Spiral Knights - On Spiral Knights- A Novel by Fehzor

On Spiral Knights- A Novel by Fehzor

51 replies [Last post]

Thu, 05/10/2012 - 20:42

Fehzor

I'd like to address a few issues that I think OOO is trying to improve, and my thoughts on them.

On Player Retention-
First and foremost, what I'm seeing now is that you guys need more players to outnumber those who are leaving. Our community is "small", not small like 10 people small, but microscopic in comparison to WoW and other huge games. This is kind of a nice thing for us, but not a nice thing for profit margins. I think that you guys are really on the right track with this newest update, buffing the starting weapons by a ton is the way to go, and making SOMETHING for the newer players early on should help some of them to stay. However, you still have to solve the larger issue- the CE scheme seems greedy, and people aren't nearly as likely to stay with that. I didn't say it had to go, but I am saying that some kind of a reform would be very beneficial to newer players staying. Here is what I'd suggest doing, in order of most radical to least radical:
-Make mist energy buyable from vendors at a rate of about 5K per hundred. Introduce this before the CE market. This would make the game go quite fast, but would cost you money.
-Give out mist tanks or mini mist tanks more often. Add them to prize wheels, make them more common drops in lockdown, have them occasionally on featured auctions. I'm not saying make them common, but make them... more common. Renewable, if you will.
-Make the CE market more friendly to newer players. Rather than starting with "BUY FROM US! >:D" start with teaching them to buy from the other players in that market. Then, mention that they can buy from you, and put it out as "an investment".
-Introduce crowns as almost the sole source of money. Show that the auction house is the place to go, and that they are by far more useful than energy.

(new)But... what about older players? Lets look at things as they progress- when you're new to the game, the following holds true:
-CE is worth more to you; as you need gear and have content to get to
-Trading CE for CR is a much better deal (less opportunity cost per farming T1)
-Buying CE lets you play more content faster
-Buying CE lets you learn to play faster; through revives and through getting gear

And now the same points for older players:
-CE is worth less, as you're main goal is likely to be things like accessories and status symbols. You don't have much content
-Trading CR for CE is much better, as you can get 7000 CR per 50 CE in an hour or so.
-There is no content left for you. Buying CE really won't help that too much.
-Similarly, you know how to play and don't need to revive any longer to get in good practice. You have friends to help you up.

And so we can see, that older knights are just sitting around hurting the economy, they aren't likely to buy CE (unless they are part of the elitist P2P community, though that is small), and if the price of CE is high, the game doesn't expand as much. If OOO is going to be successful, they're going to need to change this fact a bit. Featured auctions were a very good start, a steady flow of content would also help quite a bit as it would make more things for these players to get to, and to farm. Things like OCH were nice, but they want free content because of their dedication.

So how do we solve this?

Well lets look at what we need from them, and how we can motivate them, as if we were the devs, starting with what T3 players want:
-Sinks for all of their prizes; see mats; crowns; etc.
-More content to play through; more challenges and more enemies
-To look cool; reassurance that they are in fact a boss, and are in with the "in crowd" that at the moment farms duke endlessly and sits in Haven bored draped in accessories chatting like snipes.

And now, what kinds of things have the devs done for these people?
-Featured Auctions
-Prestige Missions
-Gates that take crystals giving control to guilds
-An Auction House to sell their excess loot on
-Punch to improve their gear to unnecessary levels, allowing them to.... show off to their friends.

And finally, what am I actually getting at with this?

We need a huugggeeeee sink. Not just a sink for one thing, but a sink for everything. Energy, crowns, materials, minerals, you name it.. even tokens. And I think that I've got a perfect way to do this.

Gate construction. Think about how intriguing it is, about how tempting it is to make 8 arenas (till you find out you can't lmao), about the untapped potential of these levels.

Now think about guilds. About cooperation, and about the whole "gate construction" thing.

We need a reform on gate construction; a reform that absolutely pulls things around in the economy. I'm suggesting that the arcade gate construction be tweaked entirely, in such a way that players can really build a gate around a concept. Limit the number or arenas, limit what you like, but make it so that an entire gate can be constructed. And make more levels for players to strive to play on. It'd allow an outlet for all of the items earned- which all cost energy, if only mist. Oh, and I'd like to see it be able to take CE as well, of course. This would mean that high up players could go and donate that in bulk to the system to try for their preffered levels, as well as their crowns. I could outline how I'd do this all exactly, but I won't because I have faith that you have better ideas for this than I... which brings us to-

On Crown Balance and the Arcade-
First of all, OOOs want players in the arcade. Not so much but still occasionally in the missions. The arcade should be the main attraction to playing, as it is mysterious and random and awesome and more importantly, the only way that guilds can really control the game at all. It gives them something to strive for. But I'll get to that later.

People don't play the arcade because of the way that missions give out more crowns and are faster and easier. Want to make a quick predictable 2.5K cr for your mist? Go do jelly king. Everyone knows that odd numbered stratums don't pay well. This made 100% perfect sense before the mission update came out, and was in fact good game design. But it became quite a vestigial feature once I got the ability to go directly to an even stratum- and the odd stratums are represented by the arcade. So here is what must happen- the clockworks and the mission payout must be separated. Don't ditch your old method of payout, but make it profitable. No T2 level should pay less than the first level of jelly king (800 cr), and no T3 level should pay less than the first level of FSC (1000 cr or so). Well, that isn't exactly correct, but it should be balanced based on the following criteria:
-Time to completion
-Tier
-Effort required to get there
-Difficulty to play through
-The alternative levels that I could be playing on
-The price of energy

So if I'm on a random clockworks level at the start of T3, I'm going to need to get paid more than the first level of jelly king palace, but a bit less than the first level of FSC, as FSC levels take a while to complete while clockwork tunnels are much shorter. You, OOO, keep the energy price at about 6.5K per hundred via promotions and sinks. Thus, lets look at some imaginary statistics-

Level____Time_____Difficulty (out of 5)____payout_______Difficulty to get to (out of 5)
JK-1_____5 min__________3____________800 cr_________________1
FSC-1____6 min_________4____________1000 cr________________4
CT-1_____4 min__________3____________900 cr_________________3

Now why on earth would a 4 minute level pay more than a 5 minute one with equal difficulty? Because its harder to get to, and you should be doing boss runs almost solely for the items you get there. Look at ICMF, people have fun with it, and then they move on to occasionally do it again. Its not the biggest part of the game, but it is something, and it lets people have fun for a bit on it. But unlike FSC, it does not become the entire game for people (most of the time). We want Jelly King's prize to be what is of value most to people, and currently, it is not (again with the 'I'll get to it later'). About 3 months ago, it might have been argued that buffing such levels would ruin the game. But now it has been forcefully proven that giving the ability to start out at a specific place in the clockworks will not crash the market any more than it already is crashed.

I just went and played through an entire T3 stratum. I made about 7K, which means that I'm making about 600-700 cr per level if I don't cheat or manipulate the game by waiting on arenas or run nothing but FSC. Needless to say, my mats were OK, but then the same holds true for mats on FSC (for the most part). Oh, and did I mention that I did 2 danger rooms to make that 7K? Also note that the only reason that I made that much was because I did both stratums. The first stratum paid about 3K, and the second about 4K.

I am happy about the changes to RJP's payout as well as the arena-mission's payouts, but I'm going to have to say that all you've done is made the T2 players have to work harder. I'd recommend nerfing mission FSC's payout as well, and raising the amount the clockworks pays to fix this.

On Enemy, Weapon and Armor Balance-
Currently, we've got quite a few weapons that are just flat out unusable, and several others that are outclassed too easily. So I'll go over them one by one, and describe fixes to each of them.

First, weapons:
Status pierce swords:
Flamberg and Rigadoon. Their brethren are overpowered, and these are never used. I suggested in a different threads some fixes, but people were like "Flourish = bad. Thread want buff flourish. THREAD BAD!!!", and nothing came of it. Final flourish is entirely different, and is overpowered a smidgeon, but only in lockdown. these are underpowered everywhere. They need better status, and maybe even a bit less damage to make up for it. A solution would be to halve their damage, and then allow them to deal fire/stun 100% of the time, or something along those lines.

Shard bombs:
http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/63067

Wrench wand/Cautery blade:
These need to turn into things. There are a bazillion ideas out there for both, but what I think should happen is as follows: Cautery needs to be given fire status, and made into a mini-FoV. This would make it valuable to N00Bs who need something to defeat the jelly king, but that don't want to spend forever on it, and are just trying to earn their faust (over acheron). The fire eats JK alive, so they'll be able to help their party a lot. Wrench wand I'd like to see go to 5*, or to employ some sort of faux healing technique. No, the wrench wand shouldn't heal the knight to full health 20 times a minute. Yes, it could possibly act as a sort of vampire to force enemies into dropping 20% more hearts if it damages them enough, or even make enemies turn into "healing fields" (think of silkwing mist, when they're killed, but for knights) if killed with the charge or so. "But Fehzorrrrr OVERPOWERED HEALING!!!" is what I'm about to hear. It stops at 2*. It would ONLY be viable to poor n00bs who want to help their team mates out a bit, and would provide a huge challenge for others wanting to use it in T3.

