The gameplay
The gameplay in Puzzle and Dragons is stale and repetitive. The player has 6 monsters on their side, and in order to make them attack the player must match orbs on a board, bejeweled style but with a bit more depth to it. In order to actually beat the levels, the player must use the wiki, do calculations and farm for god knows how long.. but the player is motivated. They want to do things. And the reason for that, is something that Spiral Knights, a game with much better in depth gameplay, could learn from.
A video of what this looks like- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuBF4crfxtE
Paying to win
The rare egg machine is exactly what it sounds like. Five dollars go in, something hopefully good but probably not comes out. All of the good monsters are here, and it's an integral part of the game. This is just how the game goes, but in Spiral Knights if that happened the mess it would cause would be tremendous.
The rare egg machine- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaQrI1b9ZpA
There are two reasons for this- Puzzle and Dragons provides its players with FREE premium currency ALL the time! Not 100 a day that requires a purchase, and not on a farmable basis. The amount it provides is about a dollar's worth of premium, and comes in the form of magic stones. So if I, a free player, wants to gamble at the rare egg machine, I can totally do that. About 3 gambles a month, but it is progress and I will slowly get what I need and want from the machine. The other reason is that there is zero trading and no one really cares what you're rolling with except you. It's all intrinsic motivation, to get cool dragons to add to your team.
While I would not suggest this for gear in Spiral Knights as NOT having such a system on gear is a major selling point, I would suggest this for prize boxes. What if, every player received a bound prize box to sample from? Whatever you received from your bound box would also be bound to your knight, and therefore untradeable ever and let me tell you- one accessory, one costume piece, does NOT make a costume and the best way to get people hungry is to provide them with an appetizer. Food for thought.
Events
In Puzzle and Dragons, there are two or three events every day that last for an hour and come one to three times that day. On top of that, there is some larger event that lasts for a week or so, and usually a one to two day boss or several bosses on for that period, AND a dungeon only available on that day of the week AND a few regular, always available dungeons that are now giving better loot. Many of these are collaborations with other series, such as Batman. If players do something well as a group (such as win the streaming event or post on faebook), every single player of Puzzle and Dragons gets a reward, in the form of a dungeon or something. On top of that, "god fests" and other festivals make the rare egg machine (above) feature different monsters, stirring up the supply and strengthening the demand.
An event egg machine- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBG5kVm-iw0
The front page of the Puzzle and Dragons wiki lists daily events and provides vital info- http://puzzledragonx.com/
Imagine if Spiral Knights had events like this. Imagine if we had superficial dungeons thrown together to fill the void between the bigger, better events that everyone gets excited for. A few variables tweaked, some out of place monsters... AND THE NEW DAILY IS IN! When I log on to Spiral Knights, I see the same set of missions greeting me, and it feels far more stale than when I log on to Puzzle and Dragons and see something new, or something that I haven't seen in a while.
I'm not saying that we should have 5 events simultaneously every single second of the day, but I am saying that we could have one event going always and forever, and that it doesn't have to be earth shattering like the tortodrones and x-mas events are. Because all of this gives the sense that something is happening. Not once in a while happening, but constantly. And the genius of this on Puzzle and Dragons is that every single event provides something new that benefits the player in some interesting way, because monsters need different and interesting parts to become finished.
Crafting Monsters
Complete and EXCELLENT monsters require the following:
Each of the above requires a different dungeon, and it's far from perfect but it works out because it means that the player can not farm in one place. Evolution materials are on once a week, awoken skills require either another monster or something called a Tamadra (which is rarely handed out and can be found on a few select levels- think hunting them when the opportunity arises), leveling up the monster's active skills requires a monster with the same skill- these are available randomly and rarely, and sometimes not at all. A special monster can also be used to level up the active skill. Different monsters are different in difficulty to skill up- some are nightmarish and some are simple and quick. Plus eggs can be farmed for specifically, but also accumulate over time.
An example of crafting monsters- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPP9EpTMZJE
On Spiral Knights, the player can (with a few small exceptions) definitely farm in one place- firestorm citadel. You get the loot and it's the best for the farming compared to the skill, gear and connections required, hands down. If the player wants to mix it up, they do so at their own risk and they have to find people to go with them, prepare gear for that new place, and then actually go and do it. The benefit to having the farming spread out is that it's considerably more interesting than not. We've started to see this in the fact that arenas do pay out better than FSC and that DaN provides more radiant fire crystals, but the crafting system on the whole is as bland as possible.
So what if we did the same thing to spice things up? Maybe make certain new weapons (think gunner and later bomber/swordsmen update weapons) require a few event only materials, and then run those events once a week? Maybe make materials considerably more rare than orbs of alchemy and even fire crystals? Maybe further separate out fire crystals into special dungeons and make them rarer on the whole? Maybe make battle sprites favor random materials from a pool rather than just favoring their specific type? It's been said that the crafting system needs something, and I think this hits the nail on the head.
