"Farming levels is lame."
Chill, everyone's got his own way to play the game. And I wish when I was still a beginner I knew about that, It'd have been of a great help. Besides, I believe game system has already ways to prevent that kind of doings, isn't it?

Unfortunately your only speech won't prevent it. Besides I'm pretty sure if it ought to be called an exploit, some earlier release would have already taken care of completely stopping people from doing that, isn't it?

I'm sure this case was expected by developpers. It almost sounds obvious it was actually, and 3 monthes have passed since the update. Besides, I saw a thread about "Shield break" (can't get my hand back on it) which describes what happens when that method is overused, and that feature probably exists since the launch of the "Go solo" option. I'd rather hear of people farming arenas in loops because they can't benefit their CE enough in other ways to buy more, than see towns crowded with players resorting to other least fair methods such as re-selling materials of some ignorant (mostly newcomers) sellers.
And that method is surely popular since a while, I'm pretty sure it helped some old fellahs farm tons of trinkets from Love Puppies in the past already. For me, its certain that case was already dealt with by devs. Also maybe they could reduce the amount of retries allowed before shield breaking, but I doubt they can do much more than that without getting seriously contested.

Except "Going Solo" was added after release and did not have testing in the Preview (as far as I know).

The "go solo" option is not needed to loop. As the release notes said, it is equivalent to kicking yourself from your own party. The only thing that is different now is that the alt doesn't need to kick you, you can kick yourself from their party.

Is looping really something that didn't happen during beta??

Looping is clearly an exploit, and a pretty obvious one at that. IF OOO wants it out of the game, they'll take care of it eventually.

Instead of arguing this "huge gap between having heard and having seen" maybe wait for a response from someone who was playing back then and can confirm that it was so / wasn't so. Also, bring what? Everything was reset, nothing outside of refunded CE was given. Love Trinkets were obviously exploited as hell after the launch not in the beta, even if they were exploited in the beta that wouldn't matter since the reset. People were farming them exactly on this damn loop hole. People got banned, biggest offenders are still in the game. One guy even went ahead and made something amazing: he made a contest in which he'd give someone 1000CE for showing him a Love Puppy in game, and letting him in the party in which it was, he said that he would not kill it, just see it and leave - at that time he'd do the deed of the looping. From what i saw a month after this got patched out the guy was still posting on this forum. You also have some poor imagination if you don't know what will happen when some people start doing 3000 crowns per 10 ce pop, if this starts to skyrocket, only god will be able to save us.

Yea it was as if you hit return to haven.

Too late! Your post title says "Looping can [*slap*nutpunch*REDACTED BY BASIL'S MOM]"

Besides I'm pretty sure if it ought to be called an exploit, some earlier release would have already taken care of completely stopping people from doing that, isn't it?

Not necessarily. The features that can be exploited to loop through levels are also highly desirable for people who aren't looping levels. Being able to join your friends is a good thing. Being able to remove yourself from a bad group without losing your progress is a good thing. Preventing people from looping without interfering with those features requires careful thought. Solutions may not be obvious, and may be difficult to implement properly. Or, it may just not be considered severe enough to be a high priority.

Is this an exploit? Reasonable people may come to different conclusions, but the fact that the behavior hasn't been stopped yet is weak evidence at best. Since the functionality being used serves clear social purposes, I very much doubt that looping is an intended benefit. I wouldn't say it's the kind of severe exploit people should be banned for using, but I agree with Dirt that it's lame.

hi i think this is wery bad
please 3o make official statement
ban the looping players, or increase the crowns gain in other levels
the looping players increase the cost of ce, so eweryone are affected.

"the looping players increase the cost of ce, so eweryone are affected."

I wonder how you estimate the factors that make CE cost go up and down. No, seriously, tell me. Regardless from the fact that players loop arenas or not, millions of crowns are generated daily, I doubt, really, that the players looping arenas or whatever have the slightest influence over CE price. Remember CE price is determined by players, and if CE nowadays are expensive its just about demand and supply; so far crowns don't have such an important use (compared to energy), its normal that players ask more crowns for their energy, which is vital. We'll see how the energy price goes after the UV roll NPC asking crowns is released.
Ah YES, IMPORTANT NOTICE: Spiral Knights is a free 2 play game. I have already a "certain" experience of F2P games in general. Farming is the BEST way to make your way through such games for free. There's nothing blamable with farming; also I've read the other thread (I had no idea it went out of style like that), I've think the essential already is there: so far, this isn't a bannable offence. This isn't an offence at all, actually. Besides, the shield-break motion probably prevents 95% of the "smart" players looping map from continuing. I'm pretty sure soloing an arena without shield requires some good gears, and usually players with good gears are already finding better profits in T3 runs. I don't see where's the concern; nobody's forbidding anyone to do so, and even if tons of player did that, it would only result some basic materials prices to reduce and certainly nothing else. Especially if (talking of a close future) all the crowns earned get consumed in UV random rollings.