(Outdated)Blast bomb variants:
Are severely messed up. 4 weapons. Out of all of them, the only one that ever sees the clockworks is the nitronome. Why is this? Direct competition. Think of this like basic economics- weapons are trying to sell themselves. Blast bombs are in direct competition; every other weapon is an oligarchy. How do fix such blast bombs? There have been many ideas on this, but I think that we need to give them something special each and get them out of direct competition. I'd like to see the deconstructor become throwable and usable like the old bombs were in beta (but nerfed some which way). I'd like to see the irontech destroyer get some kind of status effect, like fire or maybe even shock. This would make it infinitely better, and would not outclass nitronome immediatly. The big angry bomb also needs a buff- it should get something along the lines of a bigger radius, and stun, but not the same effect as the irontech's effect. Another great idea would be to make either the deconstructor/irontech elemental. If the deconstructor is changed entirely, I'd like it to become half elemental, half normal. If not, then I'd like to see the irontech become full elemental.

(new!)Blast bomb variants:
Right now, stun is messed up, and that makes BAB the ultimate troll bomb. Think multiple enemies flying everywhere all mid-attack animation, its like playing dodge ball, but it isn't fun. Obviously, the stun will sort itself out, and these will become viable, or at least one of them will. Above I wrote that they should be given different statuses... because if they aren't, then one will just be better than the other. How do you fix it? Change the status on one to something else. Preferably fire on ITD. What I wrote for the heavy deconstructor still stands.

Normal weapon variants with damage vs X:
Should get some kind of ability against what they are meant to fight. The wild hunting blade should get the ability to always flinch beasts, or perhaps even just to stun them. The CIV should be able to freeze undead only, or stun them or something as well. This is because that like the blast bombs, they are in directish competition with upgrades that are able to get better stats AND status or so on the enemy that they fight. Why have beast max when you can have poison and beast max? Make them special, and people will get them for it, if they're having trouble with an enemy. (Note that this only applies to weapons that have a line that mirrors them in terms of everything, AKA, not RSS/ISB/Sentenza/AP..) Some say to make them half elemental/piercing/whatever. I disagree with this- they should be somewhat usable on everything else as well- it gives them purpose over things, although it would be a decent fix.

Plague needle/Pepperbox:
Needs to be given 2 more shots on the second set of bullets each. Right now, the blitz is the only one of these weapons that hurts things amazingly well, and it is only used for its charge, and usually only in FSC. The pepperbox is fine, but could still do with it due to being normal damage. Plague needle is just a crappy blitz, and should have a better normal than blitz. Giving plague needle more damage in comparison to blitz would also help.

Triglav/Sudaruska:
Are vastly better than they were before, but still lack a bit. How so? They need to be able to stagger things on their second hit, and triglav needs a bit of redoing. I talked in a different thread about this- it should either be like suda, or it should be a bit more radical, and should freeze 100% on the second hit for far less 2nd hit damage. Triglav should also always freeze on the charge, Russian roulette isn't meant to be fun. As defensive weapons, these (along with DA/GF) should not be getting canceled so easily by attacks.

Callahan/Iron Slug:
These are huge, and hit hard. Except they don't hit very hard. They're like slightly stronger alchemers that don't bounce and get your characters stuck for half a second. You've said that you're fixing them, so I'm happy about that. What I'd do to fix them, is increase their damage, and then let them hit through shields, like darkfire duke's bullets, and mecha knight's front shields. (new)If not that, then enable their secondary feature- staggering opponents. Make their range go further, make them shoot faster and reload slower, and let them stagger everything and always.

Winmillion:
The hardest weapon to balance in the game. Nothing compares to it, and giving it a 5* would only bring attention to how awful it is. My solution? Make its bullet go a lot further, and make its second and third hit's lunges about twice as far as they are. Make the charge projectile not dissipate so easily- and deal a ton of damage. Oh, and raise its damage to at least 1.5 times what it is now, of course. If it gets a 5*, which it should, make it shoot 3 projectiles from the blade, and have the charge be more amazing. It should be a weapon of skill, not a weapon of being awful. (new)I wrote a whole thread on winmillion a while back.. to summarize it- give its blade more damage and knock back, give its projectile more range, and let it too stagger things on the bullet.

I'm certain that I've forgotten some weapons or fixes above, but maybe I'll go back and add them, aye?

Second, armor bonuses:

Armor's are interesting here- the most popular choice of armor is by far class specific. This means wolver line, gunslinger line, bomber line, whatever. The most common complaint amongst these are that bomber armors are 100% elemental, and that gunglinger starts at 3*. I'd like to see mad bomber become shadow, and bombastic piercing if possible.. of course, it'd mess up people's arsenals in the short term, but it'd fix things in the long run a bit. 2* gunner armor only seems fair as well- why not reuse the armor model again, maybe retexture it a bit?

Then we have the huge amount of armor that isn't used nearly at all. Except for costume. Lets go over this...

"_________ defense knight", is worthless. I'm talking about the skelly armor, the feathered down armor, and the jelly armor. We all know that defense doesn't do much for us, and that weapon bonuses are almost always better. These armors need a bonus of some sort. Either give them double the defense in shadow/elemental, or give them more health than other armors of class types. 3 more health in their final form and 50% more defense in their respective stats.... that'd do it. Then they'd see usage for a while, and most likely in lockdown.

Slower armors are also remarkably bad. These need some kind of huge benefit, and everyone wants to see that bonus be a global damage bonus of med per piece or so. I'm talking about ancient plate mail, and the other "guardian armors". Their shields are perfectly fine, athough could use some more boosts.

Almire armor. You've made it past the hardest boss in the game, and have mastered the game. Surely you've earned a powerful new armor for this- but no, you haven't. You've earned nothing more than bragging rights and a remake of the cobalt armor. I'd say that this armor should be given something special to it. Maybe a unique bonus at the cost of a vulnerability? Be creative with it, I personally would like to see this armor given a bonus like global ASI med per piece at the cost of global damage down low, or global ctr down low. This would make it good gunner/swordy armor.

Damage vs beastnamehere armor is all kind of... meh. Most people don't use it because they don't need it. Similarly to weapons with this, it needs something special. For instance, damage vs beast should stagger them a lot better, or should make weapons stun them or something. In lockdown, these armors are rather... terrible as well. They don't get any bonuses, making class armor look better as you can use it in both PvP and PvE. Why not make these do something in lockdown, like was suggested a while back? Have chroma's jelly bonus help kill jelly armor'd knights, and damage bonus vs beast help kill skolvers?

Movement speed armor is barely noticeable. Yes, it does make a difference, but not nearly enough. I'd have to suggest giving merc mail/helm med, and reducing the amount of movement on them by about 3/4ths- right now, they get 108% speed or so. If this happened, they'd get 112% when used together. Merc demo has a special spot for demos as the best demo armor, but has another bonus- for bombs. I'd have to say that switching its bonus for damage to ctr would be far better for bombers, or at least making it damage bonus med.

Split defense armor is "bad" due to normal defense being so great. How about giving these split defense weapons an extra dose of defense as well, just so they block what they're supposed to a bit better? I'm only suggesting a tiny bit more added on, to make up for the damage calculation mind you.

Monster balance

Interestingly, we've seen all of the monsters nerfed lately, except the one that people complain most about- devilites. When I talk to people who've played SK, and mention them, they're like "OH GOD! THOSE THINGS!!! FFFFF" and I can see the rage they felt come swelling back to them. What we need to do, is lower their damage a teensy bit. They should not KO knights nearly so easily. All other monsters either need buffs, or are fine.Scuttlebots and chromalisks are far too easy. Those are just pathetically easy for everyone, and are simply annoying at best. Turrets are fine, as are gremlins, but zombies are also too easy. It shouldn't be too hard to find out what people think of these by simply using the forums. "But but but but forums are tiny and your little group and and and"... then use the poll function you guys made. And most knights in the clockworks will tell you the same thing anyway.

On Implementing Balance:

Whenever you do one of these, be sure to test it. Testing things takes time, but it should only take a moment to see what people think. Why not test it during a weekend, and then look at the results on monday? Use that testing server, dont' make people mad with changes you won't have time to revert. After all, better safe than sorry.

