Spiral Knights - Stop Rewarding Boring Play

Stop Rewarding Boring Play

25 replies [Last post]

Fri, 09/02/2011 - 20:36

Antistone

Legacy Username

I hold out little hope that any good will come of posting here, but I've got to get this off my chest.

THE GAME SHOULD NOT REWARD PLAYERS FOR DOING BORING THINGS.

In particular, I have in mind:
A. Running the same levels over and over, instead of experiencing the full variety the game has on offer
B. Waiting around the elevator for the level to change so, that you can run the same level over and over

It is common knowledge that arenas give far more crowns than most other levels. Maybe there was a point where it was reasonable to believe that most players would fight only the first bout, but it is certainly not reasonable now. Worse, arenas themselves are some of the most monotonous areas in the game.

Players should get comparable rewards on all levels at a given depth. I don't know if those rewards should be what arenas currently give or what other levels do, but they should be on all levels. There are several possible ways this could be accomplished:

1. Include optional challenges of comparable difficulty and rewards on all levels, not just arenas.

I'm sure that'll take some extra design and programming work, but it can't be that hard, at least on the levels that are already randomly-generated out of legos.

2. Put optional challenges behind pay walls that make them comparable to running another regular level

This would probably mean that you'd need to charge energy from all players (not just one, like in danger rooms), and you'd need to offer roughly the same crowns/energy ratio as a regular level.

3. Make optional challenges give only minor or non-cumualtive rewards

Something that most people won't particularly mind missing (at least after they've done it a few times). Possibly vanity items (costumes, achievements, etc.), heat, minerals, quickbar items (vials, etc.), or some kind of token that can only be exchanged for items that are not worth selling to other players.

4. Balance levels on the assumption that all optional challenges are completed

It's probably not a serious problem if someone can accept LESS money than normal in order to finish the level quicker/easier, as long as someone intent on maximizing their income is willing to accept any level.

5. Make optional challenges RIDICULOUSLY hard

Hard enough that the clear majority of players are unable to complete them without spending so much energy on revives that they're not worth it. You run the servers, so you should collect statistics on how many players choose to try them and how well they do and rebalance them if this is not true.

That seems rather inconvenient, since it locks out most players from experiencing that content, and people who DO want to do them will generally not be able to play with pick-up groups. This option would not be my preference. But if you desperately want these to reward players for being awesome, that's how it should work.

And on a related note, the current system of waiving the cost for tier 2/3 entrance for completing the previous tier of the same gate really only helps players who pick a single gate and run it a huge number of times, which, again, punishes players for trying out the full variety on offer. A slightly better system would be to waive the fee for players who have completed the SAME tier on the PREVIOUS gate, so that you avoid fees by playing every gate in order rather than cherry-picking only the best ones.

Fri, 09/02/2011 - 21:02

Twiddle

+1. Good suggestions.

Sat, 09/03/2011 - 00:17

Cogspin

Legacy Username

Boring is relative

I love doing Arenas because of the challenge. Even if they were only equally rewarding as other areas (less rewarding would be counterintuitive), I'd still probably run them repeatedly. In fact, I'd much rather do an arena that another level that doesn't push me as hard. What you and I find "boring" are obviously two different things; perhaps it's this way for other players, too? And if it's so boring, why do so many players continue to do it?

Besides, there's enough rotating/random content within gates that you'll probably still get different levels on consecutive runs, and the gate rotation means that you'll have to change your farming gate at least once in a while. If you want to explore the Clockworks for a change, do that instead of your normal farming runs and cut your losses by doing danger rooms.

On a deeper design level, it makes sense to have different levels with different levels of risk, since everyone's at a different skill level. At the same time, it also makes sense to tie the amount of reward you get for a level to the amount of risk you take. This makes the game open and accessible to more players, but still rewards good players who go after more difficult content. Taking this system out would mean that either new people get overwhelmed, or experienced people get bored, both of which are toxic for a game... but so long as it remains in, reward-conscious players are going to want to only do the most money-optimal things.

