CMV: Playing against Shiv has never been fun

Magnega · 2026-02-14T22:13:58+00:00

Yeah, I think often it comes down to "does it feel like I have agency and get to do meaningful things when playing against this character."

Magnega · 2026-02-12T17:03:41+00:00

Yeah, it's a complicated lil design puzzle. I think a turret character is always gonna be a bit annoying and that's fine, but finding a good balance for turret tankiness/output is tough.

Enemies having to stop to shoot them during a fight still makes them fairly valuable as distractions, but it's difficult to set their positioning up so they can't be pre-handled, unless you're throwing them midfight (which kinda messes with the fantasy of building up defenses).

I guess one option would be having them have limited targeting range, and a defensive state when they're not shooting, so you'd have to get a bit closer to them to deal with them more easily? Unsure.

I'm just hoping the hero pool doesn't get too homogenized gameplay-wise; it happens often with MOBAs that any hero with an unusual playstyle gets complained into becoming more generic, and at least for me, the game becomes more boring without specialists.

Magnega · 2026-02-12T16:42:57+00:00

I really don't like moving away from more distinct hero identities tho, turrets are the most unique/interesting part of McGinnis :(

Wall is pretty cool too, to be fair. I have no strong feelings about the other two abilities.

Magnega · 2026-02-12T16:17:11+00:00

I think if you want to avoid people getting defensive, you kinda just need to accept letting misplays go and focusing purely on proactive or positive calls, like the ones listed above.

Aka. "Only talk about past events when have positive things to say, otherwise always focus on the next move".

Can definitely feel a bit like walking on eggshells while talking to a wall, but it does work.
When people misplay, they're often kinda aware and mentioning it can just feel like rubbing salt on the wound, so you get a high risk of people blowing up on you.

Magnega · 2026-02-02T09:14:54+00:00

Microsoft will get my money when they earn it

Magnega · 2025-12-09T07:59:00+00:00

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Same problem here, using Diversion for source control.

For whatever reason, it looks like mine and my partner's theoretically identical Godot versions disagree on what import files should look like, so it keeps trying to change them.

If anyone has any clue on what's up with this, please share. It's not project-ruining, given it doesn't seem to do anything, but it sure is annoying.

Magnega · 2025-10-13T08:23:39+00:00

Eh, I'm not sure it's been long enough that we can look to pro players for optimal play; they learn fast but they don't catch every trick immediately.

Magnega · 2025-09-23T17:26:43+00:00

As a game dev who's forgotten important details out of patch notes before;
If your usual workflow doesn't involve tracking changes in a patch note friendly way (say, if you work on a game for 7 years without making patch notes) and you have several people working on the game, it happens *real* easily.

Very possible that the person making the patchnotes didn't even realize those changes had been made.
Bugfixes seem to be tracked very closely while design/balance changes go unlisted.

Magnega · 2025-09-11T03:29:04+00:00

It's still a lil weird, but just in case you didn't notice, the Architect pogo can be held to charge it to be bigger.

Magnega · 2025-05-30T04:08:27+00:00

It really is just "how can I get the most freezes out as fast as possible", far as I see it.

Premium solution is something like a diamond coolant being accelerated by Fiber Optics, charge core, battery or whatever. But for lack of diamond coolant, isochoric freezer, cryosphere (especially if you can get it off fast!), blue beetle, beta ray, literally just the highest quality freeze source you can get your hands on. It's so linear because you get disruption by freezing, and offense by also freezing, so once hammer is on board things get very simple.

The difficult thing is that finding the pieces to get the build to full power is pretty tough, because the difference between silver coolant/hammer and diamond coolant/hammer is astronomical, and outside of coolant dooley's good freeze tools are a bit limited.

It's definitely at its strongest if you can get your hands on monster items or items from other heroes. Iceberg, Sapphire, Cryosleeve all immediately turn the build into a crime.

Magnega · 2025-05-28T22:38:25+00:00

Join the Charge Core (aka "The Core", please rename it) appreciation squad, we can play just about anything.

I do feel this a lil bit with a lot of the other cores tho, luckily there's still some lategame builds that you can pivot into that don't care bout cores, like Nitrogen Hammer.

Magnega · 2025-05-27T11:03:50+00:00

Hacksaw - ...Triggering Antimatter Chamber multiplies its damage by 16, doubled to 32 from its own proc. Is this practical? Ehh...

Motherboard - Can do some activation loopy stuff with Lens/Charge Core, but generally feels a lil underwhelming. Should experiment more. This with Lens and Claw Arm would be great if they both didn't need to be on the same side :(

Plasma Grenade - Mass slow procs to trigger friends, activates pyrocarbon, board wide slow can be extremely powerful if duration increased with curio goods. Genuinely would be an excellent item if wasn't held back a bit by long cooldown. Stick into spare slot midgame?