On Promised/Unused Content:
Its been several months since we've been promised that kat hats and tortodrones would be implemented, not to mention the core. I've seen several of my friends leave to say "Be back when/if they make the core happen". Making the core would inevitably bring them back at least for a weekend, and everyone wants to see these things, and making any of the other things you've promised us/removed would surely get all of the T3 knights fired up if only for a week or two. Sleep stratums, tortodrones, the ability to craft kat hats, these things would be very likely to draw in players, and would make the game feel legit for the "beta players" again.

Then there is the fact that it feels like we've been lied to. You guys could be working on it, but we never see them implemented or mentioned again... and eventually look back and say "where is all the new content???". And then we look back and see that you were going to make us tortodrones... but never did. This does not feel very nice.

On Guilds and Cooperation:
Guilds are pointless right now. They have a small player limit, they have no real goal with missions, and they're essentially just extended friends lists. They help cooperation a bit, but then that's kind of pointless when there is no goal. Before missions, guilds could at least try for power via the clockwork gate construction, but now all they are is groups of knights that just kind of.. do nothing.

What needs to be done? Well, as I've said above, the arcade needs to be active. Severage is on the right track with his thread about guilds, which can be found here- http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/40011

[IMPLEMENTED]More on cooperation. The missions kill it. We need some kind of help system, because right now we've got a reoccurring problem- no one to play the game with. Knights are split in a million and one categories, and these are all spread out everywhere to where no one is playing the same level at the same time. What if instead of this, we had a "find mission" button, that would locate the player to the nearest party on a random mission? If the levels all paid off, then it'd mean that T2 and T3 players wanting to replay a random mission would be able to do so.

Another thing with missions that I realized is that it rarely pays off to go back to a mission to replay it. Why not have past missions continue to give out a reward? Maybe not as big a reward as before, but still something... like a little bit of extra prestige. Give T3 knights some incentive to help those in need... or better yet- if you're partying with someone who needs help; eg, a T2 knight on jelly king that hasn't taken the reward yet, you should get paid on their completion in extra prestige, or even in crowns.

Finally on a smaller level- knights in parties should work together more often than they do- large enemies help to make this happen, as well as large groups of enemies. Too often I see a group of enemies spawn that a knight wielding a sword comes up to and destroys ASAP before anyone gets a chance to see it. We need more monsters that require strategy to kill. I'd like to see enemies that are strong to sword attacks- perhaps that even block them like mechas do gun bullets.

On Prestige and Scoring:
Currently, we've got two scoring systems that don't work. Prestige and Lockdown/Blast Network. Lets go over them in chronological order.

Playing lockdown 200 times does not equate to skill in lockdown. If I play more than you, I've done just that. Played more games. I'm not better than you for it, if you are still performing better. We need a real scoring system for this, so that those who care about such a thing aren't left without one. What said system needs to do, is give legitimate statistics- like win/lose ratio, and average damage dealt as each class, as well as things like caps, and perhaps a round about score based on all of that.

Secondly, prestige. It means nothing, but that you've stayed for a while and done the missions. It also means that you're likely a rich bloke, due to the nature of the "give me your 5* equipment" missions. I'm sorry, but those must go. The average player is not going to ever blow 1200 ce on 400 prestige, and it only makes people angry if they accidentally do or something. The other side to this, is that it only means you've been there a while, but I must say that there is nothing wrong with that. The nature of such ranks is just that- when you've been a part of the game for 3 years, you deserve a cutie mark by your name. However, it should reflect more than that. If I log in every day and do the daily, its not the same as if I log in and do 15 clockwork levels every day alongside the daily mission. The clockworks should give a small amount of prestige for going into it. This amount should be small, maybe 5 per level and 10 per boss.

On Player Trading:
I don't know why you guys are killing this, but please stop. Players SHOULD be trading, even if it does make 5* gear more common... which makes no sense due to the whole thing where you guys beat the unbind pricing you set. What I'd like to see happen, is for unbind prices to be lowered, and for boss token items to come unbound and to cost more tokens to buy. 40-50 tokens for FSC items, 20-25 tokens for jelly king/roarmulus items, and 15 for snarbolax ones. This would make said bosses profitable even with my previous suggestion of making them basically ordinary in terms of crown production. Unbind costs are also too high in my opinion- they should instead allow for players to beat the supply depot at least, and should not cost more than it costs to create the item from scratch- thats just ridiculous.

Why should you, as devs, want a strong player market? So that people that are looking to make a huge profit get stuck here. They join up, see the opportunity to profit off of the great player market, and then end up staying. That's why I initially liked the game after all.... steam trading got me at first (as well as the art style, I love Ian). It helps player retention.

On New Content:
I know that this is a sticky topic, but here goes- the T3 players want content. They need content that is new and exciting, and this content needs to be somewhat new. The core would be a good thing to release, but I'd like to see more bosses to fight. I've mastered all of them, and would like to see a new gremlin boss for me to fight with people. Probably in Tier 3. A shadow lair for said boss could come out later, and act as an energy sink... not to mention that the gear for said boss would soak up plenty of CE.

Players want new enemies that are a challenge to fight, and that give new drops. They want new weapons, and they want new purposes for old weapons. They don't want a ton of accessories, but I understand that in order to balance the game, you have to make these things. They're very beneficial for you, and valve's footsteps seem promising. Just don't mess up the art style with them. You haven't entirely yet, and I'm proud of you for that, though you have came close to it- cupcake hats and sonic armor? Hmm?

New levels would also be appreciated, as long as they don't repeat candlestick keep's failure- no crown payout. I'd like to see new levels that are just cool to look at, and offer a change of centenary. Like the one where you fight the fallen knight- that level is probably my favorite. The new arenas are on the right track, but new levels should have a new incentive to play on. Like token items, or rare drops that are only there- even if its just rare costume items.

On Bug Fixes:
We have quite a few bugs that are kind of derpy right now- like alpha wolvers flying via teleportation outside of the map, and DA charges getting stuck behind you. It'd be nice to see these things not happen, even if they are relatively harmless, and entertaining. But- I'd like you to balance them with the new content thing. New content should be the number one priority- you want your game to be exciting, as do we all. Bug fixes are not exciting, but still necessary, yes. Perhaps these bugs should be fixed with he addition of a new level revolving around them- like a new beast level that has wolvers in it, or a new arena that DA's charge could be useful in.

On Forum Software:
We use Drupal. Why can't we use something else, with wonderful [hidden] tags, and spiral knights themed smiley faces? The avatar system is also kind of hidden, and then rather unimpressive. Perhaps I'll make you guys some more avatars some day, but not now. I'd suggest that if you have time, switch over to something that isn't Drupal... I could go on, but others have already done that.

On Expanding the Servers Elsewhere (Like Asia): (2nd Update)
There are lots of people that complain about lag rightfully, in that their country does not work with the current servers. My thought on this, is that OOO should set up servers for such things when they have money, and time for them. Once we've got a better strategy for keeping players in the game and introducing energy, etc. THEN it would be best to expand. Essentially, if OOO can be successful with other parts of the game, they can be successful in getting up servers... all a server really takes after all, is money to run. If OOO is able to improve their financial situation, then they'll be able to afford servers everywhere. I guess what I'm saying is that this should come last, as a delay will only make other countries servers are set up in easier to afford, and a better investment.

---------------
Well, I'm tired of typing now, but I'd love some feedback. Please don't tl;dr this. No, really, don't do it.

Thu, 05/10/2012 - 20:45

Arctifice

...

Magnificent.

Thu, 05/10/2012 - 21:35

Tsubasa-No-Me

+ infinite

Srsly... this is nice...

to busy for ~Sig

Thu, 05/10/2012 - 21:38

Serell

dang..

That's a lot of text. I'll get back to you when I've read it all.

Thu, 05/10/2012 - 23:05

Windsickle

Right Out

Taken the words right out of my mouth as the saying goes. For the most part at least...

Thu, 05/10/2012 - 23:34

Asukalan

"people complain most about-

"people complain most about- devilites. When I talk to people who've played SK, and mention them, they're like "OH GOD! THOSE THINGS!!! FFFFF" and I can see the rage they felt come swelling back to them. What we need to do, is lower their damage a teensy bit.

brb

Fri, 05/11/2012 - 07:25

Fehzor

Added a new section to the

Added a new section to the "Guilds and Cooperation" chapter.

Fri, 05/11/2012 - 10:58

Schattentag

Detailed response pending...

You've got a lot of ideas here. Some I agree with, others I don't. I'll give you a proper response at some point, but in the meantime I'll give you a way to organize your original post.