Sat, 09/03/2011 - 01:43

Ufana

Good points, I've been hoping

Good points, I've been hoping for a few balancing updates here for a long time too. In my opinion the worst things are:
- that T3 has less to offer than T2 (if you don't count "fun" - and the most players don't seem to do that). Especially the first half. And again if you take into account, that most players can sleepwalk trough T2. As a bomber I practically play against the destructible blocks that are in my way, the only thing the mobs do is drop coins & heat while I'm removing those obstacles. And many of the swordies don't even seem to bother to use both hands, even if their shield button is on the keyboard.
- Mobs that are particularly less "comfortable" to fight with most weapons don't offer higher rewards. That of course is further encouragement to do the easy lvls. I hardly find anyone that wants to go "bunny-hunting" with me. Noone appreciates free bureau equipment, they all just want cr ;)
- At a certain point, skill & good equipment just don't help any more. You only get hit by bad luck & lag anyway (if you're playing fast & sort of absent-minded at least) and there's no place were it's rewarding / motivating to play carefully & slowly (like we used to the first few times we were doing fsc, with 4* stuff, awfully long zombie arms and us not knowing what'll be in the next room).

Also: I'd suggest putting in a few secret buttons to activate "hard mode" for the current lvl. Doesn't have to be fancy... maybe make it possible to set phantoms free in some undead lvls (phantoms in fsc might be fun, not sure). Or just increase lvl of spawned mobs by 5. Or make all normal jellies spawn 2 small jellies when they're killed. Or spawn an extra T2 mob of the same type besides any T3 mob on the map... stuff like that, entirely optional.

Sat, 09/03/2011 - 18:56

KaneFireHero

Legacy Username

This is a useless idea in my

This is a useless idea in my opinion as i am a hug fan of the arena areas as they give a good challenge and i have already done everything else and have found no challenge so i would rather do the arena!

then making it that everything gives the same reward would make the game more boring cause arena would be pointless making everything the same and boring!

Sun, 09/04/2011 - 03:58

Rage-Knight

If arenas are boring...

If arenas are boring, what is not?
Arenas, in my personal opinion are THE most interesting part in the game. Most monsters, most rewards, highest concentration of action.
If you came looking for art, please look elsewhere. If you came looking for puzzles, look at puzzle pirates, another free to play MMO puzzle game. It has a few puzzles you might be interested in.
I came for action. The best place to get what I came for is to fight on arenas. I'd play Blast Network day and night if it didn't lag to a ridiculous level where I can't tell where my knight stands, he might be teleported up to 10 tiles away at any given moment.

Sun, 09/04/2011 - 04:58

Ufana

Yes, I get it, you don't want

Yes, I get it, you don't want arenas to get nerfed because you haven't been playing the game long enough to get sick of T2 arena runs yet and you enjoy getting a lot of cr & heat. But the point of this thread isn't that arenas should be made "worse", it's that the REST of the game should be adjusted to be "just as good".

So really what you're saying is: "We don't want players to have fun, challenges and be rewarded unless they do arena loops the whole time like we do"? Or which part of it am I not understanding? Sounds sort of... unreasonable...

Sun, 09/04/2011 - 05:52

Starlinvf

The problem at large isn't

The problem at large isn't that people are playing boring, its the focus on rewards. People have all developed a Pavlovian response to rewards like monkeys on crack, and will do whatever they think will get them the most rewards in the shortest time possible.

At the same time, people are lazy and self entitled. So now you also have the above situation, but also involving the least amount of work.

Sun, 09/04/2011 - 09:04

GamerTB

Legacy Username

This is why we can't have nice things.

...get out.

Sun, 09/04/2011 - 09:39

Tauburnasaurus

"The problem at large isn't

"The problem at large isn't that people are playing boring, its the focus on rewards. People have all developed a Pavlovian response to rewards like monkeys on crack, and will do whatever they think will get them the most rewards in the shortest time possible.

At the same time, people are lazy and self entitled. So now you also have the above situation, but also involving the least amount of work."

