Shockscrap rounds are in a really bad spot

[Catuna_]

They're in the "utility rounds" perk but they don't really provide any utility that isn't dealing damage, they're awfully expensive and yet are out-damaged or just have less appeal than other rounds like thulecite, moonglass, thulecite etc. Meaning that honey rounds are really all you'd value out of that perk, and if you're not interested in slow stacking then they're not really useful...
I really do think that they should be made cheaper and/or deal more damage. Saffron feathers are an insane ask for just 30 ammo that deals 74 damage on wet targets. Why not have them deal 2.5x damage vs wet targets? (106.25 damage) so that way they're walter's highest damaging rounds in a situational scenario? And/or maybe they should produce more ammo per yield, or scrap the saffron feathers cost for volt goat horns instead.

[Reiko24]

15 minutes ago, Catuna_ said:

They're in the "utility rounds" perk but they don't really provide any utility that isn't dealing damage, they're awfully expensive and yet are out-damaged or just have less appeal than other rounds like thulecite, moonglass, thulecite etc. Meaning that honey rounds are really all you'd value out of that perk, and if you're not interested in slow stacking then they're not really useful...
I really do think that they should be made cheaper and/or deal more damage. Saffron feathers are an insane ask for just 30 ammo that deals 74 damage on wet targets. Why not have them deal 2.5x damage vs wet targets? (106.25 damage) so that way they're walter's highest damaging rounds in a situational scenario? And/or maybe they should produce more ammo per yield, or scrap the saffron feathers cost for volt goat horns instead.

No don’t change their recipe. Volt goat horns are more expensive. You can kill some canaries using your slingshot to get tons of feathers.

[Crimson Hollow]

Electric darts are made of saffron feather and gold so I dont really understand where this scrap thing came from

Also I think you mentioned thulecite twice by accident

[Gashzer]

Since slingshot hitstun has been nerfed.

Maybe give the shockscrap rounds the ability to hit stun with every hit with a more pronounced shock particle effect.

Trading high cost and low (dry) damage for consistent stunlocking.

[Jakepeng99]

1 hour ago, Catuna_ said:

or scrap the saffron feathers cost for volt goat horns instead.

Why make them more expensive?

1 hour ago, Catuna_ said:

They're in the "utility rounds" perk but they don't really provide any utility that isn't dealing damage, they're awfully expensive and yet are out-damaged or just have less appeal than other rounds like thulecite, moonglass, thulecite etc. Meaning that honey rounds are really all you'd value out of that perk, and if you're not interested in slow stacking then they're not really useful...
I really do think that they should be made cheaper and/or deal more damage. Saffron feathers are an insane ask for just 30 ammo that deals 74 damage on wet targets. Why not have them deal 2.5x damage vs wet targets? (106.25 damage) so that way they're walter's highest damaging rounds in a situational scenario? And/or maybe they should produce more ammo per yield, or scrap the saffron feathers cost for volt goat horns instead.

To be honest i think they are fine.

[Steorra]

Yes, this type of ammo is meaningless. I never have a reason to use it I have to say.

[_mylilsunshine_]

1 hour ago, Reiko24 said:

No don’t change their recipe. Volt goat horns are more expensive. You can kill some canaries using your slingshot to get tons of feathers.

i concur with this, to me the cost has never been in the feather, but the scrap instead, which is not renewable until a point (that players may or may not reach). i like the feather + gold inspiration though.

the saffron feather is costly, but it's a time-cost which may or may not matter. if we still think saffron + gold is too expensive/tedious time-wise, we can up the crafting to 40 ammo per

1 hour ago, Crimson Hollow said:

Electric darts are made of saffron feather and gold so I dont really understand where this scrap thing came from

Also I think you mentioned thulecute twice by accident

[Edible Coal]

2 hours ago, Reiko24 said:

No don’t change their recipe. Volt goat horns are more expensive. You can kill some canaries using your slingshot to get tons of feathers.

btw killing canaries only have a 9% of dropping them, you better far off placing cages in cave have trap them there

[Catuna_]

2 hours ago, Reiko24 said:

No don’t change their recipe. Volt goat horns are more expensive. You can kill some canaries using your slingshot to get tons of feathers.

1 hour ago, Jakepeng99 said:

Why make them more expensive?

Canaries' feather drop rates are not as high as other birds (10% vs 50% on other birds), meaning that slingshotting them ends up being a massive waste of time. This is ignoring the fact that redbirds still spawn even if there's a scarecrow nearby (canaries replace crows), hindering your output significantly.
That means that you'd either have to manually catch and poison canaries, or beat misery toadstool once to be able to duplicate napsacks (if you want reasonable output).
All of these take an ungodly amount of time of going out of your way vs just using an anenemy that you'd get from going to lunar island (something that you're going to do regardless) and setting up a volt goat farm, especially when volt goat horns don't really have much uses especially for Walter in particular... Not to mention a little Wigfrid trickery can allow you to duplicate horns if you'd really want to; no 100k hp boss (or any boss at all for that matter) required.

