it slowly depletes the player's hull? (This way, it eats more of your health the more you fire, say about 10 hull per second.) Or maybe instead of hull damage, it guarantees a component damage every use?

No way in hell it would be worth using if you'd damage components. Fire a shot and *poof* your primary weapons are broken and near useless; or *poof* there goes your life support. I hope you have the resources to repair that, or your run is over veeery soon. Maybe, just maybe, if it was temporary damage like the overheat hazard, and it returned to normal functionality after 20-30 seconds.

If we want to stick to the self-damage route, I'd go with something like "Hull is damaged per X energy spent from primary weapon usage". With it like that, you'd get more use out of energy-conservative weaponry, but it would be balanced so fast and slow fire rates don't have an advantage over each other (allowing flexibility to your armaments), and not punishing the usage of energy on other devices or boosting.
Edit: Though I did just remember that Daredevil is a thing, so primary weapons wouldn't use energy. I suppose this could be bypassed as you'd take damage from the energy you should be spending if that subroutine wasn't equipped. Either make them unable to be equipped at the same time, or add a note to Shadow Strike stating "Daredevil does not negate self-inflicted hull damage that this subroutine would cause."

A large part of the power of this subroutine is that it can be used frequently and for fairly long periods of time, especially with Mk3 Cloak. Personally, I'd rework it to be "Player remains cloaked while firing, but cloak's duration is reduced by 50%", or something along those lines. Possibly even add other debuffs, like increased cooldown as well.

By moving away from the self-damage route, the player can focus on evasion when it's really needed, without worrying that he just might kill himself if he's having a rough time keeping nanobots stocked.

[HellSlayer]

If you finish the game in 3rd session that means it shouldnt be balanced around top player like you.. I think :)

[Ishbane]

My suggestions for Shadow Strike:

Temporarily disable a random component when cloak is activated for 1.5 times the cloak duration.

Would make an attack when cloaked somewhat more challenging, especially since you'd be caught with your pants down when there are still enemies left after uncloaking.

[hck]

Originally posted by Ishbane:

My suggestions for Shadow Strike:

Temporarily disable a random component when cloak is activated for 1.5 times the cloak duration.

Would make an attack when cloaked somewhat more challenging, especially since you'd be caught with your pants down when there are still enemies left after uncloaking.

Mhh... sounds interesting. Will have to try...

[Destroid]

Originally posted by Chillrend:

If you finish the game in 3rd session that means it shouldnt be balanced around top player like you.. I think :)

Not even, I am basically invincible and still have the ability to shoot.

Originally posted by Ishbane:

My suggestions for Shadow Strike:

Temporarily disable a random component when cloak is activated for 1.5 times the cloak duration.

Would make an attack when cloaked somewhat more challenging, especially since you'd be caught with your pants down when there are still enemies left after uncloaking.

I like this idea alot!