Thats inflation for you. People want more crowns to buy more CE at the increasing CE rate. when the CE rate starts to fall, less people will want to/need to farm crowns, as it'll take less effort to get CE.

Sun, 09/04/2011 - 09:54

#10

Rage-Knight

I would love to have MORE

I would love to have more challenges on levels and better rewards on all levels, not just arenas. But that is being unrealistic.

Sun, 09/04/2011 - 10:55

#11

Antistone

Legacy Username

A few points

A few points have been raised that are perhaps worth addressing.

1. "Hey, I happen to LIKE arenas!"

Good for you. But that doesn't really change anything. Perhaps the problem is marginally less severe than I painted it, but it still exists and the solution is still the same.

I'm confident most people would rather play a variety of levels than ONLY a single one, even their favorite. Even if you disagree, the devs have already decided against you: they've spent a huge amount of time and effort adding a bunch of non-arena levels to the game already (and say they're still working on more), so they obviously believe those are adding some value.

I'm even more confident that most people would rather NOT wait around for the level to change, all else being equal.

And even if you WOULD rather play nothing but arenas, you still could. Equalizing the rewards on all levels won't prevent it. You wouldn't be losing anything.

2. "Arenas merit greater rewards due to greater challenge."

First of all, if that is the real rationale, it clearly hasn't been followed consistently. Arenas give a reward that is wildly out of proportion to their challenge, as evidenced by the fact that even parties that are having trouble at their depth will still wait for arenas.

Compare to some of the other "greater challenge" options available to players. Danger rooms, in my opinion, are harder than arenas at the same depth (the individual monsters are certainly higher-level); yet they have a pay gate to get in, they aren't reliably available, and they provide smaller rewards than arenas. Tier 3 is clearly harder than tier 2; yet its levels give essentially the same rewards as their tier 2 counterparts 10 floors up. Treasure vaults and graveyards arguably support the challenge/reward argument, except that I don't find graveyards particularly hard, and both are hidden behind a randomizer with the explicit purpose of NOT letting players choose their desired level of challenge/reward.

Personally, I think arenas give the highest reward because monsters are hard-coded to drop treasure automatically, while traps, puzzles, and other obstacles are NOT, and no one bothered to do the math when designing the level.

If the devs WANT to make this their philosophy, and apply it consistently, I'm not against that. But that will require changes AT LEAST as radical as the ones I proposed--in fact, several of my proposed solutions would be a good first step in this direction. So my suggestion is still essentially the same.

3. "The problem is that people are focused on the rewards."

That's like saying that the problem is that water is wet. Maybe we wouldn't have this problem if that weren't true, but we'd have a giant host of new problems, and it's not something we could possibly change in any event. Any competent designer will take this as a given and work with it rather than against it.

That's true in any game, but particularly in Spiral Knights, where the publisher is specifically trying to harness the game's economy to make money. They NEED players to be focused on the rewards. That is an actual design requirement.

Sun, 09/04/2011 - 14:48

#12

Twiddle

The problem is not that

The problem is not that arenas are boring. The problem is that repeatedly doing arenas over and over again becomes boring in time. Why would you do arenas over and over again rather than do the other levels? Some might do it because they like arenas. But, many are doing it because Arenas are the most profitable levels in the game. They could nerf arena payouts, but that would send people to the next most profitable levels in the game. That's what happened with Jelly Palace. Everyone was running it, so they nerfed RJP payouts. That sent these people to the arenas.

What needs to happen is a systematic re balancing of payouts across all levels. No one level should be more profitable then the other levels. That way players are encouraged to explore all the levels instead of grinding the one or two most profitable ones. One could argue that that would send players to the easiest levels to complete, but there are two problems with that argument:

1) people needs materials, and you can't get all the materials you need from just one strata
2) Some people love difficulty. The number of people pleased by fiend levels attest to this.

