devtrackers.gg
While I have enjoyed the demo(s) as a way to further test (to still not get a single drop of Acid Grenade or Shadow Claw no matter how much farming I did) and flex the various abilities and items available to Interceptor, as it will definitively be the Javelin I play the game as...I'm a bit concerned about the lack of polish around a few key points.
Now, originally I was far more devastated - because with the current state of Spark Dash, Acid Spray, and the occasional time-slows-down-animation-then-never-hits-but-animation-locks Tempest Strike - I was kind of pissed. For those who don't know, Spark Dash is the only detonator for Assault slots on Interceptor, and in the demo build, it would not aim where your reticle is, it would fly wherever your Javelin was facing, has a horrible hitbox, and does really meh damage. The ability is listed to strike everyone in the path of your dash, but it would also just end at wherever it first made contact with, and the aoe is so small that your actual melee attacks hit wider. So there was no "path" you could use to strike through various enemies. With a name and description like that, I was expecting some light speed flash attack that would kill everything behind me after I passed through it. Profound disappointment.
Acid Spray is the same way. So in situations where I frontflip over a target and falling shotgun blast it's shields off, to land behind it and snap-turn my reticle to use Acid Spray, my Javelin would throw it where it was facing instead - meaning I was back to back with a mob and threw my cooldown out into thin air, doing nothing. Bonus points if the mob regenerated shields during the animation lock/recovery.
Tempest Strike has an issue where if you are on uneven elevations or fall into terrain while casting it, it would sometimes make me go into a matrix slow-mo in place while doing the kick, which the first couple times at least looks cool - until it finally comes out and usually does zero damage, meanwhile during the animation lock I cannot cancel or dash or anything, so sometimes I would legitimately die because I was being destroyed while stuck in this slow-mo.
I have at least heard good news that both Spark Dash and Acid Spray were "bugged", and that they properly aim where you are aiming the reticle instead of where your Javelin is facing in the current build, and is intended to do so for release. This helps tremendously, because this previous issues kind of broke the class. But experiencing them alongside other things helped me turn a critical eye to other aspects of Interceptor that were suffering, and a few key points still came out, so I'm going to express them here - both because I want to sound off to any other Interceptor Pilots if they felt the same way, to find out if I am just crazy or have high standards, and secondly because I want the game to deliver unto me the ideal fantasy I am THIS close to feeling while playing Interceptor - so I GUESS other people can reap the benefits of that too.
Wraith Strike is wack. It doesn't even hit the same target three times if there's no other targets. Wack animation, wack travel speed, wack damage, no effect. Doesn't even carry my aura during a combo. Please keep iterating on this. Possibly worst in slot ability in the game.
Before that, I would like to clarify the thing I DO love, that I feel the team nailed with Interceptor - specifically the mobility aspect. I love the multiple dash/jump/hover canceling. This is specifically the kind of nitty-gritty self control aspects that will keep me playing the class, because having granular self control like this really immerses me in combat. While some other things feel a little...late to the polish/iteration party, I can taste the attention paid to making the "feel" of the mobility for interceptor a key part of the experience, and so far, I can say with confidence you are succeeding. Whatever that is, I hope for more of it in future updates.
So, onto the concerns.
1 - A synergy crisis between primers and detonators within the class.
Currently, Spark Dash is the only detonator in the assault category, and Tempest Strike is the only one in the strike category.
The problem being all the assault category primers that combo with tempest strike, are ranged.
And the only primers in the strike category are melee range, which turns Spark Dash into a lengthy startup fake melee combo instead of using it's aspect as a gap closer. (Though if it passed through targets like it is described to do, this would feel less bleh.)
In the future, please offer more satisfying options that flow together properly, because trying to trigger combos with just my own ability systems feels crappy. I'm better off just spamming melee on everything. There's not a lot to work with that feels natural/ideal, except maybe bumming it with acid grenade and tempest strike. That's the ONLY one off the head that really flows. I understand that melee should be a go-to detonator, but that's no excuse to fail on delivering valid combo options for abilities, especially for ranged.
2 - "Aura" Combo Effect needing a bit more juice.