The Story
I've been playing for a few months now and I still have no idea what the story is because basically, there is no story except do whatever you want. This lends itself very well to just developing RPGesque characters for no reason and is propelled by human desire to expand, to see what else can be done... rather than just, well, get to the end and done Kcoolbye.
While the story in Spiral Knights is pretty sweet and much better than having none at all, it is important to remember that players want to explore. Exploring, finding levels, getting new stuff for the sake of it.. these are all things that you the adventurer want to do. The Spiral Order doesn't have to tell me to go down and investigate or ask me to come into the core because I want to go into the core.
If you build something into the game, players WILL find it and they WILL go for it. Lets say I find an elevator randomly in the clockworks that takes me to a secret level.. I'd do it, ten times out of ten. And if you were to embrace that as a philosophy it would heighten the feel of the game as well as the story itself.
As someone who’s disgustingly deep in the hell that is Puzzle and Dragons, I’ve gotta weigh in on some of these ideas.
Paying to win
‘tl;dr version: give players periodic prizeboxes’
My opinion on this lies on one thing; will we also receive energy IN these prizeboxes?
Spiral Knights is a very gear-based game; the only non-gear based ‘stats’ you can have is your rank and prestige, one of which requires you to have high-levelled gear to progress in. There’s tons of items in this game, and you want to ENCOURAGE players to make them, to try out new armor sets. I personally would like to see a reduction to the costs of making an item from 3-star and up, BUT if players received free energy (maybe 50 a box? Depends on how often boxes are given, I guess), then this would provide a good incentive to make gear WITH the free energy. You’ll hafta wait, yes, but you’d hafta grind otherwise.
I recall needing a bunch of King of Ashes runs to make enough crowns to make enough ENERGY to make a five star item. And all that grinding just ain’t FUN. Honestly didn’t make my goal of getting every set of armor in the game one I wanted to complete, since just one piece of five star whatever takes a LOT of investment. Felt like I had to optimize everything and go with whatever cookie cutter Vog Cub/Skolver/Chaos to maximize my time spent.
But with a way to get to the same point WITHOUT a long grind, that changes very quickly. In a game centered on gear, you want people to be making more gear. More importantly, you want them to invest IN making more gear, ‘cuz that’s in-game investment and motivation they’ll use to, y’know, keep playin.
Events
‘tl;dr version: a constant stream of smaller events to help players wait until the next big event/update’
PaD’s constant events gives players a constant thing to constantly do.
These event dungeons have MULTIPLE things to benefit players. At the time of writing, there’s a dungeon going on that has a LOT of skill-up monsters for a wide range of monsters you can have, along with a chance of a rare monster with a pretty good active skill showing up and being yours. The monsters you can get are also semi-decent for earlier players. And if all that doesn’t interest you, you can beat the dungeon and get a free magic stone outta it (the premium currency that Fehzor mentioned earlier.)
This event provides a LOT that players can make great use of, be it getting more premium currency, powering up their own monsters, or even getting some new ones. I dunno how to translate that into Spiral Knights, however. Maybe an event where there’s a good rate of getting Fire Crystals? Or, perhaps, and event with an increased chance of getting Sparks of Life? Anything that can benefit multiple players for multiple reasons is definitely ideal.
Crafting Monsters
‘tl;dr version: make it so that needed items are spread out in different places’
In reference to the ‘event materials showing up in once-a-week-dungeons,’ I’m all for the idea of the new dungeons with new materials, but I hafta say ‘no’ to the idea of it bein’ once a week.
In PaD, you need ‘Material Monsters’ to evolve other monsters. These material monsters show up in sparsely throughout normal dungeons. But from Tuesday to Friday, there’s day-long dungeons where you can farm specific types of materials. The end result of this means that you ALWAYS have access to almost all the materials you’ll need. SO such an idea can be applied here; make the materials considerably rarer than others, and have dungeons where you have a better chance at getting them.
The Story
‘tl;dr version: let the players curiosity urge them to explore content and levels’
I don’t have anythin’ to say against this, really. The change from Mist Energy to no energy encourages us to go around and do as we please. I definitely want incentives to go around the different areas of the game.
I’ve a problem with missions for this reason. With most missions, I’ve no reason to return to them. I play through the mission, see the story that goes with it, associated challenges, and leave. I blazed through Lizard Lounge for several weeks simply because I could skip most of it without fighting, can stock up on Luminite, and had a decent chance at getting Sparks of Life at it. But now that I levelled my sprite, I’ve no reason or incentive to really go back there.
BUT I can’t say Spiral Knights is the only one with this problem; I don’t exactly replay older PaD levels for the fun of it either. If a dungeon in PaD has nothing to offer, then I’ve got better things to do with my limited Stamina than run them.
Nonetheless, the fabled Arcade Update is said to give us reasoning to go through and explore, so whatever they plan to do with hat, I eagerly look forward to.
P.S. HEY FEHZOR, I’ve got a Max Awoken Uvo’d Grodin as my leader most of the time. The recent Godfest also gave me tons of good monsters (Pandora, Shiva, Venus, and Urd). 350,844,323, HINT HINT, WINK WINK.