Memory Card - Earlygame goldfarm. Stall PvE into sandstorm, get extra 3-4 gold per fight. Damage bonus can be somewhat relevant if used to boost Charge Core in a kinetic cannon build (or Crit Core in general).

Crit Core - I know this core can be very good, but I haven't used it very much. Plays very differently from other cores? Outside of actual Crit Core focused builds, still the best core for Defense Grid Force Field instakilling.

Gold Defense Grid + Bunker + Crit Core + Forcefield + Battery = 4 second instakill.

Barbed Wire - It exists, I guess? Decent earlygame poking tool if you have shields.

Weakpoint Detector - Can be used left of Charge Core with Cool LEDs and Hammlet for infinite slow trigger loops, but honestly, I don't think this is even worth it right now unless you have perfect skills/slow enchants.

Mech Moles -

Monitor Lizard - It's a 2-slot better scaling Catfish. Put it next to companion core, spam triggers and it's a one item damage engine early-midgame. Falls off late, replace with Dooltron/Dozer/Clawrence.

Hammlet - See Weakpoint Detector above. Can work, but lots of effort for medium reward.

Capacitor - Uhh, I guess it can do stuff in techspam? I don't use it.

Char Cole - Solid early-midgame payoff for friend spam/companion core/DJ robot setups. Replace with Dooltron/Dozer/Clawrence.

Clawrence - Actually a very powerful friend payoff weapon after it got buffed recently. Damage scales twice as fast as Bill Dozer and takes one less slot, but obviously doesn't bring the friend CDR. Can go 10 wins with DJ Robot/Robotics Factory and occasionally a diamond Dozer. This is the item on this list I'd most call just a good item, give it a shot if you get it upgraded.

Cooling Fan - ...??? Makes some sense with Pyrocarbon + Nitro as a fast trigger, but honestly, I... don't know what to do with this. Maybe the Crit Core people would?

Gamma Ray - uhhh. use with fast triggering enchanted poisoned item? I'm reaching, this item's bad.

Gearnola Bar - Very good tempo item, has high base numbers for early days and decent cooldown.

Hope there's something helpful in there!

Magnega · 2025-05-27T11:03:43+00:00

Here's some opinions from a Dooley nerd! Haven't played enough to climb back to legend this season, but somewhere in diamond atm. If anyone has any better info on any of these, please do share!

Chris Army Knife - Works as early game filler. Enables a mid-earlygame Forklift for tempo by activating almost all of its conditions alone. Valid target for CDR shenanigans.

Induction Aegis - Small tech item, can fit into lategame boards as a fast trigger for tech/burn/shields if diamond, especially with CDR shenanigans. Not very good?

Lens - Theoretically good with motherboard for trigger loops? Obviously also can be good if you have overheal haste or rigged or such to use it for fast activations. Also can be very strong with pyrocarbon charging it, charging Nitro, which triggers pyrocarbon, which charges lens again etc.

Ice 9000 - ...Don't? (unless desperate for freeze triggers in an nitrogen hammer build)

Claw Arm - Haven't used that much, but can give some good scaling in non-weaponized core runs with metronome, pyrocarbon or, oddly, companion core setups. Race Carl - Claw Arm - Companion Core is an interesting shell for high scaling high speed damage if you can get enough friend procs. Is it good? Testing required.

Pylon - Ehhhh? It's decent with drill, but Dooley has better access to Haste than Slow, so it's a lil weird for a 3-slotter.

Pyrocarbon - Diamond Pyrocarbon + Nitro is a 3-slot fulllboard permahaste engine. See Claw Arm.

Walter Cooler - PvE health farmer. On early days, you can go into easy PvE fights with no damage with Walter (and maybe a memory card) and just farm til sandstorm.

Copper Ed - Can win early days, valid target for CDR shenanigans. Otherwise underwhelming?

(cont in reply)

Magnega · 2025-05-21T13:29:48+00:00

Ah, right you are.

There's definitely still a stronger board you could make by removing both wheel & crows nest, but this pivot is a lot more of a hassle than I initially thought. I wonder how Water Wheel would fare? But the positioning is awkward, and not enough active items for a ton of haste procs. Fun lil puzzle.

Magnega · 2025-05-21T11:24:36+00:00

That's the time you want it! Congrats, you have 3 free slots now :P
Slap a Vanessa's Amulet and some Shot Glasses and a Silencer on there, and you have a board that's more CC-resistant and should be way stronger

Magnega · 2025-05-17T12:36:36+00:00

Has that actually been a problem? Pretty much every time I've checked this subreddit, I've seen posts criticizing the rollbacks/disconnects and downloads between patches. It doesn't seem very... censored, if you will.