But the point is that the input needed to make these at a reasonable scale vs their output is really disproportionate, and thus makes them genuinely worse off than if you were to make most other ammos.

[flamboyant wolf]

Honestly I could deal with the price, if they actually filled a decent niche or served a unique function other ammos don't. For good damage, we already have stuff like cursed and gunpowder rounds, and since these are unlocked with the "utility rounds" skill, it would be neat if they instead provided some support, for example

3 hours ago, Gashzer said:

Since slingshot hitstun has been nerfed.

Maybe give the shockscrap rounds the ability to hit stun with every hit with a more pronounced shock particle effect.

Trading high cost and low (dry) damage for consistent stunlocking.

something like this could work.

Alternatively, they could apply some sort of debuff to the target, like an effect that would stun the enemy a few times over time(imagine a damage over time effect like horror rounds, but instead of damage it's small stuns), or an effect that would make a number of next non-electric hits(like, ~5? ~7?) deal electric damage too, or an effect that would dmg nearby enemies when the enemy with the debuff is hit(like a chained lightning sort of?) etc

Having more debuff ammo could be really fun!

[Jakepeng99]

49 minutes ago, Catuna_ said:

Canaries' feather drop rates are not as high as other birds (10% vs 50% on other birds), meaning that slingshotting them ends up being a massive waste of time. This is ignoring the fact that redbirds still spawn even if there's a scarecrow nearby (canaries replace crows), hindering your output significantly.
That means that you'd either have to manually catch and poison canaries, or beat misery toadstool once to be able to duplicate napsacks (if you want reasonable output).
All of these take an ungodly amount of time of going out of your way vs just using an anenemy that you'd get from going to lunar island (something that you're going to do regardless) and setting up a volt goat farm, especially when volt goat horns don't really have much uses especially for Walter in particular... Not to mention a little Wigfrid trickery can allow you to duplicate horns if you'd really want to; no 100k hp boss (or any boss at all for that matter) required.

But the point is that the input needed to make these at a reasonable scale vs their output is really disproportionate, and thus makes them genuinely worse off than if you were to make most other ammos.

Use the canary cure mechanic.

Also, canaries are a great way for walter to get morsels, so you end up with canaries as a byproduct.

Changing the recipe to volt goat horns would be tragic.

[Catuna_]

7 minutes ago, Jakepeng99 said:

Use the canary cure mechanic.

The what?

[flamboyant wolf]

2 minutes ago, Catuna_ said:

The what?

I assume they mean dropping the poisoned canary on the surface shard, which makes it fly away, dropping several feathers. Iirc it gives more than bird explosion. 

[Catuna_]

Just now, flamboyant wolf said:

I assume they mean dropping the poisoned canary on the surface shard, which makes it fly away, dropping several feathers. Iirc it gives more than bird explosion. 

But I mention this in my initial reply, so it can't be that?
I looked at the code and I found nothing regarding this

13 minutes ago, Jakepeng99 said:

Also, canaries are a great way for walter to get morsels, so you end up with canaries as a byproduct.

This is irrelevant to my main post, as the point is that feather production is extremely slow... volt goats do drop 2 meat each... They're one of the better food sources you can use.

[Balter]

Electric field:

Everytime Walter does a special attack with the shockbolt ammo using the thulecite frame the ground around the area is electrified for a few seconds

[flamboyant wolf]

1 minute ago, Balter said:

Electric field:

Everytime Walter does a special attack with the shockbolt ammo using the thulecite frame the ground around the area is electrified for a few seconds

Honestly could be cool if shock rounds had a special interaction with the scrappy frame instead, seeing as both are made of scrap.

[rain grass]

The material is too hard to obtain.

[Maxil20]

3 hours ago, Catuna_ said:

Canaries' feather drop rates are not as high as other birds (10% vs 50% on other birds), meaning that slingshotting them ends up being a massive waste of time. This is ignoring the fact that redbirds still spawn even if there's a scarecrow nearby (canaries replace crows), hindering your output significantly.
That means that you'd either have to manually catch and poison canaries, or beat misery toadstool once to be able to duplicate napsacks (if you want reasonable output).
All of these take an ungodly amount of time of going out of your way vs just using an anenemy that you'd get from going to lunar island (something that you're going to do regardless) and setting up a volt goat farm, especially when volt goat horns don't really have much uses especially for Walter in particular

I personally disagree with this notation, especially with the price compared to volt goats.