If you'd like to make a table of contents for your light novel, you can put something like the following in the beginning of your post (ignore/delete the underscores; they're just placeholders):
<strong>Table of Contents</strong> <dl> ___<dd> ______<a href="#retain">Player Retention</a> ______<a href="#contentbalance">Enemy, Weapon and Armor Balance</a> ______<dl> _________<dd> ____________<a href="#weps">Weapons Balance</a> ____________<dl> _______________<dd> __________________<a href="#spierce">Status pierce swords</a> __________________<a href="#salt">Ionized Salt Bomb</a> _______________</dd> ____________</dl> _________</dd> _________<dd> ____________<a href="#armor">Armor Balance</a> ____________<dl> _______________<dd> __________________<a href="#spdef">Special defense armor</a> __________________<a href="#slow">Slower armor</a> _______________</dd> ____________</dl> _________</dd> ______</dl> ___</dd> </dl<

That ends up looking like this:
Table of Contents

Player Retention
Enemy, Weapon and Armor Balance

Weapons Balance

Status pierce swords
Ionized Salt Bomb

Armor Balance

Special defense armor
Slower armor

Inside your actual post, put something like the following before each chapter or subchapter:
<a id="retain"></a>On Enemy, Weapon and Armor Balance-
<a id="contentbalance"></a>On Enemy, Weapon and Armor Balance-
<a id="weps"></a>First, weapons:
<a id="spierce"></a>Status pierce swords:

Putting this identifiable anchor tag before each chapter will allow you to jump to each one individually by using regular anchor tags as links. To generalize:

<a href="#randomstuff">This link leads to random stuff</a>
<a id="randomstuff"></a>Random stuff can be found here

I hope that made sense, and I hope this might help break down your text wall so that others might read it and respond to it. You don't have to do it if you don't want to. Either way I'll be giving you a proper response sometime soon.

Fri, 05/11/2012 - 14:50

Orbwanter

I like the idea of the Deconstructors being thrown a short distance on charge rather than dropped, but they'd probably need their alchemy line seperated from the blast bombs to avoid confusion.

Fri, 05/11/2012 - 15:40

Quotefanboy

Read the whole thing.

That was a nice read, and gave a nice amount of detail to everything you said.
It's a shame it's going to sink to the bottom after people stop responding in here like every other good thread out there, but I digress.

Here's my small double pennies towards some things: (2 cents)

Wrench wand: I'm unsure if you know this, but do you know the wrench wand beat the pulsar to the race of range is more damage? The Wrench wand's charge actually does more damage the farther it goes, and it's only at 2 star right now. Imagine what you could do with this weapon, aside from hurr durr healing. This thing could become one of the most skill based skill-shot weapons in the game, if you know how to aim it and the like, especially if it got as amazing as the alchemer does from 2-5. I'm not trying to say Hurr durr get rid of heals, but I am trying to say "Seeing its charge be utilized with damage and utility by increasing its tier power would be amazing." Imagine this thing at 5 star having a ghost round for its charge (Which means the shot passes through enemies, and does damage as it does, but doesn't stop or lose anything or push the enemy in any way. It would also not be effected by blocks, but it would stop/explode at walls.) and based off this ghost charge it does more damage the farther away it gets, then when it finally reaches its max point it does a nice explosion, perhaps one as big as the Valiance's charge SHOULD be via how it looks. (Obviously it wouldn't push or anything though, because that's pushing enemies towards you.) Wouldn't that be really cool? It definitely wouldn't be broken when it has nothing to use as push, so it's risky, and on top of that it wouldn't have any really super-good use in lockdown, so it's really not a broken idea.

Granted, I understand you said: "There are a bazillion ideas out there for both." and this is just another stick in the camp fire, but I felt saying it.

As for the Spur: Whilst I am looking forward to a 5 star of my previous favorite sword in game, I do agree this is a weapon of massive failure. Even before its nerf, when the poor thing actually had some originality to it with its initiator speed cut. The thing is, nothing in this game utilizes wind, and as you can clearly tell wind doesn't really have an element to it. Ice and Fire are chemically based, Poison is usually paired up with dark magic and the like, and shock is a plasma which is basically super-fire, but then when you turn it into electricity you're basically giving it a theme based on electrons and the like, atomic levels of stuff, which is all science and stuff, and curse is obviously darkness related. This shows why Elemental is Based on those, Science, and Darkness is based off those, Corrosion and Dark magic. Now lets look at Wind. The movement of air, nothing more or less. The more pressured and fine the air is moved, the more blunt or sharp it can become. Yet in reality it doesn't have anything to relate it to elemental or shadow, and nothing really towards piercing because wind is more of a cut then a stab. So that just leaves normal, a normal based weapon with a normal based element. That weapon even looks like its shooting disks of wind at you. My personal idea, which you don't have to agree with or like, would be basing those 4 star (and if it got it, 5 star) disks off wind, and its charge as well. Make it push out a small tornado. It doesn't have to suck in, just drag enemies along its path grinding it for damage. Just my opinion on that whole situation.

Other then that, Everything else is very valid towards balance. I agree speed should probably be Med because getting only a med isn't really worth it. Defense on armor is laughable, and the Arcade isn't even in the game anymore (get the joke?) so I'd like to see a lot of this getting looked at, but as I stated it probably won't. Here's to hoping it will be though, for the most part.

Sat, 05/12/2012 - 02:12

#10

Asukalan

"people complain most about-

If devilites will be nerfed, another monster will emerge to take place of 'most annoying' (where annoyance is relative). Another monster will stand on their path of "momgomogmo im so PRO, i has shiny 5 equpment i cant pwnz him OOOO pleasewaew nerf it". If people cant kill something its their problem. they dont have to kill everything in game, they dont have to beat everything. Everyone has limits, it seems those who complain about single silly monster have reached theirs.

The entire group of enemies can't be nerfed to suit the needs to a few. Get used to it because this issue comes up with every single MMO in existence. There Have to be a monster that everyone fear to meet and fight.

Sat, 05/12/2012 - 05:36

#11

Toastnaut

Good read

Thanks for posting that Fehzor, really. That touches on most of the important issues that most players agree on without leaving too much room for argument about which issues are more important by presenting them equally.

There are a bunch of good ideas there, I just hope that you're not shooting yourself (and everyone else who agrees with what you posted) in the foot through tone.

No offense intended, but if I was the developer of the game reading that, it would get my back up more than make me want to take it seriously, no matter how good the ideas are. Even at points where I was reading it and nodding in agreement I caught myself thinking that there was some confusion there between things stated as opinion (no matter how popular or obvious it seems) and things stated as facts as though you know better than the people developing and programming the game (even if you do, or think that you do.) I know that you clearly state that it's your opinion at the top; maybe I'm being picky.
I can't help but feel that a lot of otherwise good suggestions for the game are lost or missed because of poor language, focus being on the wrong details, or someone having a good idea and getting off on a tangent and over developing their idea too much instead of just presenting it in its simplest form for the developers to chew on. Yours is presented clearly, in proper english, and for the most part simply enough that the point isn't buried in shortcomings from how you posted it.
Here we have a great list of the top issues, mostly with reasonable solutions and I'd seriously hate to see if fade into obscurity because the it steps on toes, whether you meant to or not.

There's honestly not much that I disagree with at all in there, and the things that I do are mostly just in the details.
You'll always catch more flies with honey than vinegar though, right? :-\

Sat, 05/12/2012 - 06:35

#12

Kitty-Softpaws

http://cloud.steampowered.com

http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/560940860716257769/190E218D138AECF0001...

http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/560940860716247789/3DAA0A6D6E07FA792E1...

Fehz 2012

Sat, 05/12/2012 - 08:35

#13

Luguiru

Dat content

Player retention:

Giving out more mini tanks could be an issue with newer players, they will learn to expect them if they are given out too often at the beginning. The little 15E ones would be fine, but not as a common reward. New players need to be notified that the auction house exists and begging will not be tolerated. All they need is an NPC dialogue where a Stranger says something about the auction house past the fountain and other players do not like beggars. Many new users think they can just pop out of the recruit camp and everyone around is just waiting to give them free money and equipment. I will not mention how many friend and trade requests I have received from such people because I block all beggars immediately. No trial, no jury of piers, no silly wig hats. If they do make it this far, the CE system tends to scare people off. Before saying "hey new guy buy our CE now hurr" they should open a market tutorial including the two previous points as well as the CE market amongst the community.

Crown balance and the Arcade:

Remember those special T3 stratums which were supposed to be "special"? Before missions came out it was the only way to encounter Toxilargo. What if we had a new series of floors for a sort of miniboss which exclusively gives materials for some new equipment? The community would have to create the stratum for the enemy to have a chance to spawn rather than locking stratums as the four bosses do, meaning any gate without Vanaduke would have the chance to have a T3 miniboss series of floors. Does this mean there should only be T3 miniboss floors? That depends on what the incentive is to find them. I agree with keeping mission and Arcade payouts separate to further encourage users to take the time to play for a while rather than run Firestorm Citadel for less than an hour. The more floors available consecutively, the more likely users will want to continue; even in spite of their diminishing mist.

