The middle ground between robot and shadow theme

[weirdokun]

Thematically, the previous iteration of shadow WX was mere shadow skills on a robot body, while the current one is more robot-y with shadow visual effects. I think that the devs are in the right direction with incorporating the drone theme to the shadow affinity, however it still doesn't quute hit the sweet spot between shadow and robot.

 

Here are my suggestions:

 

1. General theme

WX can now summon shadow drones from his imagination upon socketing a shadow item.

 

2. Visual

Instead of looking like actual drones with shadow cloud, make them look like shadow in the form of drones lol idk how to describe it but I'm imagining something similar to Renoir's drafts in Expedition 33 where they look like pen drawings. Also, shadow drones should be smaller as they currently look distracting and obstruct the view. A simple way to do this is to just recolor and resize the existing designs for auto-grabber and exploiterator.

 

3. Mechanics

Instead of crafting them, the drones immediately spawn upon socketing and despawn upon unsocketing the respective shadow item. Crafting them every time you want to change between QOL or damage is such a tedious thing to do, not to mention resource-heavy.

 

4. Behavior

Like other feedback I've read in this forum, both drones should move faster when picking-up items or locking-in targets. Also, the exploiterator should prioritize following a hostile creature than following WX, unless they move really far away. Another thing, I'm ok with nerfing the damage buff from 25% to 20%, but please make it AOE.

 

That's all for now. Thanks Klei for trying to listen to player feedback, but I hope next updates there will be more advanced communication on what you're planning to change especially if those changes are big.

[LavenderLillie]

I don't think the damage buff needed to be nerfed, personally-- lunar is a potential 150% damage buff at a much higher resource cost, so for inserting a shadow atrium you should be able to get at least 25%. Also, it should still be AoE and should be only a single drone instead of four. Currently, a 10% max single-target physical damage buff at the cost of a shadow atrium is not worth it at all and makes the shadow affinity practically worthless until you can get the possessed atrium, and by that time you would likely have your possessed chassis fully online as well.

I fully agree with the rest of your points however, the drones immediately spawning upon insertion would make more sense thematically (Lunar feels like it's supposed to provide knowledge, not Shadow) and logically (why should WX have to craft the drones and why can they break? Lunar is supposed to have a resource cost associated with it with a higher cap).

Edited 7 hours ago by LavenderLillie