How to estimate the effect of activity on CE prices:

Does it fountain more crowns for the same energy spent as other activities? -> CE price up
Does it fountain less crowns for the same energy spent as other activities? -> CE price down
Does it cause more energy to be sunk? -> CE price up
Does it cause more crowns to be sunk? -> CE price down

It's really that simple. Looping arenas pays better than average levels, so it puts crowns into the economy, so it moves the price of CE up.
The fuzzy parts are all about 'how -much- does activity A affect the economy vs activity B?' and 'how much does this game mechanic encourage activity C?'

Figuring out which direction those activities push CE prices - easy. Figuring out what proportions players will engage in various activities? Much more difficult.

You said I doubt, really, that the players looping arenas or whatever have the slightest influence over CE price and I took that to mean you didn't think that players looping arena levels had any effect on CE prices. I guess we are in agreement that it has some effect, the size of which we don't have any good way of knowing.

I say without any proof that it does or does not influence CE price, you or me can't judge wether it does or not. And good luck finding one, personally I won't bother. I've talked quickly saying it might not affect CE price, but saying it does is just as hasty.
And to your last question, I assume looping T1 arenas will result players will gather over the same materials (not mentionning the worthless ones), such as:
Swordstones (because arenas are full of Mecha knights), Shards (distinctless from the color), Iron gear (Puppies), Monster bones (Beasty arenas only), Gremlin gizmos..
In high amounts! And those same materials are (for most) ending up in:
-re-sellers hand -> therefore we'd find tons back in the Auction house
-rage-crafters -> but who still rage crafts, knowing soon we'll all be able to roll for UVs?
-or just straightly in Auction house
>So anyway, they'd end up somewhere around Auction house, whereas that'd be in the hand of bulk buyers or in the offers list of the house. Now I don't want to say players tend to all use Auction house the same way but:
-Who doesn't ever put the stuffs he sells in it at the cheapest price, in order to sell it quickly?
Not me. Example of materials seeing their price dropping like hell:
-Flame souls (I could sell those 10k crowns each 3 weeks ago, now it wouldn't go for more than 3k crowns)
-Trojan horseshoes (Roughly went from 4.5k crowns to like 2k crowns, in the same lapse of time)

Anyway you're right to say I've got a little bit confused with the ideas so I'll sum up what I think about looping arenas:
-Its not an exploit.
-Its not banable.
-Developpers featured a solution against it (shield breaking). Hence they clearly are aware of this and maybe not willing to change it at all.
-It never publically bothered anyone until someone mentionned it on the forums. Yes; nobody complained it before.
-Farming in a Free 2 Play game is 100% legal, acceptable, normal.

Sorry. Long post.

-Its not an exploit.

How is it not? Abusing the ability to reinvite yourself to a level using a second character does not sound legitimate no matter how you look at it.

-Developpers featured a solution against it (shield breaking). Hence they clearly are aware of this and maybe not willing to change it at all.

This bug was found in the Advance Training Hall first, if I recall correctly. It has never been publicly announced that this was implemented to prevent farming.

-It never publically bothered anyone until someone mentionned it on the forums. Yes; nobody complained it before.

Wrong. I have spoken out against it in the game when offered to do it with my acquaintances. I did not make a public stink about it due to it being more of a secret thing. Do you know why it was probably kept hush-hush? Because it is an exploit of a system that was not intended.

One last point of my own: I have heard of several people making exorbitant profits off of just arena farming: up to 4,000CE in one day! I can't think of a single way to make that much dosh without abusing such an exploit to an extreme. While you are entitled to your opinion, none of your arguments do good in swaying me to believe otherwise that this isn't abuse and I do hope that it will become a punishable offense in the near future.

You can claim your point all the way you want, until no official announcement's been made, there's no reason to call that an exploit.

And, yet, people were banned for using a similar exploit to obtain Love Puppy trinkets...

my friend told me this

shields break after 1hour instance(try it out for confirmation)

It's an exploit. We can't stop you from doing it, Thoran, but your rationalizations and going to great lengths to reason why it's not are a hint. If it were NOT an exploit, and it were planned for us by the devs, we would have a "repeat level" option. The shield break is a bug, not a feature, and looping is the unfortunate side ability of the combined abilities of going solo from a bad party without losing progress and joining some friends.

You can explain it away all you want to, and we can't stop you, but deep down you know it's an exploit. It's very likely it will be fixed eventually, but 3R needs to figure out how to do it without affecting either the soloing or joining abilities. The only thing that makes this tolerable is that relatively few people practice it, I think, in relation to the number of people legitimately playing the game.

As long as no authority clearly states it is an exploit, there's no need to call it an exploit.

Except, y'know, this falls under the definition of exploitation. Whether or not it is viable is a different matter.

And I guess you could say there's no need to *not* call it an exploit. You seem to be operating under the logic that "if it's not prohibited, it's allowed," which isn't true in a lot of cases both game-wise and IRL, rather than the "if it's not permitted, it's prohibited." If the feature to replay a level when you hit the end isn't available, well then, I think that tells you a lot.

You're right about the fuss thing. It really doesn't matter, because no one can tell when someone else is doing it, and no one could stop them even if they did. And I doubt enough people are currently doing it to throw off the market a whole lot, although it will if it gains wide practice. But, hypotheticals. Anyway, it's obvious this is not an intended feature of the game to a great majority of people here, just judging by the posts. You want to insist it isn't, go ahead. Whatever floats your boat, man.