On enemies; weapons and armor balance:

My favorite part, equipment. I remember taking notes on a few of these here and will upload notes on other things later. My balancing ideas are not the same as what others may want, but considering how some of them intend to be used affects what I based the rebalancing upon. For the items I have not addressed yet at this time I shall give brief feedback:

Flamberge and Rigadoon - Final lines does about 32.6% more than the other two Flourish lines on the first basic attack against a neutral target. What do the others get? Flamberge gets a 2/3 (fair chance of moderate) rate to inflict fire and Rigadoon gets a 1/3 rate to stun. Giving both guaranteed status affliction will make them overpowered. They could use a little more damage and/or Final could use a nhttp://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/53465#comment-formerf of about 10%.

Ionized Salt - This bomb seems intended to be a neutral version of Radiant Sun rather than having the broad range of use. Radiant Sun is useful some of the time, more so on certain enemies, but less so against other certain enemies. Ionized Salt seems to be more of a neutral version for all families except construct due to its split pierce, but +3 jelly does not compensate for the pierce. I have notes for this here.

Wrench Wand / Cautery Blade - For the wand, giving it a heart procuring ability would be interesting; makes enemies drop more hearts or increases the probability of dropping hearts. It is not necessarily a healing weapon but it makes it more likely to be supportive when used in combat. Creating a healing mist from defeating an enemy would be overpowered due to the nature of healing, but making them drop more hearts and/or more likely to drop hearts to be balanced. As for Cautery, giving it fire would be suiting for its name and buffs; not necessarily 4/4 as Fang of Vog has, but definitely with 4/3 or 4/2 rates.

Blast Bomb variants - For Big Angry I have notes here and notes for Deconstructor line here, but I do not have an Irontech to test its mechanics against the other lines; it appears to be between Big Angry and Nitronome.

Normal weapon variants with damage versus X - Would this mean bonus effects for fighting the family specialized against by the weapon? Seems interesting, as it would encourage users to take advantage of the wide variety of equipment available.

Plague Needle & Pepperbox - Plague is somewhat of a support version of Blitz, but its damage could use a little buff; there was a thread somewhere about it but I do not have a link for it. Pepperbox line could use a little more damage.

Triglav & Sudaruska - Less interruption taken while in use? Plate set resists interruption? Some of the existing equipment needs to be buffed for defensive ability rather than having Wolver clones running around everywhere.

Callahan & Iron Slug - Yes to more damage, maybe to going through objects; it depends on what object it is going through. Hitting through shields will be overpowered, but a somewhat small chance to do so may be balanced.

Winmillion - I have never used one of these but I have seen someone who does; they whined about how underpowered it is. Then again, a lot of people whine about everything. Someone whined to me that Skolver is underpowered, I told them they are stupid. Someone else whined Mad Bomber is bad for its lower defense and status weakness, they had no idea how bombing works because in our run all they did was stand still while charging in an arena. Winmillion does need a buff but I am not the one to judge because I have very little information of its mechanics.

Changing Mad Bomber to shadow and Bombastic to pierce has been suggested several times in the past but it would be an interesting change of pace; the other weapon based sets have branches for every defense, why does Demo not? Some argue it would be unnecessary, others want more versatility in taking hits as a bomber; personally I would be interested in changing the defense types to encourage users to use bombs, seeing as very few know how to use them. The tutorial gives new users Proto, but after that they tend to forget about them; they take too long, the area of effect is too small, whine whine, complain complain. When they see a 5* bomber running around in combat they realize the delayed gratification may have been worth it, so they go to see what bombing gear they can aspire to; only to find element armor. They want to have a blast suit for several scenarios to be versatile, not be restricted to two families, so they give up again.

For the damage specific defense sets I would bump up their defenses, not health; they are meant to take the hits better, not overall tanking.

Plate armors could use more health in general. See above for attack interruption resistance.

Why do swordsmen and gunslingers exclusively get the set? Giving the set a universal +2 charge would encourage users who like having one of each weapon type on them at once to stay versatile in combat while using the set it took so long for them to get.

For Lockdown, yes, there has been a thread to identify all equipment sets as part of a certain family to make them useful; Dragon Scale would be decent against Wolvers, but compared to the Skolver damage buffs it would still be equal. What would I do about it? Where a single armor/helmet gives +2, I would change it to +3; wearing the full set would mean +6. Go into Lockdown if they do the previously stated update with Dragon Scale, find Skolver clones, deal +6 damage against them; unless they have Barbarous Thorn Shield to have the same +6 damage. At that point it would come down to defense increase.

I have Mercurial (Quicksilver) set and can vouch for this. The movement speed is sometimes useful, but normally is slightly too slow to be satisfactory; this does not mean I want maximum speed increase to zoom around, but a slight increase of a few percentages would be helpful to the set.

Yes to lowering Devilite damage slightly; not cutting, not ripping limbs off, but a little scraping. Like my knees after kneeing someone in the mouth. Not that I knee people in the mouth often, but when I do, their teeth are knocked into their throat and they happen to be inhaling at the time so they breathe bloody teeth. This must sound delicious. Scuttlebots, lizards, and zombies are fairly wimpy; zombies in Firestorm Citadel can be annoying in massive groups, but any sword can fairly well dispatch them. Scuttlebots need to be faster. Lizards either need better cloaking and faster attacks to be Spy.

Implementing balance - Yes. I am not going to go over it because your content speaks for itself.

Promised/Unused content - This reminds me of when I used to play Nexon games on the NA server. They always promised to fix everything, bring back removed features which everyone liked and did not negatively affect anything, and never did anything unless it meant losing money. Imagine if Three Rings only read support requests from premium users. That was what it was like. With Three Rings, they are slowly balancing things; it may not be soon or imminent, but eventually it will be done. Does this mean I know what they are currently doing? No, I am predicting based on events thus far. If I could read their minds I would post dates of when things will be implemented. Stop scratching your gut.

Guilds and cooperation - Severage. That is all.

Prestige and scoring - Blast Network and Lockdown, do not play; therefore, do not have the ability to judge. The daily prestige turn-ins, however, I do have a bone to pick. I have not accidentally given a 4*+ equipment item yet, but the very thought that it asks for 4*+ is ridiculous. No one is going to do that unless they have CE to burn.

Player trading - I would rather they raise the depot prices than lower the unbinding numbers; it should not cost less to buy the premade 5* than unbind the consumption of time and materials used to make the prebuilt one. If I were in control of this I would give no warning of this happening in an upcomin patch to prevent users from buying derpbillion of all the 5* items to sell for profit when the prices change. Imagine if CE packs suddenly became more expensive for the same amount of energy.

New content - More bosses, miniboss floor series, new equipment to get, et cetera; all are in this forum, but the community does not know if anything is being used for future content. For all we know some/all of the stuff in the giant thread by Kentard is on its way as we speak; speaking metaphorically, typing literally. The rest of this point is agreeable.

Bug fixes - Yerp. That is all.

Forum software - I just want to have my avatar be my Volcanic Demo set with the accessories I welded to it. The tag system may not be the best but it is not necessarily vital to the game; a change would be nice, but previous points for the game take priority.

Sun, 05/13/2012 - 21:30

#14

Fehzor

Very nice comments, all of

Very nice comments, all of you. Thanks for reading it, and for attempting to teach me HTML.

As Kitty-Softpaws mentioned, I'm trying not to spend 6 hours on the forums every day any more, so I'll try to keep this short-

While it is written to the devs, it isn't really expected that they'll read it. I just wrote this for the sake of writing it, because I enjoy doing that.

Similarly, I'm not saying that my ideas are the best ideas on how to fix things- I would not mind one bit if Quote's idea on the wrench wand happened rather than my idea on it healing things. In fact, I'd rather the wrench wand get a 5* in the first place. But this does address the issues that I see with the game, and it does address a way to fix them, how I would do it. Some of the changes you guys said would be OP- like the rigadoon always causing stun. Keep in mind that if it did always cause stun, I would expect further damage reduction. Remember also that I suggested splitting the damage numbers in the clockworks and in lockdown- thus, I'm only saying what would be balanced for the clockworks as I'm rather terrible at lockdown, and feel that it is not my place to suggest things for. Yeah.

Mon, 05/14/2012 - 03:34

#15

Metagenic

on player retention

Maybe they would retain some players if they gave us Asians/Australians/etc a server.

Mon, 05/14/2012 - 04:02

#16

Toastnaut

@ Meta

By that same bitter logic, they would retain more players if they gave away CE for free.

We all know that there is lots of demand and desire for more servers, but there's a lot more to getting a server for a game like this than just going "we need a server -here-" and then Poof! there it is....

I think Fehzor's post has more to do with the actual game than administrative and technical things like server location...

