Put in a ticket to the GMs to ask, and here are the results-
Me:
There is a fairly popular practice among some of the more desperate end game players these days known as arena looping or "duplicating levels". Here's a run down of how it works-
Step 1. Get to the levels preceding the arena or area to duplicate.
Step 2. Have everyone go solo to create new but locked instances of that run.
Step 3. Have everyone go down to re-open the party and leave (or be) alternate accounts where they are.
Step 4. Everyone then does every duplicated level, returning to the alt. accounts for more.
This will create 4 unique instances of a level (usually an arena around depth 27 or 28), and with enough alts can create 16+ arenas by starting the splitting process a level earlier. 16 arenas is akin to doing 3 of firestorm citadel, and is about as much Spiral Knights as simply doing the level infinitely would provide.
So I'm wondering if this is allowed and if so why this is allowed. We were clearly not allowed to do this when the game was first released, and it is obviously somewhat wrong to all of the players that cannot perform such looping techniques.
Thank you for hearing me out.
Atalanta, Atalantatwo:
Greetings,
You are correct that arena looping certainly was not allowed when elevators were running on mist. Now that the elevator mechanics have changed, everyone is free to do as many levels as they'd like. I'll pass on your inquiry to our fellow GMs to see if our stance on arena looping has changed or not since then. Thank you in advance for your patience!
Me:
Thanks! If it is legal to loop levels in such a fashion then I'd love to write a guide regarding how to best utilize this game mechanic; it would be incredibly helpful to quite a few people.
Me:
While I wait for a reply, I might as well address your logic regarding why it would be alright with free elevators-
The old looping required us to pay 10 energy to play that arena, whereas the newer looping requires us to pay nothing just like every other level. The cost per level is the same, but the cost of time playing and work to generate that level is drastically lower. The free elevators haven't really changed that, and if anything have made it more lucrative since time is now the largest factor.
I'm impartial to what is decided, but still require a definitive answer.
Cronus:
Greetings,
I'm afraid that using alternate accounts like this isn't intended by the developers and thus isn't something we would want to actively encourage through a guide. While you're welcome to play as many levels as you want, looping an arena in the way you have described is not something we condone. The main reason for this is what you mentioned, that the arena is intended to appear after you adventure a specific distance into the Clockworks.
To be honest, I always thought this sort of arena looping was definitely abusing the programming. While It'd be nice to at least skip to the last strata, I can understand where they're coming from.