Walter's Advanced Bands are an auto skip. Some potential solutions!

[Dyzrespect]

So the emerging 'meta' around Walter's band upgrades thus far has been to just avoid taking them to save the skill point, but I don't think it has been dove into just how justified skipping bands are.

• Beyond the pigskin band, maybe even using the pigskin band itself, your shots will start to miss if your target is moving perpendicular to you.

This is due to the projectile having further to travel at the same speed, allowing more time for the target to simply move out of the way. This doesn't happen insanely commonly, but in my practice it happens far more commonly than the extra range being particularly useful.

• Bands do not change the way you play in the slightest

As in the previous bullet, extra range hardly ever comes in handy, and when you do need more range, you use the Scrappy or Thulecite Frame to aim your shot yourself at an even longer range. Save for the Possessed Band post Shadow Pieces that saves you ammo, you gain functionally nothing from interacting with bands at all.

 

Some solutions!:

1. Higher Velocity: The logical idea for a fix to this is to increase the projectile velocity with each band upgrade, compensating for the extra travel distance and making shots land more consistently. However this doesn't really fundamentally make bands any more useful, it just makes them not an active detriment to equip.

2. Ricocheting shots: My favorite solution to making the bands enticing. As the bands become snappier and more elastic, the increased velocity of the rounds permits a chance for your shot to ricochet to a nearby enemy, dealing half the damage of the previous hit. Early bands having a lower chance to proc for 1 extra target, with later bands proccing more often and hitting 2-3 extra targets. Aoe and slowdown rounds always explode on 1st target and do not bounce. Proc chance rounds such as Cursed, Brightshade, and Gunpowder have a chance to activate on any hit.

3. Shotgun/Burst Fire: A commonly suggested feature is to have a way to change the fire-rate-style(?) of the slingshot, such as a shotgun-spreadshot of 3 rounds, or a burst. Unfortunately I think this clashes heavily with the function of grips, and these functions may be better suited to a new Frame's special attack, but it is possible to have bands accomplish this somehow.

4. Homing/Lunar Band: Another concept is adding a homing component to some of the later bands, also fixing the missing issue. Additonally however, a Lunar band could be introduced that would perhaps drastically lower the velocity of the shot, but make it homing, allowing you to ramp your shots and get a few in the air before the first shot lands and alerts your target, while fittingly being similar in theme to the Brightshade Wand. This would serve as a worthy adversary to the Void Grip, provided it also gave some bonuses to lunar ammo damage.

LMK your thoughts!

[Civecilim]

Skipping bands is a pretty no-brain decision with the current skill tree. I'm both hoping and dreading that they buff bands because the skill tree already has so much that you want but you can't have it all. Adding bands to the list of things that you want will be painful. Painful in a good way.

The possessed band is already *almost* good enough to make you want bands, at least for me. Almost but not (because ammo is already very affordable). Someone once suggested that the possessed band should instead have a 30% chance to fire an extra round. Seems reasonable.

[Steorra]

8 minutes ago, Civecilim said:

Skipping bands is a pretty no-brain decision with the current skill tree. I'm both hoping and dreading that they buff bands because the skill tree already has so much that you want but you can't have it all. Adding bands to the list of things that you want will be painful. Painful in a good way.

The possessed band is already *almost* good enough to make you want bands, at least for me. Almost but not (because ammo is already very affordable). Someone once suggested that the possessed band should instead have a 30% chance to fire an extra round. Seems reasonable.

a potential balance change is that to decrease the special attack range of frames, and move the lost range of frames into bands' effect.

[Civecilim]

3 minutes ago, Steorra said:

a potential balance change is that to decrease the special attack range of frames, and move the lost range of frames into bands' effect.

This seems like a reasonable change. It has always felt kinda dumb that frames give you more range than bands when range is supposed to be the main property of bands. That being said, the range of the frame is a big chunk of what makes the frame good in my opinion. Probably if they ended up doing this change, my response would just be to replace my frame skill point with bands. I feel like I would need some other frame perk to make me want to pick frames. Are the other qualities of frames good enough for you guys?

[Dyzrespect]

1 minute ago, Civecilim said:

I feel like I would need some other frame perk to make me want to pick frames. Are the other qualities of frames good enough for you guys?

Shotgun frame and burst fire frame, boom. (honestly just replace the functions of scrappy and thulecite)

[Steorra]

1 minute ago, Civecilim said:

I feel like I would need some other frame perk to make me want to pick frames. Are the other qualities of frames good enough for you guys?

I prefer the shotgun frame idea someone has mentioned before. It could be create potential new playstyle, and it would be fun and strong (if we use it by a right timing)

[Dyzrespect]

Quote

The possessed band is already *almost* good enough to make you want bands, at least for me. Almost but not (because ammo is already very affordable). Someone once suggested that the possessed band should instead have a 30% chance to fire an extra round. Seems reasonable.

Yeah I'm kind of sad there are no bands that really effect the function of the slingshot. Possessed band has some good potential to do something whacky like homing rounds but we'll see.

[Jakepeng99]

I disagree. It’s good you can miss out on them.

[_mylilsunshine_]

9 minutes ago, Jakepeng99 said:

I disagree. It’s good you can miss out on them.

i don't think it's can, but rather no real incentive to. let's assume a player doesn't know about the possessed band and might not be able to find out, the advanced band perk offers the pig band (bad) and the cat band (slightly better). there's virtually no difference between the pig and the cat band, meaning the perk is a dead point.

let's look at woby's foraging perk for example, it offers something to people who want more berries, cacti, etc. but to those who don't really need it, they don't have to pick it. not picking woby forage is fine since they don't need it. picking advanced band feels terrible because it offers nothing.

i'd agree with you if advanced band offers something that is good, but i don't particularly need. let's say more damage up close, for a more risky playstyle. i don't play that way, that means i can skip it without feeling terrible because it's too good.

[chenxx]

I have come across this problem too, but I was thinking about something other than a band.

[Dyzrespect]

5 hours ago, chenxx said:

I have come across this problem too, but I was thinking about something other than a band.

It's a really cool suggestion. I just feel like it is very rare to miss anyways, and altogether just something that pretty much uniquely serves to make bands not only kind of useless, but actively detrimental. Put another way, this upgraded pioneer cap could be replaced by just removing the band from your slingshot.

You have however reminded me of W.A.R.B.I.S., and I feel like it will be extremely powerful on Walter, I need to test this out.