Spiral Knights - A better mineral system.

A better mineral system.

5 replies [Last post]

Sun, 01/29/2012 - 16:50

Phoenyx

There is a major problem with minerals atm, the way it is currently handled seems to create a major excess of purple minerals and a lack of yellow minerals. I believe there could be two possible reasons for this....

First there is something wrong with the code which makes purple crystals more common and yellow ones less common, thus creating an excess of purple and a lack of yellow. This would be due to poor programming and while I can't say for 100% certain this is true I do believe it could be partiall true for causing this problem (I seem to see way fewer yellow then any other cystal formation, can't say purple is way ahead of everything else though).

Second, people have an affinity for purple crystals, I don't know why exactly. My best guess would be because of naming them purple they named them "dark matter" which compared to the other minerals sounds fairly cool. I know it got me excited about grabbing purple crystals when I started playing, vs other types.

The second reason brings me to the problem, minerals can only be picked up 1 per person per floor, and each person on that floor has the ability to only select 1 color/size. This means if there is some reason people like 1 crystal over another the entire game can become unbalanced, which it has. Purple is way too common, purple cyrstal themed stratums, especially before a boss stratum, happens way too often. I realise that this weeks jelly and roar twins gates were both preceeded by beast, not sure how that happened but maybe the purple ones were saved for the vana gate.

There is a simple solution, imo, to fix the whole crystal problem. Make it so crystals aren't carried to gates, make them an item like every other single item in this game is; you pick it up and you get it in your inventory. Now I realise this means the number of minerals on levels would probably have to be dialed down, but it would remove the discrepiency that exists towards certain mineral types.

I bring this up becuase the idea of gate construction is the foundation of this game. But if we are unable to control the gate construction because there is 20% more purple crystals then any other type, how are we supposed to be able to play. I don't want to spend 5 months saving up crystals so I can control the outcome of one gate.

TL;DR

Make minerals a pick-up to inventory item to remove the bias towards purple crystals.

Sun, 01/29/2012 - 17:16

Kalaina-Elderfall

Is the bias toward purple

Is the bias toward purple caused by players? I was under the impression that purple was just worth less and yellow worth more than the others. I don't see purples as being more common than anything else, and people always take the biggest crystals when they can, purple or not. And I don't see a noticeably high number of people taking purples rather than any of the other colors.

I like the knights carrying crystals on their backs, though. It makes things interesting. So I don't like the idea of a pickup inventory item. But I definitely agree that something needs to be done about gate construction. It really doesn't give people much control, because the equalizing prices make all crystal deposits that happen up until right before the ending time pretty much meaningless.

Sun, 01/29/2012 - 17:18

Severage

Um....

Have you ever thought that maybe the reason people use Purple Minerals is because they like the result in gate construction? Blue and Purple are both very common, and I'd be more surprised if it were an error in the code rather than people liking the result during gate construction.

Also, TVs would have to either be removed from the game or uber-nerfed, because they have boatloads of minerals in them.

~Sev

Mon, 01/30/2012 - 09:02

Phoenyx

So people like poison,

So people like poison, undead, fiend and shock gates?

I always hear people complain when it is a poison level (especially arenas). Undead gets some complaints too and fiend is one of the toughest type of gates possible. Yet this bias still exists for some reason. I still think making it so that crystals are pick-up instead of carry to an elevator makes sense, they are the only object in the game that is built like this.

Yes I do agree that most floors would need nerfing as for how many crystals are on them, either that or make it so each crystal only drops a single mineral of that color (instead of a chance of dropping a large deposit).

Kalaina if purple is worth less then yellow why is purple more common, that is the very definition of bias, also the bias may not be noticeable on level to level basis but it is very apparent when you look at gate construction and see that purple is almost always ahead for the gate, especially this weekend's vana gate which saw purple rise by around 6k in less then an hour compared to other crystals, and yellow was about 10k behind.

Also if you still want to have the whole mineral on your back thing, ok... but it doesn't make sense that I can only put 1 small mineral on my back when I can put a huge mineral on my back too, so then let us carry up to certain "weight" in minerals, would help to reduce the bias in the same way.

Mon, 01/30/2012 - 15:31

Gfjmember

Yeah, I do find it odd, I

Yeah, I do find it odd, I find Yellow consistently the most valuable, with purple the least. And I really don't see why.

Poison is OK, especially if you get a concrete jungle (which sadly is only at one depth on the current Vana gate)

But I HATE fiends.

I'd also read somewhere that the types of crystals found in the clockworks is based on what was put in, and I assume mineral prices are the same.
But not sure how

Mon, 01/30/2012 - 15:39

Mohandar

possible theory

This needs someone to point to a confirming (or disproving) link but:

I thought the reason certain minerals tend to be in excess was because each type of stratum preferentially spawns specific colors of minerals, possibly the opposites of the type used to create that strata. Except boss strata are permanently of one type or another, and since they are run more frequently than other strata, the game introduces a bias toward certain color minerals (and hence certain strata).

Or I could be full of @#$%^ and the reason we get so many purple-based gates is because older players prefer harder-difficulty levels/trolling inexperienced players.

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A better mineral system.