-Forcing all canaries to spawn from a scarecrow is really simple: just use a turf that only spawns crows. Most notably, barren turf will force only crow spawns on the turf itself, so digging up the area around the scarecrow will always result in canaries.

-You can realistically capture multiple canaries and amass 40+ feathers with the good old ice staff + bird trap combo. These are items that are inexpensive and easy to produce. Once you have the birdcages in the caves setup, the only upfront cost you pay is these two items (and maybe a tiny bit of feather hat durability if you want faster spawns). 

Even a goat farm with an anememy is considerably slower at consistently producing horns. You need ~300 days to produce ~40 horns compared to an ~4 minute investment at best for 40+ feathers. 

The biggest issue is, as you mentioned, the damage (and second of the scrap cost, which I did like the idea of substituting with a gold nugget like how electric darts are). These rounds should be a good midgame enabler, and sadly just don’t output enough damage to make them worthwhile. Adjusting them to be ~100 damage per hit on wet targets would be really nice.

[Radicaljoe]

I still like my magnetize idea, hitting multiple enemies with the scrap round magnetizes them and pulls them together. Then it will boost the usefulness of your aoe ammo because they'll be bunched together so closely.

[Walrusst]

Saffron feather + Doodads always been my idealized cost for them.
If utility rounds got something like the slturtle ammo I suggested elsewhere they would have a more coherent/complete gameplan too just because walter would have a source of wet.

[Chewabacca]

The scrap cost is absolutely what makes it painful for me, because while saffron feathers can be farmed over time just by propping up a scarecrow and shooting birds like Walter already does, scrap is surprisingly limited until you fight Scrappy Werepig and get him to replenish the scrap piles, and rummaging through the big junk pile once every 2 minutes for a 25% of another piece of scrap is the definition of tedious. So shockscrap has this really weird pattern where you don't have it in the very early game because of the saffron feather, you briefly have it in the early midgame once you grind up the feathers, and then between there and whenever the fight with Scrappy Werepig comes you once again don't have it. And then even after the 1st fight with Scrappy you'll find yourself running out because after all each pile only has a 25% chance of dropping scrap, which means that you have to keep farming Scrappy over and over again. So shockscrap is only worth the scrap cost if you're also making dreadstone rounds from his other fight. All of this is a lot more complicated than just going to the swamp and grabbing reeds for electric darts.

What I dislike is that the scrap cost feels deceptive. I'm fine with having to fight Nightmare Werepig to make dreadstone rounds pre-rifts, because I know that dreadstone is supposed to be a rare, highly valuable item that will be hard to get ahold of (and also because if you add up the 50% chance for rounds to bounce off intact, each Nightmare Werepig fight effectively gives you a lot of it). Scrap is not like that. I especially worry about how this will play out in multiplayer, where Winona players and other Walters might also want scrap.

[Walrusst]

You can get another one time surge of scrap raiding moon quay but I'll be real.

Without something to hunt for scrap its really bothersome digging at tumbleweeds and the scrap heap for scrap.
The current cost could be something i'm completely fine with if this bottleneck was something that could be solved.
Klei might have a plan for there to be more sources of scrap in the future.

Its still weird you need two skill points to get both types of werepig ammo.

But its one of like, two strange things in the room for an entire rework thats mostly great.

[Echsrick]

were there not bee stinger rounds? why not combine honey and bee stinger in 1 skill? i think that would be fitting, the bee rounds

[Walrusst]

 

1 hour ago, Echsrick said:

were there not bee stinger rounds? why not combine honey and bee stinger in 1 skill? i think that would be fitting, the bee rounds

That one I can kinda see why they avoided bee rounds, since it would sort of sort the skills to.

• Low level. (Bees)
• Megabasing boss farmer (Pig rounds.)
• Speed runner. (Gunpowder moonglass.)

The only thing that actually foils this negative perception is just slow stacking is very strong so the rounds system would remain valid with this set up, but it kinda has that vibe.
The way they sorted it is still ok its just that shockscrap rounds lack a complimentary option and as such they are second fiddle to the slow stacking combo.

Not to mention if I end up getting my slurtle round wish becomes true the current sorting system would become more valid than the alternative one, since shock ammo is then suddenly paired with a round that supports its strengths. The odds of anything I've said recently becoming a reality is like 5% because of how polished and close to done klei is with this update, but who knows.

[YouKnowWho142]

1 hour ago, Echsrick said:

were there not bee stinger rounds? why not combine honey and bee stinger in 1 skill? i think that would be fitting, the bee rounds

imagine though if stinger rounds did dot instead, got into utility rounds with honey rounds, and then shockscrap got something more unique like chain lightning to become an aoe round with moonglass
sounds fun anyway