Perhaps the hardest thing would be that if all levels provided the same cr and heat, then people would run levels for the most profitable materials. The Material market is a player-driven economy, and trying to balance that would be very difficult. In order to balance material payouts you would need to make supply and demand uniform, and doing that would mean, at the very least, a systematic rebalancing of all weapons and armors in the game (so that no one weapon or armor is better than the rest.) Perhaps that's why OOO came up with the howlitzers and Polyps...

Mon, 09/05/2011 - 06:50

#13

Skillkid

yes and no

ik its boring doin arenas over and over but these days people do anything for money plus its laods for 1 thing (thing = bit of equipment) so make even MORE of a award for it but at the same time make so so so so so so much harder cause its always so easy i always do all the fights cause they are too easy but give big reward so as a summary more for more

Mon, 09/05/2011 - 07:03

#14

Starlinvf

Mix Howlizers, Polyps and

Mix Howlizers, Polyps and Rocket Puppies in every arena...... That sounds both unnerving and exciting.

Mon, 09/05/2011 - 07:22

#15

Facejuances

Every level should be random,

Every level should be random, like graveyards and treasure vaults- that's the best solution.

Mon, 09/05/2011 - 08:11

#16

Ufana

No its not. People still do

No its not. People still do T2 because you get more profit (if not per lvl then per time spent), especially if there's a gate with good arena chances around. It should be possible to play fun AND sort of "optimal" at the same time. It's hard to find a full team that accepts "fun" or "challenge" as reward if there's no cr/ce attached to it - lets face it, even many of the ones that would rather do something else stick to the "rewarding" parts of the game because they don't want to miss out on the "long term" benefits. If snipe poop would be made of CE, you'd rarely ever see anyone in the clockwork, they'd just follow snipes around and find many many reasons & explanations of why "cleaning up behind snipes is actually really the most fun and challenging thing in the whole game".

Mon, 09/05/2011 - 08:55

#17

Starlinvf

Thats because Snipes have

Thats because Snipes have hyper efficient metabolisms to enable they're odd method of locomotion. It removes all organic material and compresses all remaining matter into a super-dense crystalline cluster. It is then excreted out of the body in the privacy of their homes, and carried away via Haven's plumbing system ... into the.... clock... works.......... oh god. They're Nibbloinans!!!!

Mon, 09/05/2011 - 17:04

#18

Master-Of

Antistone, I think this is related

I think this is related:
http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/23332

Mon, 09/05/2011 - 18:55

#19

Antistone

Legacy Username

Yes, but...

There have been several suggestions to remove the option to wait for the level you want. That would partially address this problem, but I don't believe it's a good option, for several reasons:

1. Players will still choose gates with higher expected payouts (e.g. ones with a higher density of arenas). Players will be forced to play more levels within the best gate, but they'll still run the same gate over and over. It will also greatly increase the incentive to "loop" levels to get around the restriction.

2. With current reward payouts, this would have the potential to cause very large differences in the rewards players collect based PURELY on luck. I object to that on philosophical grounds.

3. The ability to wait for the level to change is a cool feature, and it would be sad to lose it. It's thematic and draws players into the mythos. It permits players to target a specific level when looking for a particular crafting material, when their current equipment is better for a particular level than another, or when they just think one level is more fun than another.

4. The designers clearly liked this feature at some point, or they wouldn't have implemented it. Therefore, we could expect more resistance from them than we might get for other proposals.

My proposed solution of balancing the level payouts addresses this problem more directly and does not have any of the above problems. Thus, I see very little to recommend the idea of ripping out the whole level rotation thing.

Mon, 09/05/2011 - 20:12

#20

Master-Of

True, some players will still

True, some players will still choose gates with higher expected payouts, but I don't care much about that, because I can freely choose whatever gate I like to play. When they get bored, they can still join me in another gate, with parties, behaving less annoying.
For example, at the very moment, there is a gate with no arenas in tier 2 (the Diamond Pawn Gate). It's my current favorite. I never met someone waiting for a specific level in there. It's great. It has Wolvers, Jelly and poison themed levels with danger rooms, sometimes. I choose some kind of interesting combination of gear and settle for a little adventure in the clockworks.