Mon, 05/14/2012 - 05:20

#17

Metagenic

@Toastnaut

One of the current biggest complaints about T3 is that it is way too easy and that all enemies deserve a major buff. On the other hand, our (Asians/Australians/etc) main argument against a massive increase in difficulty is that the game is already hard enough for most of us because our shields are nearly useless thanks to lag making enemies hit us even as we block. If they gave us servers to put us on par with North Americans and Europeans then we would GLADLY accept any enemy buff because we wouldn't have to deal with severe latency hindering our gameplay. And then if they buffed the enemies, fewer Americans and Europeans would get bored b/c of a lack of difficulty, and more Asians and Australians would stay with the game as well thanks to servers getting rid of lag. Everyone would be happy…right?

Mon, 05/14/2012 - 15:22

#18

Fehzor

Asian servers.I'll go write

Asian servers.

I'll go write my thoughts about that into the OP.

EDIT: Also added a new section to the Player retention system suggesting an arcade overhaul to create a massive sink for T3 player's energy/drops.

Mon, 05/14/2012 - 15:36

#19

Toastnaut

Of course more servers would be great...

I don't disagree that it's important, it's just that asking a game developer to get more servers in more places is a lot more to ask of them than weapon balance, bug fixes, or game changes. It's the difference between asking a delivery company for better service, or different delivery options, and asking them to get new trucks - or asking a pizza delivery place for more toppings or menu options vs asking them to open a franchise next door so that delivery is faster.
By the same token, like any business that relies on customers (durr, most of them ;) ) if the money is there, and a request like that would bring enough new business to be profitable, it'd be something they can do. Only OOO knows whether or not this is something that would be good for them, as much as a LOT of players would be overjoyed to see it happen.

Of course, if everyone could have a server near them, they'd all be happy because performance would be better.
It's still apples and oranges when comparing someone who doesn't stick around because they don't like something about the way the game mechanics or programming works, or players who don't stick around because they don't live somewhere where the game is essentially supported sufficiently for them.

I totally feel for all of the players whose lag is too horrendous for parts (or even much) of the game, but as much as it's important, it very well might be too much to reasonably expect.
All I'm trying to say is that it might be more than is reasonable to expect, especially compared to player requests regarding balance, bugfixes, or content (barring things that aren't possible from a programming perspective) that we already know the developers are working on. To my knowledge, as much as players want it, we don't know that Asian servers are something that's even being considered or an option for Three Rings at all.

Mon, 05/14/2012 - 15:48

#20

Fehzor

IDEA

I'll post the new section here for those of you who are keeping up with this.

New to "player retention"
(new)But... what about older players? Lets look at things as they progress- when you're new to the game, the following holds true:
-CE is worth more to you; as you need gear and have content to get to
-Trading CE for CR is a much better deal (less opportunity cost per farming T1)
-Buying CE lets you play more content faster
-Buying CE lets you learn to play faster; through revives and through getting gear

So how do we solve this?

And finally, what am I actually getting at with this?

Gate construction. Think about how intriguing it is, about how tempting it is to make 8 arenas (till you find out you can't lmao), about the untapped potential of these levels.

Now think about guilds. About cooperation, and about the whole "gate construction" thing.

New section
On Expanding the Servers Elsewhere (Like Asia): (2nd Update)
There are lots of people that complain about lag rightfully, in that their country does not work with the current servers. My thought on this, is that OOO should set up servers for such things when they have money, and time for them. Once we've got a better strategy for keeping players in the game and introducing energy, etc. THEN it would be best to expand. Essentially, if OOO can be successful with other parts of the game, they can be successful in getting up servers... all a server really takes after all, is money to run. If OOO is able to improve their financial situation, then they'll be able to afford servers everywhere. I guess what I'm saying is that this should come last, as a delay will only make other countries servers are set up in easier to afford, and a better investment.

Mon, 05/14/2012 - 17:38

#21

Luguiru

Me gusta

I liked the sequel but the original was better. Hurr.

Personally, I would rather have new bosses/enemies to fight and/or equipment to craft; this is a short term solution due to how fast the community is able to pump out such content, which is why this is my opinion. In terms of affecting the community, what you suggest may give too substantial power to guilds over what lineup is available on which gate; if it is created by the entire community consciously contributing rather than dumping whatever crystals they pick up into a random gate then communication becomes an issue.

More servers in other areas would mean less users whining and/or being negatively affected by something which they would only have control over if they were willing and able to move closer to the existing server. Does this mean everyone should pick up everything and move over here? No, some of the people around here are worse than I am.

Mon, 05/14/2012 - 19:05

#22

Fehzor

Well, what I mean is that if

Well, what I mean is that if you're just dumping them in, then you should have an option for that.

Optimally, it'd be something like this- misc. bump, that'd just pay 4 per mineral. Then, each gate would pay 3 per mineral. Whenever they were dumped into misc gate, knights could pay 1 cr each to move them to a different area.

Then there would be items that'd have gate effects- like 'spawn fancy new construct area' that knights would craft from a special machine somewhere. 'fancy new construct area' would hold a chance at rare gear for all, perhaps in the form of a specially coloured box or monster or something of that sort.

This would be one way of making it work. Another would be to let knights pay to raise/lower the prices on the gate construction again, in energy+cr, and then let them donate mats.

Mon, 05/14/2012 - 21:24

#23

Toastnaut

That's cool

I really like the idea to separately pool minerals that people are just dumping. It could automatically give players who just want crowns for them 3 or 4 crowns per mineral and store them in a separate pool.

Then other players who want to actually build gate stratum could pay a crown per mineral (this could make up the extra crown players might be getting for some of their minerals) to put these ones where they want.

Perhaps every two days when we get a new gate these spare minerals could be cleared out of the system if there are too many as well.

This would make depositing minetals even simpler for those who just want coins, and would make players who actually want to build stratum feel like they're having even more impact on that aspect of the game.

Mon, 05/14/2012 - 22:20

#24

Addisond

Okay, first off, let me just say that I really like the ideas presented here, and I dearly want OOO to start paying more attention to stuff like this. Now, I will nitpick:

The economic rebalances that you propose are a bit difficult. If the large imbalances in improved cr pulls from FSC are removed, t3ers lose their economic advantage over t2ers and t1ers. This means that it's harder to craft 5* gear and new stuff (for f2pers, p2pers would be left with plenty of cash to spare on new gear), and hence it becomes much harder to get advanced gear. Essentially, the sharp crafting price curve needs to be bent with the cr pull curve. Less CE to craft, cheaper recipes at higher levels is what it comes down to.

Other than that...

Big economic changes are bound to screw a lot of people over, and make a lot of other people very happy. Hence, we shouldn't be changing a lot of stuff unless stuff NEEDS to be fixed.

Anyway, I did read it all, but I don't really have much to say on the other stuff, since most of it has been brought up before. This is essentially a big compound of simple changes that SK needs, all explained, phrased and presented nicely and readably, accompanied by your usual asking OOO for economic changes.

Tue, 05/15/2012 - 21:25

#25

Fehzor

Players are continuously

Players are continuously playing through FSC for cash as I sit here typing this. They are one of the largest factors on the CE market.

T2 players would be doing levels that got them a decent amount of crowns from this. Thats right. They wouldn't be playing at a loss any more when they want to visit Basil. OOooooh, scary.

And I don't think that your logic is correct there- if T3 players didn't make a ridiculous amount of crowns, it would be harder to make gear? Or are you saying that the gap of profits in T3 should be like they are? Let me also remind you that there would still be a wide gap in profit from T2 to T3, I'm just proposing that non boss levels be worth playing, mainly.

Let me ask you this-
When Royal Jelly Palace's payout got nerfed, did the price of CE drop by a ton? Nope. In fact, it rose a little bit.
When Firestorm Citadel's payout got nerfed, did the price of CE drop by a ton? More than a thousand crowns, knocking us back into the 6-7K range.

Yes, this would have a negative impact on someone economically. As does making any and all new content, regardless of what it is. And hey, it can't be worse than you know... cheating every single knight that has a character out of 150K crowns, right? It'd have a positive effect on most.

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 07:29

#26

Ztephanie

Posted this in another

Posted this in another thread, but worth mentioning here. Diminishing returns for repeatedly doing the same mission within a short (1-2 day) period of time would be the easiest way for OOO to pull the markets back down to reasonable levels without making grinding unbearable. You could still do FSC all you like, but if the crowns are dropping by 100-200 every other time you do it, there's only so many times you are going to repeat before going back to the arcade.

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 16:51

#27

Fehzor

Thats a good idea, Ztephanie,

Thats a good idea, Ztephanie, but-

What would happen with having multiple players? Would it just be a chance that you don't get a cr drop or something? How would that work?

