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.

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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.