I see, that you want the game experience to improve for everyone. That's great, although, it is possible that you force things too much upon players. I think it's okay to leave them the choice to play in a purely payout oriented way and choose gates based on that, as long as it does not affect players, playing for different goals. Different people enjoy different things.

Additionally, i don't think people have to keep up with each other. It's okay to not have equally developed gear. It's just a problem, if you play in a tier you shouldn't, but you do in order to play with some of your friends. See, the game allows for people to create their accounts or new characters whenever they want, so you will probably always find company in lower tiers, if your equipment develops slower, because you're playing just for teh lulz.

Though, if my suggestion of a fixed next level will not be implemented, I hope your suggestion of balancing the levels will make it, just so i will meet less people waiting for specific levels, no matter what gate I choose.

Mon, 09/05/2011 - 20:38

#21

Yeoo

Those saying that they 'love'

Those saying that they 'love' arenas as a argument towards this thread, are ignorant of the facts laid out.
Dozens of people I know are looping D6-D7 arenas because of the 2k CR/massive heat payout per 10 CE and it is FAR from fun.
I'd rather see T3 arenas give pay outs of that much.
This needs to be fixed, OP is spot on.
+1

This RPG is the only one that I've seen where higher level gameplay does not reward more. Wierd much, seems to be working thus far, but eventually it'll need to be sorted out

Tue, 09/06/2011 - 02:48

#22

Twiddle

3. The ability to wait for

Although I agree that the floor changes help draw players into the mythos, and I also agree that it's nice to choose a level so you can do things like look for specific materials, I disagree that this is a cool feature. It's not cool to do nothing for many minutes while in the middle of your run. It's boring. If they allowed you to pick which level you wanted to go to without having to wait then it might be a cool feature. (Although, it wouldn't draw people into the mythos as much as having levels rotate...)

4. The designers clearly liked this feature at some point, or they wouldn't have implemented it. Therefore, we could expect more resistance from them than we might get for other proposals.

The fact that the designers implemented the feature does not mean that they like it. Instead, it says that they designed the game to work that way. I think the goal was that if you wanted to be patient you could select your level, but most people will want to play a random level rather then to wait for a specific level. I don't think they foresaw people waiting as much as they are doing now. The system is causing gameplay to stall for many players and, whether originally intended or not, it's a problem that should be fixed.

I agree that randomizing floors would not completely solve the problem of level grinding as people will still be running the most profitable strata continually. Besides, randomizing the floors does not solve looping. But, it does solve the problem of people waiting at an elevator for an arena to come around (because, if the floors were randomized, there would be no need to wait for an arena.) It would also help reduce (but not eliminate) the extra crowns generated by running arenas continually, and that might cause the CE market to cool down a little. It's not a perfect solution, but randomizing floors would help reduce some problems in the game. So I think OOO should consider randomizing floors as a partial solution to the problem.

Tue, 09/06/2011 - 20:57

#23

Master-Of

Looping problem now solved?

The latest update seems to address the looping problem, by adding a 90 seconds timeout to heat and crowns. Does this solve the problem?

Tue, 09/06/2011 - 23:02

#24

Antistone

Legacy Username

This thread is not about the

This thread is not about the looping problem. Perhaps you got it confused with another?

Wed, 09/07/2011 - 01:23

#25

Master-Of

Hard danger rooms

Looping was mentioned a couple of times (even by you); or did you mean another kind of looping?

Also, they made new hard danger rooms. They can even be hard, with some 2-4 star gear on tier 1.
I played one, with 0 star armor, 5 star helmet, 3-4 star swords and 3 star shield in depth 1.
2 of the 4 party members left the party, due to repeated deaths. I completed the level with the party leader, who revived himself twice in the danger room.
After the level was finished, the heat made the 0 star armor go from level 2 up to level 6 or 7, but that may have been influenced by reviving of other players.
Do you think that is what you meant by "5. Make optional challenges RIDICULOUSLY hard" ?

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Stop Rewarding Boring Play