And it'd also prevent players who actually just like a run from doing it 24/7.

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 17:24

#28

Ztephanie

I''d assume they'd just

I''d assume they'd just occasionally get less from a larger crown piece, or otherwise a large crown piece would just not get counted, so it wouldn't be too hard to single players out of a party for diminishing returns. Heat's already calculated at the end and subject to modifiers, so the same functionality that implements heat amplifiers would probably apply.

As for players that really, really like certain content, well, this wouldn't stop them, at least not until the elevator costs become more than the rewards. What it would stop is them feeling like they are forced to run it because of crown or heat efficiency.

I still feel like this is a better option than constantly nerfing rewards on boss missions, since the nerfs make casual and f2p players suffer disproportionately for imbalances created by people running the content back to back for 8+ hours a day. At the modest level of diminishing returns I'm suggesting, RJP mission becomes unprofitable w/ elevator costs after about 4-6 plays. FSC mission with it's much higher rewards would be somewhere past 12-16 plays. (hmm. the rate of decline for FSC might have to be higher than 200 every two plays through). It's another knob for OOO to tweak that actually accounts for differences in playstyles between causal and 14 hour a day players - allowing them to balance the economy for both sets of players, rather than helping one to the detriment of the other.

Thu, 05/17/2012 - 23:01

#29

Fehzor

It could help yes, although I

It could help yes, although I don't think that RJP, Roarmulus, or Snarbolax need any nerfing at the moment. Rather, FSC pays a bit too much, and all other levels aside from the boss levels aren't even worth visiting in terms of crown gain.

What you've suggested would help the situation a bit certainly, but it would not curve the cr-ce ratio nearly enough. I still think that we need to make other levels worth playing as well.

Fri, 05/18/2012 - 15:07

#30

Sylvzz

WOW....you said everything.

WOW....you said everything. OOO,please,read this now.

Sun, 05/20/2012 - 22:26

#31

Fehzor

Thank you; and yes, I think

Thank you; and yes, I think they'll read it eventually. But no, I don't think they'll post on it.

Not that I wrote it entirely for them to read. I just like writing these things, truth be told...

Thu, 05/24/2012 - 00:04

#32

Skold-The-Drac

3rd page?

Much like OCH's elevators... GOING UP!!

Thu, 05/31/2012 - 06:27

#33

Fehzor

Still relevant; Still looking for feedback.

Thu, 05/31/2012 - 07:35

#34

Saberyoko

Nice work there buddy.
They need to change, not ONLY for newer players...but for the old ones.

"And now the same points for older players:
-CE is worth less, as you're main goal is likely to be things like accessories and status symbols. You don't have much content
-Trading CR for CE is much better, as you can get 7000 CR per 50 CE in an hour or so.
-There is no content left for you. Buying CE really won't help that too much.
-Similarly, you know how to play and don't need to revive any longer to get in good practice. You have friends to help you up"

TRUE....so TRUE...
Sometimes...I just log to see the CE market and then...theres nothing more left to do...kinda boring.

Thu, 05/31/2012 - 07:57

#35

Golfdinger

I'd like to add that the

I'd like to add that the Supply Depot also greatly hurts player gear experimentation. Since the Supply Depot greatly beats out unbind/crafting costs, there's no way you'd get back the costs of an unwanted 5 star item. This presents a hugh risk if you want to try out a new piece of equipment. If you don't like it, you are absolutely stuck with it. If OOO were to release new weapons, this risk may discourage players from crafting and trying them out since they may be highly underpowered. This is compounded with OOO's poor track record with rebalancing items. OOO said at one point that they are extremely cautious with item balancing, but let's look at a few examples of where that's gotten us:
Nerfing Spur line of all things for some asinine reason (removed lunge, turned into a weaker Calibur with a weak gimmick only present at the very end of the line)
Taking several months to realize that giving Bombtastic and Shadowsun only low damage maybe wasn't such a good decision
Implying in the Hall of Heroes that so called "guardian equipment" (spiral plate line, troika line) is even remotely equal to its alternatives. Going so far as to call a wearer of "guardian equipment" a designated role in a 4-player team is almost laughable and makes OOO look like they have no idea how their game plays.
Giving an across-the-board buff to gun damage, giving a hugh 30% boost to a gun that arguably didn't need it (Blitz Needle) while still leaving underpowered guns relatively weaker (Pepperbox, Neutralizer, Supernova.)

Thu, 05/31/2012 - 10:25

#36

Fehzor

@Golfdinger

Well, some of the things you mentioned are correct; OOO does have a bad track record for buffs/nerfs, but at the same time you have to look at what they were hoping to accomplish-

The spur was terrible before its 'nerf', OOO was trying to fix it, and failed. What needs to happen here is for OOO to make a few other options, put them all on the test server, and then ask which version/style of attack plays best. They were however, still trying to help from the start.

The massive gun/bomb buff was because of the fact that guns/bombs have long been considered worse than swords. To some extent, they still are. It did not do anything for those underpowered guns when compared to their companion guns, but it did help to even the field against the OP swords. Blitz needle is balanced imo, volcanic pepperbox is underpowered slightly, but is usable and good in many situations, and is a fun weapon all the same.

Fri, 06/01/2012 - 01:10

#37

Kitty-Softpaws

TL;DR

Fri, 06/01/2012 - 15:38

#38

Luguiru

Kitty-Softpaws is no longer a valid user in this forum.

I am still a bucket of thumbs. I think someone dropped a potato in here.

Fri, 06/01/2012 - 20:32

#39

Fehzor

Naw, I think that Kitty did

Naw, I think that Kitty did read it. Hes just being Kitty.

Sat, 06/02/2012 - 13:42

#40

Aumir

Also, bump

Absolutely +1, minus the Almire armor bit, because if they make Shadow Lair easier to get to in the future or harder bosses upgrading that armor would most likely overshadow (hehe) other ones that may come out later on.

Also, I can't stand suggestions made with so much thinking be buried by other with "HURR DURR PUT SWORD OF INFINITE DAMAGE, I LIKE SOWRDS PLZ". I would add to this forum a +1 voting system so that favorite suggestions would be listed somewhere...

Sun, 06/17/2012 - 04:54

#41

Fehzor

Currently on the test server, we have a button that searches for parties. Maybe the devs did read my book~

"More on cooperation. The missions kill it. We need some kind of help system, because right now we've got a reoccurring problem- no one to play the game with. Knights are split in a million and one categories, and these are all spread out everywhere to where no one is playing the same level at the same time. What if instead of this, we had a "find mission" button, that would locate the player to the nearest party on a random mission? If the levels all paid off, then it'd mean that T2 and T3 players wanting to replay a random mission would be able to do so."

Sun, 06/17/2012 - 08:59

#42

Luguiru

Test server

I would have applied for it but my last purchase was the expansion. Derp.

Party searching seems similar/the same as joining a random party but on a random mission. I was hoping they would attempt a mission index soon to organize the main storyline for those who only want to click a couple times to go where they want instead of all the times. I understand, one step at a time, but having a randomization feature would not appeal to most higher tier players. People would rather know what they want to do, but it takes forever to click through that many tabs; if they had a mission index instead they would have already started loading the lobby to join a party.

Sat, 07/07/2012 - 02:10

#43

Fehzor

Updated a couple points on winmillion and callahan/iron slug.

Sat, 07/07/2012 - 09:01

#44

Leafblader

zhdhdhstrtsyerdtsdvdvddgfbg

I find Greavers a LOT harder than deviltes and don't think devilites are that bad.

Sat, 07/07/2012 - 22:25

#45

Fehzor

Obviously, the consensus that devilites are harder than almost every other enemy is not ever going to be 100%. It is however, an inference of my own that many players find devilites to have been of a hardness that is uncommon amongst other enemies of their tier. Similarly, while many players find grievers to be challenging, very few of them find them to be downright unfair. Consider yourself lucky to be the outlier who finds devilites easy… and as I said, if the one person reading this that has any input really wants to know- use the poll function.

Mon, 07/16/2012 - 08:03

#46

Poizonedblack

Fehzor!!!

Apart from the fact that i know u ingame there is more to you! damn this thrad is big...(my butt and my eyes are hurting!!)
whatsmore i actually ended up in this page from google!(i just typed "fehzor" and walllah this page!
anywayz for some reason i find trojans as a pain in the .....(i get damaged even before i c the lunging!-how am i supposed to dodge!!)
i wud die half the time in fsc if there was an asian server! and of course the ce sink
awesome job and missing you.....

Thu, 08/30/2012 - 05:44

#47

Fehzor

"- Removed Energy Module on the HUD until at least one of a player's knights has reached Haven." -Nick

Kind of in line with my point on player retention for new players... Though not quite.

Bump- updated a couple of things.

