everybody wins!

Except OOO, who probably gets half their income from energy bought for crafting.

Except for one thing, you DIDN'T buy this game. You can go from beginning to end without doing so.

Of course it takes longer without paying, otherwise nobody would pay and the game wouldn't exist.

Plus, do you know how much complaining would happen if the crafting prices were lowered? The game could lose half its population from people feeling screwed over.

While this may be hard to believe, some people have spent hundreds, some even Thousands of dollars on this game.

Now imagine you spent 700 dollars on this game.
Now imagine 350 of that is lost because prices are lowered.
Now imagine you were only compensated for the 10 dollars you spent in that last week.

Thats 340 dollars gone.

While that is not realistic for everyone, people will lose hundreds of dollars.

However, I can't disagree with some more original promotions.

But still, the profit loss for OOO would be ridiculous.

Unless you literally only decreased it by maybe 10%, There would be no reason to buy energy, therefore OOO makes next to no income.

For a while after release crafting costs were about half what they are now. They were changed for a reason, why would they revert that now?

Grinding? The problem is how people play the game.

Arcade has 4 gates constantly rotating. On a single gate, each depth has it's own selection of rotating levels. Each levels has also multiple variations to chose from. On top of that, there is a chance of finding a special scenario room and rare enemies.

If you do actually explore instead of repeating bosses, you wont get bored and by the time you've really seen everything, you should have plenty of money to move on.

I disagree. More ce price = More money OOO gets = they will buff me! /happy

@deltikon
how do u think OOO will eat if they didnt have thease games? if u lower the prices ure KILLING people...
u probably think thats a bit extreme but listen...the founder of OOO is really rich. the big bosses of the comapany are about 1/4 as rich as the founder. then they boss the boss who get to boss around the bosses of the very small groups of ordanary people. they only do one small part of a big game (such as spiral knights) or one little game called somthing like 'cut the rope','red balls 3' and 'throw the stickman'.
then when u lower prices of ce ure lowering thire paycheck, therefore putting them in dept...witch killes them because of stress or starvation.
yes their are are lots of mane DEV's and jobs but the people ure killing are the little guys and if all of them go and the company fails to get more people
the game goes of the internet.fail.

@Maulos-XD

SEGA bought OOO.
Im 100% sure SEGA pays its workers.
That is a really risky business if the only income you get is that some people buy your in-game cash. The less buyers, the poorer you get. The more P2P, the more happy you get. So, selling in-game stuff is a risky business if that's your primary job.
and just for the record....the Devs/Game Masters can manipulate the game. Not enough CE??? don't worry, we'll flush it with 1mil Ce into market. It's that simple. They just don't want to do it because right now there is alot of P2P.

I fully agree that right now the grinding is unbearable. Mist Energy, CE prices and crafting costs make F2P nearly impossible. To extend your example of your the opening post, let us take time into consideration. Without killing the Jelly King himself, you should get abou 1800 to 2200 Cr and can save 10 E. Also, the CE prices are not just 8k. Would be nice if so, but it's about 8,4k you can pay. So let's adjust this:
16 * 8400 = 134.400
Good, and how many runs would that be?
134400/2200=61,andafew
Well, that's bad. 61 runs would be 1220 E. (10 E each level, two level each run)
Makes it about 12 days of grinding with Mist and even more if you decide to use the arcade. Really, if you try the arcade you may as well quit the game, because you will probably never get the money you need.
It would be acceptable if this was WoW where you have literally thousands of quests and places to visit while grinding, where you have little stories all over the place, but here? Don't make me laugh. I am in fact surprised by people to call this a "real" PvE game when it's PvE content is so lacking in exploration and quests.
But I am running of the track. Just to have said it, 5* equipment would take 268 800 Crowns, 122 runs (Twins give about the same amount of CR) and 24 days of grinding. Which I find to be mindblowing, given that you are expected to go the same runs over and over and over and over and over. I bet most of you didn't even read all the "over"s and that have just been five words.
Not saying it's impossible, though, as you will have others along the way that might take you along on FSC and the like. That aside, numbers say it's time consuming and I don't think anyone is to argue with the numbers.

OOO has to find a balance where the most people are willing to pay an overall sum that is great enough to be considered a profit. This profit is not going to come from forcing newcomers to decide between pay or quit. Letting out 1* and 2* equipment you would spent 42 days grinding for equipment, not counting in days lost by failing missions one attempted alone or getting a new weapon because let's be serious, you can't just use one weapon all the time. Not as a newcomer without any idea how to play. We can only guess how many people will put up with this kind of grinding.