Currently, Aura requires me to aggressively get in melee range with things to utilize it properly. However, it barely lasts for any decent amount of time, and generally feels like a way less safe storm combo, which immediately spreads the effect on detonation. If anything, I also feel since it does an "over time" application of the element, the duration it lasts for should be longer for the sake of effectiveness. Another thing I notice is that it doesn't do much outright damage. If I'm going to be putting myself in the most danger to access the effect continuously, I feel like the least it can do is add the element directly to my melee strikes while increasing the damage a bit, because swinging elemental blades is always cool, and it makes sense with stacking ailment on what I am hitting, rather than being a stinky color cloud beating someone with pool noodles. EVERY other Javelin's combo effect is an immediate payoff you can then back away from, where as mine feels like more of a patch job, or barely justifying itself for the danger I put myself in. Freezing people over time while I melee them is nice, I guess, but that's just making me melee them for the sake of using melee on them since I'm doing it to freeze them over time. A storm could just do it immediately while shooting from safety. I'm not feeling the wombo part of the combo, nor do I feel like a melee specialist, since it is not actually enhancing my melee. Also, detonating from distance feels like sh*t because by the time I can even close the gap to try and gimp it out with my Aura, it's faded away. Big yuck. If it was attached to increasing the power and charging my blades with the element on top of the aoe ailment, it could hold the charge until I whack something, at least, because it would make sense.
As a side note, there are also several times when my melee completely fails to detonate even after whacking someone over 7 times, when they are clearly primed and I have not detonated in quite some time. Mixing it up with jump canceling into the falling slash etc to try and "reset" the games ability to recognize my trying to detonate doesn't fix it. Seems like a bug. When it happens, it makes the above design clash between primers and detonators feel even worse.
3 - My Javelin Ultimate being the only ultimate being completely defeated/negated by enemies 7 feet in the air or any enemy who can scale terrain. This completely disconnects me from the melee specialist fantasy, and I legitimately feel conned out of an ultimate in various, even average situations as a result. This doesn't happen with any other Javelin Ultimate. However, this ties into a major flaw in the "Melee Specialist" structure for Interceptor currently, so it's a layered issue.
Case in point. Hovering scar hunters, the boss we get to fight in the demo, any enemy on an elevation point, or a hovering valkyrie mob, you name it. If it can climb something, has great hang time and big hops, or a jetpack, then why does my ultimate even exist? I may as well start spamming emotes because I can't do jack sh*t, it's my true Achilles heel. APPARENTLY, despite all the massive technological advances made in the games universe, it is actually impossible to swing your hands AND hover at the same time. You can spin while doing a roll during flight, but apparently spinning while hovering with your hands sticking out with knives in them is ABSOLUTELY out of the question.
This brings me to the obvious conclusion that would fix this completely. Let Interceptors melee while hovering. Just create the animations for it. There's really no obvious reason it can't happen. This would also fix a big fundamental issue with the ultimate not working in situations it really should. There are times I jump and hover right up to a scar hunters face, or any enemy that's a single jumps distance in the air - but there is no melee string for hovering YET. Since this applies during my ultimate, I feel absurdly useless in various situations I shouldn't, because I cannot do anything.
This WOULD clash with one current thing that does happen - the really fancy falling spinning melee attack. The one that doesn't do anything until I hit the floor, that is.
Please, add in a melee string for hovering. Let the current falling attack be what happens whenever you are doing anything else but hovering in the air. Then the answer is simple - I just click hover a second time to turn it off and immediately press melee if I want to cancel into the falling attack as it is now. This already fits with the concept of the jump/dodge/hover canceling dynamic, so it seamlessly clicks with the melee aspect, which is something you already use it to position for.
This would fix the issue with the ultimate so it isn't just a gimmick in various situations compared to everyone else, let me detonate on airborne opponents properly, and let me be an exosuit ninja like I want to be. Which means I should be able to aerial juggle fools like Ninja Gaiden if I want to.
But, if there's one thing I would appreciate as well - please make the falling dagger spins have a small multiple strike hitbox as I fall next to or through things. If I position it perfectly so I falling spin directly through something, I should be able to detonate/damage it as I pass through it. Threading the needle like that requires a lot more precision than most things, please reward it. Falling directly through something in the air that's also high enough elevation that my landing slash doesn't hit so I did nothing but look fancy while I took a million damage instead sucks, especially when it looked like I ninja slashed through it.
If even one thing from all of this could be communicated clearly, the only thing I want more than anything in the full release is Hovering melee strings, because it would also work during the ultimate, and that alone would have a tremendous ripple effect on making everything better as an Interceptor pilot.
- With Love,
A Hopeful Interceptor Pilot
(P.S. - Seeker Glaive doesn't seek who the reticle was on when you fire it, it snaps to the nearest target. Prime example is firing it at a boss's weak spot only for it to drop like gravity into a random add on the ground. This really grinds my gears. Please advise.)
External link →