Thu, 08/30/2012 - 12:16

#48

Havenihaveaproblem

100% Agree

Agree with I think everything I just read. Great ideas Fehzor. I particularly liked your comment on making the player market a larger feature.

Regarding features promised by OOO, one of the things that I think would go a long way is if they communicated more what they are trying to do and what is holding them up. It makes more bearable for us if there is a reason why something isn't working, as opposed to no response, which then gets us conjuring up reasons of our own, which are usually bad for OOO.

I also think more mini games would be a good idea. New content can only stay "new" for so long. Mini-games like Lockdown and Blast Network have the potential to provide hours of entertainment outside of the main game. First and foremost what these modes need is more balance, and, as you suggested, a more accurate system of scoring to foster a competitive environment. Secondly, it needs some bug fixes, and perhaps greater reward options.

By far, two things that I think would greatly improve the game is equipment balance and Arcade pay out equaling mission pay out. Equipment balance allows OOO to make content more accessible, which can be used as rewards or incentives elsewhere in the game to create replayability as well as crown sinks. For example, Silver Keys or even Shadow Lair Keys might be given out in certain instances, like, say a Lockdown game. This in turn improves the Lockdown experience because the mini games instantly become more interesting to play - you could even raise the price of buying into a game based on Tier, in effect making a new crown sink. The problem with that now is it lowers the value of SL content and players quickly have everything they need. This only holds true because there are, for a given weapon type, only a few types of armor that you need. For SL, there are only a few types of equipment you conceivably need, those being Snarby for swords and Mercurial Bomber for bombs.

More balanced equipment means a sword-user might consider donning something besides Dusker items. By making content more accessible, you increase the rate at which players gather equipment; by balancing the equipment, you ensure that players still spend an equal amount of time gathering equipment. The players feel like they are making progress more quickly, and the game itself is enriched.

Part of what goes into making equipment balanced is giving that equipment a use in the first place. The mechanics of defense need to be rewritten. Period. Otherwise, there is never any reason to take armor without offensive bonuses or high status resists. The other thing is, if equipment is more accessible, and defense actually did something, then the Fiend family would be fine where it is at. The other families would need a buff. I wrote on some of this in another thread you commented on; this kind of change I believe can be relatively easily attained by adding a couple of creatures and effects to the existing families. These additions would not only make the families more well-rounded and interesting for the player, but a more well-rounded family is inherently more difficult to the point that players should require special loadouts to fight them.

On the topic of creating a challenging experience to incentivize more varied Loadouts (as well as provide more challenge to repress boredom), I think a danger mission is a great way to introduce optional, challenging content for players. At some point in the future, a danger mission for every Family would be great. Opening the core is another way to bring in more challenging content, assuming that equipment can't exceed 5*. I think it would be great to have some end game content where access is not limited by your equipment. FSC, for example, is currently the most challenging and highest paying Clockworks content, but it isn't readily available until you have 5* equipment. Of course, once you have 5* equipment, you don't need FSC crowns as much, since you are theoretically at your potential, nor is FSC as challenging! This sucks. The core should not be similarly limited.

Finally, I have mainly discussed armor balance above, but weapon balance is equally important. OOO could vastly improve the game's experience if they made weapons more balanced. I would say on average only half the weapons are viable. Player retention would dramatically increase simply if they had more items to invest in, and more styles of play to express themselves with. The sad thing is the equipment needed to do this is already in game. It just needs some number balancing, maybe a few damage type/status effect tweaks, to make it ready for use.

Arcade pay out is important because I would say only about 20% of the Clockworks are represented by Boss missions. This is really bad for the game because it nearly forces players to experience primarily 20% of what the game has to offer. By increasing arcade pay outs, you remove some of the pressure involved in grinding and provide a MUCH more varied and friendly experience in grinding. This might be the easiest thing for OOO to fix atm, that has the best time-spent to benefits-the-game ratio. One thing they could do is simply remove crowns in a level; instead, they can make each crown count for a percentage of a level's total profit. Collect half the crowns - gain 50% of the profit at the end. This makes it very easy for them to control the value of each level and balance pay outs. It's just one quick suggestion, which may have some flaws.

Finally, I really love your idea of making a control on the market by fixing 100 CE to 5000 crowns. CE originally sold around 4k crowns/100 CE. I believe that much of the game was balanced around that. If you bought 2000 CE with money, the most crowns you could get out of it was 80k Crowns. In terms of crafting, 80k Crowns are only three 5* recipes. The importance of this is that a player's economical progress was more balanced between CE costs and Crown costs. With CE at 8.5k Cr/100 CE, the crown factor is practically non-existent. With the emphasis primarily on the CE factor, the player economy is stunted. CE in general is mostly used for crafting, which means it goes back into the system and contributes nothing to the economy. Your idea for lowering unbinding costs is an excellent way to have CE contribute to the player economy, but that is only one step. CE should not be the primary currency; it should be balanced with crowns. I believe the crown costs in this game were originally balanced around having 100 CE worth 4k-5k crowns. This means players who spent real money didn't get as far with it (which encouraged them to buy more CE via real money, which is good for OOO). On the other hand, the Clockworks pay too much money to support CE being worth fewer crowns on the market. CE costs under the current market-driven system will continue to rise as long as players can spend their 100 CE on elevators and make a profit from the missions they ran. This translates to progress becoming increasingly slow. It's a bad system for long term play. Worst of all, the players hit the hardest by it are new players, who are the mostly likely players to spend real money and keep the game flowing. A fixed price and controlled market are better solutions.

A fixed price is easy to set; a controlled market requires a little more effort. OOO must make a standard for Clockwork payouts. For example, Stratum 6 might be balanced so it pays 120 CE for completing it, or 240 CE per 100 Energy spent. If 100 CE costs 5k Crowns, this means a stratum 6 run, the most profitable run in the clockworks, would grant 6k Crowns. This idea is still too simply developed to implement it into the game as is. However, conceptually, a controlled market environment like this is the right way to go, I think. The worst thing that happened was when missions were introduced, OOO essentially made it possible to farm 200+ CE with one FSC run, or a potential 400+ CE per 100 Energy spent. That's bad. It skyrocketed the price of CE, hurt crown sinks everywhere (crafting equipment SHOULD be a crown sink, as well as an Energy sink), and harmed significantly the player market.

The importance of 100 CE costing around 5k Crowns is it rebalances it immediately with the existing infrastructure and Crown costs that were present at the beginning of the game. Another idea - which I haven't thought through too thoroughly yet - is OOO could instead balance 100 CE around 10k crowns and simply double the Crown prices of recipes/crafting costs/most crown features in the game. This might help mitigate any fallout experienced upon implementation due to player's already having a lot of crowns saved up in the bank. On the positive side, current FSC payout is already nearly balanced for this system. Two FSC runs would equal 220 CE, which isn't bad. The problem is the rest of the Clockworks doesn't give this kind of efficiency, which would need to change. For reference, I am for Stratum 6 providing around 200-250 CE per 100 Energy, stratum 4 providing 100-150 CE per 100 Energy, and Stratum 2 providing ~50 CE per 100 Energy. The odd stratums would be obviously be scaled to fit within this framework.

Well, I think I have rambled on enough now, but excellent book, Fehzor. You got my gears spinning on how to make the game better :). Spiral Knights Times best seller for sure!

Thu, 08/30/2012 - 14:53

#49

Zeddy

Hooray, Zeddy cheers for Fehzor!

This OP is a good OP.

Can't believe I didn't think of making Cautery Sword a mini-FoV.

Incidentally, I posted a topic suggesting letting family-bonuses apply in Lockdown once. It died in approximately two minutes. Is that the one you referred to or have there been others?

Thu, 08/30/2012 - 21:41

#50

Fehzor

Oh, I have no idea Zeddy, it might have been although I've seen it suggested several times. This is several months old, I wrote it because I was wasting all of my time writing things on the forums, and now I just quote it whenever relevant threads pop up to save me time. This was originally after the sudaruska buff when it got a charge, and the devs did make the party finder eventually, albeit that the idea relies mostly on there being an apt amount of reward to players whom are legitimately using it(E.G. payouts that will make ends meet that come from levels that aren't FSC).

Anyways, this will probably die again in a few days to all of the derpy threads saying the same thing about energy but in less words and with more pets. I don't really care to be honest, the devs won't ever tell me if they've read it, or what they think of it, or whether or not they like it, and half of the forums are under the impression that I'm just some whiney F2P player, and that my opinions shouldn't count because "The forums are 5% of the game populace, the other 95% of the kids from miniclip who beg in Haven hold some kind of true insight that should be listened to. <69" Truth be told, I'm just lonely a lot, and like to write. I find it rather calming. And if you think there is something wrong with that, then you're probably right.

(And thank you HavenIhaveaproblem)

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