BUT as things are now, OOO and Sega shot themselfs in the foot. Repeatedly. Why, you may ask. It's easy:
All the money comes from a handfull of players. Now they have to try their best to entertain those selected few individuals, because if they piss them off and they leave Spiral Knights would have to start at zero in regards to paying costumers. It would mean to take the risk of losing so much, that it might not be worth to jump the gap - after all, right now there ARE people who pay enough and why change a winning team?
All said, they will not fix much about their concept. I HIGHLY doubt it at least.

The last paragraph should be the most striking and important in a post, so I will keep it short, hoping it sticks:
killerot you are horrible and I hope you suffocate the next time you forget to breath. Should happen all the time with you so I am of high spirits at least for this to occur in near future.

Think of it this way:

The faster you finish the game, the sooner you get bored of it. No exceptions.

By slowing you down, you play the game longer, and as long as you don't end up blowing a cylinder cap and ragequit, the longer the game remains entertaining.

I've been playing for a year or so already, and the only thing that classes me as a P2P is the DLC I was gifted. Other than that, and some cr a friend gave me, I've been grinding. The most 'annoying' part of progression for me was 4*->5*. The rest was easily tolerable.

@OP: If you recall the history of Spiral Knights (perhaps you're a youngling who joined during the Great Steam Rush), crafting costs used to be half of what they are for 3-5*. Recipes used to cost double- 45k for 5*, 15k for 4* and 5.5k for 3* roughly. There was quite a bit of protest then, but as a policy decision, headed by OOO, I very much doubt will go back on its previous direction.

Interestingly, I and many others called it correctly when the change was made, noting that CE invariably rises, so it was effectively a price hike. At that point I had never thought we would reach 8k per 100CE, but now I would not be surprised if it eventually climbed to 10k or higher.

People used to claim that 3000 crowns were too much and wanted the market to drive down the price even more lower.
Then later, people used to claim that 4000 crowns were too much and wanted the market to drive down the price even more lower, too.
Then later and later, people used to claim that 6000 crowns were too much and wanted the market to drive down the price even more lower as well.
Now, people claim that 8000 crowns were too much and wanted the market to drive down the price LOWER from what they used to get.

I regret of shouting that 4000-6000 crowns were too much to invest that time. I came soon to realize earlier that I'm playing in a community-driven market. Supply and demand. It was last year, as well. Gloaming Wildwoods used to worth a run of 3000 crowns. Now it doesn't. So does the Munition Factories and Jelly Palace.

Firestorm Citadel used to have 12000 crowns payout. That was few months ago. Three Rings came to realize that it's wrong, it was skyrocketing the market price up even more to 7000 crowns that time, and soon to be 8000 crowns.

I wish not to bother anymore about CE market. If the players, mostly the richest, decides to drive down the CE price, it's their choice, or to raise/skyrocket the price.

Thanks Thunderbog, this gave a good overview.

Regarding Deltikon and through that Mhander as well, back in the day, when the CE costs where lower and the crafting costs half of what they are now, there was another thing that plays a role: There where no missions. As far as I am informed, missions where introduced not too long ago, while the crafting prices being doubled is "an old story". Having doubled the costs for CE and halfing the prices for recipies had an effect on the market, that is true, but it was the same effect you, Deltikon, are trying to call upon.
Let me elaborate:
The prices for the recipies went down - Effect: Everyone has more money at his disposal for more recipies and energy.
Energy costs where doubled - Effect: None.
"Why is that" would be a good question. Having doubled the costs for CE had no effect itself on the demand. After all you still need the CE no matter how much exacly. It just meant, you needed more to get something. On the other hand, having halved the prices on the recipies gave you the option to spent more money on the CE instead of the recipies. What raised the prices on CE wasn't it being doubled, because you needed it anyway. The more money spent on CE came from the money saved on the recipies, which drastically made crowns lose their worth. If the crafting costs had remained the same there is a very high probability, that the market prices would have risen even more. Making crafting so easily accessible would have skyrocketed the prices simply because the demand to buy would have been even greater, surpassing the offer players who buy ce could give them.