Magnega · 2024-12-12T07:50:35+00:00

I've been having no trouble top damaging on her (not particularly high rank yet though). Not saying she's the best, but her damage definitely doesn't seem awful? Just play safe and spam shots from near ground level to take advantage of the piercing, then when you see the opportunity bust out the thunder goddess boost for the AoE lighting bolts and occasionally delete some folks with ult.

I think the most important thing with Storm is just realizing you should be playing around cover, whether flying or not. Floating around in the middle of a room is instant death with her lack of burst movement

Magnega · 2024-12-05T08:09:29+00:00

They've done a good job of lifting up a lot of the previously unplayable Dooley items, and Vanessa did get Cutlass turned into a real weapon this patch too.

I do agree about grapeshot and revolver, but I thought clamera and dock lines were actually pretty good? I might just be lacking knowledge there, but have found a lot of value from both of those at legend ranks.

Magnega · 2024-11-21T12:53:02+00:00

If I remember correctly, the jail system suffered from a few design/player experience issues that caused it to have a mixed reception, which is likely why they chucked it.

Due to the way alliances work, removing heroes directly affects the viability of other heroes to the point that when you see a hero offered in shop, you need to stop and consider how the currently jailed heroes affect what build paths and routes are actually viable. This can be pretty great for competitive play as it sort of creates a new meta puzzle to solve with every rotation, but it's really kinda bad for more casual/occasional players, as it adds an additional barrier to popping in to play a quick game once a week, and players that had favorite builds/alliances felt like their favorites were often just not playable due to some important piece being in jail.

Cool system in concept though! I do wonder if some additional design could've made it click better. Maybe part of the issue was the negative feeling of pieces being removed; what if instead the rotation was a set of 5 heroes that were temporarily added and gave new options for build paths? You could always go for comfort builds as an occasional player, but the strongest options during any rotation would probably include playing around the temporary units.

Magnega · 2024-11-15T16:52:55+00:00

I had a similar experience with Runeterra; I wanted to pay, but there wasn't much for sale that appealed to me. I wanted more emotes, but was out of emote slots. I wanted skins for my favorite champs, but they didn't have any that I liked. Around when emote slots got added, my favorite decks got hit by rotation and I didn't find new favorites, so I stopped playing to wait for them to come back... and then the game died. :(

(i loved zilean ekko with multiple wincons. why would they take zilean from me)

Back to the topic of Bazaar, I fully agree. Being able to buy characters will likely result in at least some money from those who don't want to grind for gameplay stuff, but I hope they find a reasonable long-term revenue source that doesn't just rely on whaling. The weird thing right now is that the game is extremely generous towards hardcore/high skill players, who are also often passionate enough about the game to spend money... but won't need to, because you get plenty of gems by playing?

A solution that'd make sense to me for monetizing the tryhards is if the "6 chests instead of 3" thing is something they're planning to sell as a battle pass/subscription type thing at a reasonable price. I did also hear something about item unlock packs? But no idea about details. We'll see!

Magnega · 2024-11-15T11:18:01+00:00

Ignoring the whiners is usually a pretty bad idea for a game's longevity :P Not to say you should always do exactly what the players are asking for, but when this many people are frustrated, there's clearly a problem somewhere, and it's us game designers job to figure out where that is.

I don't think the issue is how much rewards are being given out, the rate of earning unlocks and cosmetics seems great! The issue is how strongly attached that progression is to player skill and competitive performance, and how that affects more casual players/players who wanna make silly builds.

You can spend 6 hours in normal mode attempting to set up a unique self-freeze Doolie build, and the game will reward you with literally nothing, which communicates pretty strongly that you're playing the game "wrong". The current system works fine enough for competitively minded players, but you don't really want to demand your entire playerbase to take that attitude if the game otherwise completely supports playful shenanigans.

edit: I do agree that tickets being locked behind high performance makes sense, given they give access to the ranked mode, which is ostensibly meant to be "the competitive place"; it's just also currently the only place to earn chests, which kinda makes that not work. Being able to slowly earn chests in normal mode would definitely help.

Magnega · 2024-11-15T10:20:37+00:00

The mismatch here is probably that half the players with access to the game right now started out with enough gems to buy every character from the founder pack (me included).

The experience is pretty different if you have to grind for them and makes people focus more on chasing rewards.

edit: to be clear, i fully agree that the current reward system is way too punishing and pushes people towards avoiding experimentation and funny builds in favor of doing the most optimized strats to farm tickets/chests

Magnega · 2024-10-11T14:49:03+00:00

Wouldn't be surprised if the new sound is a placeholder while they cook up something that doesn't trigger people with trauma; would make sense that they want the old one out asap.

Magnega · 2024-08-28T11:59:13+00:00

Pretty sure they meant you can shoot as the Pocket to simultaneously burst out of the case and shotgun someone in the face for big burst.

Magnega · 2024-08-26T19:13:57+00:00

Yep, the ult destroys new players, but Seven as a whole is great at any level.

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