After doing the mission of navigating a depth of traps*, I was more pumped than any other level I had done. I liked having to figure out what to do in each room, being careful of the spikes, terrain, etc. Near the end of the level, I talked to the party if they would like more levels like it, and they all agreed with energy. Of course, people might complain that there aren't enough monsters to get heat and crowns from, so an easy supplement could be more treasure boxes, but having some difficulty to get to them. Obviously, through the tiers it gets harder and trickier, but I would like more levels like that. Anyone agree, or anyone disagree? Comments?
*I don't have access to go on Spiral Knights at the moment, so I can't say/remember the mission exactly, but it can be easily found.
I sort of agree that this might be a cool idea. Treasure boxes are a must, and having them be difficult to get is a good idea, but there should probably just be some at the end of the level, too. You mentioned higher tiers getting trickier, so rather than just being a bunch of boring old traps, why not make a puzzle-like level?
There's a few points in levels where players need to hit a specific combination of switches in order to open a set of gates (Scarlet Fortress comes to mind). I think it would be cool to expand this idea to neutralizing a set of traps. In order for levels to be challenging, they would probably have to contain a combination of timed traps, drones, and activated traps, and they would have to contain a LOT of them. A puzzle level might fit in with the idea of the Clockworks being a giant mysterious machine thing, and could probably be added in with treasure vaults and graveyards on randomized levels.