If we where to half the crafting costs now we would not change anything about grinding the same instance, as FSC would stay the best source for money. By halfing the crafting costs you would only help the rich people become even richer.
Let's say, you want that weapon really bad. You need it. You buy the 100 and 200 and 400 CE to get it to 5*. Having grinded the money quickly while heating it up in about the same time it takes to make the money. Ok, now you have that weapon. What is the next thing you do? Be merry and happy to have the weapon, quiting the game or playing forever with only this weapon? No. You long for more. How about that elemental armor? Or some shadow defence? You can always need that. So you go back to grinding. What do you grind? FSC. And what will you spent your money on? CE.
After this short story, do you think this would be some rare case of one player thinking how to spent his money? No. This is how you play the game. You long, you strife , greed, always getting more of that sweet equipment that makes you stronger.
Right now you think on what you spent your CE. You don't just go and craft all the stuff you see, just because you barely have any access to the energy you need. You spent time. If you don't spent the time waiting, enjoing what you got, evaluating if you want anything else, and just buy and craft you will most likely fuel a rise in the marktprices.
If on person thinks he could go and craft, he can dictate what he wants to pay to two people competing to sell.
If two persons decide to craft something, they will compete to buy what one person sells.
Now think what will happen if a thousand people see the prices for crafting fall and decide to craft something. There would never be enough people buying CE to satisfy their demand.

just what I said a bit above, but at least we came to a conclusion.
Now have Nick look at it and do eet, so we can rest easy at night.

RS: Will crystal prices ever go down and are you planning some sort of permanent price or some sort of way to keep people from buying so much?

(Question by blackshadow)

Nick: Exchange prices are driven by the community, Three Rings does not directly alter it in any way. But we're always looking to introduce new reasons for players to sink crystal energy and crowns into the economy.

I wanna break this to ye, as this is introduced from the RadioSEGA website. I don't know how ye guys react but I don't care.

For more information:
http://www.radiosega.net/news/features/2012/08/radiosega-interview-nick-...

Spiral Knights was never intended as pure Free-to-Play. After all, if you could play free, OOO would need other sources of revenue such as advertising. Instead, SK is optionally Free-to-Play. The F2P option is actually much less limited than F2P offerings in other games- aside from Operation: Crimson Hammer, the sky is literally the limit. You can, with patience, luck and merchanting skill, unlock all of the content in the game.

The low energy prices at launch was unfortunately, a fluke due to players receiving all previously purchased CE during the closed Beta. Once that surplus was burned and players reached an equilibrium of sorts, the inflationary nature of CE sinks took over. So the model is, from what I see, working as intended. The encouraged mode of play is to plop down $$$ for an energy pack- Starter Pack, Guardian promo, or Battle Pack, and run from there. From this point of view, there is no problem- the CE and items from a pack, if spent wisely, will easily boost a player to early T3.

The problem is, CE is finite, so it is necessary to entice players to keep paying. I contend that squeezing players by preventing them from progressing is the wrong way to do things. Instead of pressuring players to buy CE in order to make 5* gear, introduce (ideally non-game-balance-changing) crown sinks that make players want to buy CE to sell for crowns. Promos are not sufficient because they do nothing to entice players to sell CE, not to mention they are a bandaid that doesn't address the root problem. However, it is certainly possible that their sales numbers say differently, and applying this sort of pressure is more effective. If this is the case, don't expect any changes anytime soon, or at all.

The energy system that makes you unable to play more than 2 hours a day (not counting pvp games of course) makes this game a pretty laid-back non-grindy entertainment for me. - just jump in, do a run and on with your RL. And occasionally you get new items. Three rings did a lot to discourage grinding gameplay because it is boring. For example, gates are randomised, and you never know when you'll get a danger room - the funniest thing in the game. For me, it is sorry to hear so much about grinding on forums.

Does anyone else but me feel that there are a bunch of comments that are just reciting things said long ago? Of course, this thread has a bunch of text walls, but if people don't bother to read them they shouldn't be commenting either.
Sure it's okay to have an opinion, but not if you try to explain something for the fourth or fifth time.

I am sure you, Deltikon, as the OP, don't find it funny to repeat "how long it takes to get a hundred thousand coins with just 2K per JK run" for the sixth time, either.
Don't ask me how to get this discussion / conversation to an end without a Admin or the likes.

Waiting for Deltkon to reply with a logical arguement.

Waitting for Killrot to Whine.

sorry was too busy farming jk with my 3657ce to notice wat u said...