Spiral Knights - Difficulty Levels Need to be Fixed.

Difficulty Levels Need to be Fixed.

6 replies [Last post]

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 08:52

Pery-Alaois

The problem is that elite mode has cheap difficulty (More monster damage and health), but everyone needs to play on that mode in order to get decent loot. The only reasons we would need to have an easier mode with crappy loot are passing missions and getting boss tokens(AND sanctuary stuff), and that's IT! So, we need the other modes to give decent loot.

What needs to be fixed on elite mode:
-Less monster damage and health than what it is right now(while still keeping it higher than advanced mode)
-Better AI than the other difficulties
-More loot
Summary: Elite mode needs less cheap difficulty, more fair difficulty; it needs to be a hard challenge, with more loot to make it worth while.

What needs to be fixed on the other modes("normal" and advanced):
-More loot
-"Normal" needs to be called "Easy," and "Advanced" needs to be called "Normal."(Minor Fix, but the names aren't good.)
Summary: Normal and Advanced difficulty need to give decent loot, because Advanced should be for normal runs.

Difficulty spikes from too easy(not dying) to too hard(need to use some sparks), and that's only because of the amount of monster damage/health there is in elite mode. It elite mode needs to be a real, fair, super hard challenge(almost like a danger room); and Advanced mode needs to be the norm with decent loot(and it needs to be called normal).

-Pery

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 14:37

Eltrooper

Yeah, the names do need to be changed.

Normal is indeed easy mode.
But what exactly do you mean by Elite having "cheap difficulty"? Are you just saying that the other difficulty levels need better loot drops?
I also agree with upgrading the AI there, especially for the Red Rovers (what have I done? O.O) I think of Elite as a challenge already (while in tier 3) and find myself playing on that difficulty most of the time for the increased loot and chance of drops and also because I can handle it. In T3 it gets very difficult in my opinion in the later depths, but who wants constant danger-room difficulty through ? If you guys want even more of a challenge, then perhaps Elite should be a "danger-room difficulty" mode and a mode between the current Advanced and that new Elite should be established (probably about the same as the current Elite) and renamed. I am terrible with names, so I will leave that up to others.
~Elt

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 12:09

Blandaxt

i agree!

I agree, but the devs really has not communicated with us what the problem is why they can;t make better a.i. It has always been our assumption that they have too many things on their plate to care about these meaningful experience problems. I think they should at least be able to change the names cause advance being normal doesn't means it's advance. I think it should be more like this where normal = normal, advance = hard, and elite = Very hard. This way elite can actually be a challenge cause right now that is just my normal. Oh well, that is just my opinion on the matter.

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 17:05

Leekcoco

Elite mode isn't difficult, nothing you can't ROFLstomp with a Chaos set and 5* Brandish. I'm up for more loot, but perhaps making changes to the maps such as having more puzzles and making you go through longer levels is a better way to balance it.

Sun, 02/15/2015 - 20:39

Fehzor

If you ask me, the difficulty modes shouldn't effect progression, but there should still be incentive to play on harder difficulties. In other words, they'd all have to give out rarities/crowns evenly, but elite and advanced modes still need to have something special that only end-game players would care about.

For example, lets say they made it so that the current loot system was what it is on elite mode for normal/advanced.. but made it to where the primal/forge/grim sparks found only dropped on advanced/elite mode, in place of vials and occasionally. Then, they could put something akin to a rare item shop at Brinks with things like 1000 forge sparks for a darkfang, 1000 primal sparks for the third troika, 1000 grim sparks for book of dark rituals, things like that, fun, valuable and prestigious but entirely not necessary for progress.

As far as the difficulty of the actual game, I would agree with you that elite should be about the norm, but I see A LOT of players that are A LOT of bad at the game. I think that a good solution would be to have the game stress practice over gear, and to roll with the harder difficulty anyway. I also agree with you when you say things like "less cheap difficulty, more fair difficulty", though you phrased it a bit oddly. Instead, "artificial difficulty" and "true difficutly are the usual terms. It's quality VS quantity, and we were promised quality as well as quantity when elite mode came out.

Mon, 02/16/2015 - 18:39

Chaos-Mist

Warning: Superiority Complex.

I don't think people should be encouraged to play on lower difficulty. I feel players should always be rewarded for taking the risk and proving skill (check almost any thread that says anything about changing the in-game fighting...I nearly always say "make it harder!" to some degree xD).

The problem with calling "Advanced" "Normal" and calling "Normal" something like "Easy" is that it would make people who can't play higher than that difficulty feel like the game is too hard for them, so it'll put them off. OOO will never support something that would put people off the game, surely. Especially new players.

"Better AI than the other difficulties"
- People have been crying out for better AI since the dawn of time...it seems like it'll never happen. Although I do support it for SOME mobs. However, some mobs cannot have better AI. One example would be the Gremlin Mender. They are capable of spamming revive and a room of 3 of them with smart-AI would be literally impossible for a solo knight (they would revive faster than be killed, they'd spread out to avoid bombs and such). :\

I'll agree that more loot should come from runs, it takes ages to accumulate crowns if you're not a 'bash'. Maybe the forgot to balance crowns after the sprite update (as orbs and forge crystals as-well as possibly more heat had to take the majority of crowns place (I'm not a programmer so don't know if this is true, nor have I researched into the crown drop change rate)).

Tue, 02/17/2015 - 13:34

Fangel

Meh.

I see where you're coming from, but you need to pinpoint why it's not hard opposed to "make it harder".

Normal difficulty is for newcomers to the game. Advanced is what the game was like before difficulties and is a sort of "hey, use me!". Elite is for end-tier players.
Now, we need to figure out how those players go about their games. Players on normal difficulty are likely just getting into the game and are not doing research on their gear. They will likely be making cobalt armor because it's handed to them. They need the game to be easier because the gear they've taken is not great/specialized, even on later-game missions.
Players on advanced difficulty likely have gotten a few extra bits of gear and are trying out specialized damage. They probably aren't using sparks but hopefully they're learning to not just attack enemies in the face(because that's what the enemies will do back to them!). The game is playable and loot is okay.
Players on elite difficulty are there because they have a lot of gear and have played the game for a while. They probably aren't getting hit often, and as such are wearing damage-centered gear instead of defense. Loot is high-ish.

Looking at this, we should help the new players while giving the older players something to think about. Over here I outline how consumables can be changed to affect difficulty. Better AI is something we all want, but not something we necessarily need to worry about.
What if elite mode had elite-mode-only danger rooms/scenario rooms? We see in the new missions that the swarm is out... What if elite knights could run into the swarm at random? Not an unknown passage mind you, just swarm infested enemies in a difficult arena. If you only brought piercing weapons, good luck with the lumbers.
Making the overall game "harder" isn't the solution we really want. We want a challenge, but if something is consistently too challenging (Grinchlin Assault, Tortodrones. When those come around complaints are high) then it stops being fun. Having spurts of required challenges (Swarm scenario fights, scenario room that force a danger room, etc) around the clockworks makes it fun.
We don't need an easier "elite" mode. We need a more "varied" elite mode. Make elite more punishing to learning players("omg wat is this room" - Apprentice before promptly being destroyed by the swarm), and normal more cushiony to new players. I've given examples to both above.

Remember: advanced mode is how the game used to be played. Using elite as a "base" is not a good way to go.

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Difficulty Levels Need to be Fixed.